Nolina Doud pushes her vintage cat-eye-shaped glasses further up the bridge of her nose with the knuckle of her index finger and casually sips her hazelnut Italian soda as she talks about her past and her future.
At age 11, she knew she wanted to skip her junior year of high school, and at 13 she knew she wanted to attend Soka University of America in Orange County. Now 16, Doud is eagerly pursuing the goals she set. She is one of a handful of students who have ever graduated early from the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School.
Worried by and disgusted with what she sees are the exacerbated flaws in America’s educational institution, Doud hopes to “institute some sort of change” in education; she envisions making “education into a less self-absorbed Western view of literature.”
Therefore, she plans to study international literature at Soka University, a small liberal arts school founded on the principles of Buddhism. From there, Doud dreams of teaching English in Japan, which she enthusiastically calls an “incredible enigma and a deeply layered culture.”
Despite the fact that she doesn’t eat seafood, Doud says she loves Japan. After visiting the county at age 13, Doud has always wanted to return. Soka University will allow her to do just that. But first she has to get accepted and finish high school.
Skipping a year of high school, especially the junior year (notoriously the most difficult) takes an immense amount of planning and hard work. Doud says her biggest obstacle is her workload; she has to take the hardest junior-year Advanced Placement classes as well as the equivalent senior-year classes — online Brigham Young University courses — to earn enough credits to graduate, while simultaneously applying to colleges, participating in multiple extra-curricular activities and clubs, and just living her life.
But filled with an indefatigable determination to reach the goals she sets for herself, Doud says “Once I decide to do something, I’ll do it.” At 6, she decided to shave her head. Now she says she is “wasting her time trying hard in classes that wouldn’t further [her] future” in high school, and decided to skip a year of it so she could teach abroad.
Her mother, a beloved teacher at Santa Ynez High, and multiple grandmothers are/were teachers themselves: “[Teaching] is a prevalent theme in my family,” the teen says. Naturally, Doud herself is a gifted teacher. At Dunn Middle School, she taught a weekly tango class for six weeks, on her own accord.
But Doud had to stop dancing for a good while because of problems with her nervous system, which caused her to lose control of her muscles. “I had to watch people run and know that I couldn’t,” she says. “I was in agonizing pain even when I was just walking across campus. But, it has given me more of an understanding of pain and suffering.”
The charismatic, artistic, and (self-proclaimed) un-tamed senior describes herself as “on the way to self-adjusted,” after suffering through her failing body and a chemical imbalance, which caused depression when she was 10.
She had to “do some serious soul-searching” to change her state; this might account for her obvious maturity. Now she focuses on outdoing her former self and setting seemingly unobtainable goals. “Noli is one of the most driven people I know and her work ethic is amazing,” says Cecilia McKinnon, one of Doud’s closest friends. To accompany her academic prowess, Doud is involved in the Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school, Mock Trial, dance, visual arts and most recently, theater.
Having “prioritized self-control” for so many years, Doud finds the challenge of breaking down inhibitions an intriguing one. Doud got involved in theater because she thought she should master another art form and because all her friends were already involved in the drama program.
As she tells a story of making thousands of tiny origami seahorses after a five-hour work session, Doud leans back in her metal chair, her body shaking with laughter. “It relaxes me,” she says, smiling.
Doud is certainly a gifted and talented young woman. Tory Babcock, Doud’s English teacher sums her up: “Noli is not only exceptionally bright and hard working; she is an accomplished writer as well. I have no doubt that Noli will make an impact on the world due to her considerable ability and who she is as a person.”