High school student making impressive marks in college

Lauryn Brown plays the piano in Godby Orchestra.
Photo by Stephanie Chioma Davis

By Stephanie Chioma Davis

Outlook writer

Lauryn loves a good competition. Especially if she could find it in the classroom.

She even gets a thrill challenging herself to do things that other 15-year-ols seldom think about. Her passion for learning Japanese is a perfect example.

Add all that up and it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out why she’s on course to graduate from college well before her 19th birthday.

It all started when Lauryn would challenge her classmates to go see who could attain the highest grade on every assignment.

All that just to prove she could get the same kinds of grades that some of her peers were making regularly.

“I remember my friends getting straight As and I always wanted them,” Lauryn said. “I would get devastated when I received a “C” on a test. So I began studying a little harder than they did and eventually caught up to them.”

Lauryn was just a seventh-grader when she began taking high school courses. By the time she was a high-school freshman, she was already taking college courses, some in the classroom and others also on-line.

She’s gotten plenty of motivation from her family.

“Lauryn has always been very independent and self- motivated,” said Lauryn’s step-father, Thomas Collier. “We gave her the tools, told her what she had to do and she took it from there.”

All of the encouragement is paying off.

Lauryn is excelling in her Advanced Placement classes at Godby High School, where she is setting standards for others to follow.

“Lauryn set the bar really quickly to where you could see that she was achieving at a level that would be the expectation of someone who can handle the work given to her,” said her history teacher, Stephen Stanquist.

Lauryn’s brilliance hasn’t gone unnoticed by her classmates, either. So much so that some refer to her as being a “genius”.

“She helps me with my homework and does not laugh or pick on me because I am not like her,” said Nicholas Ocampo, one of Lauryn’s best friends.

Obviously, Lauryn’s future is bright. But where she will attend college after leaving TCC is still to be decided.

That will be a call for her mother, Marissa Collier.

“We have limited the schools to only local universities because she is so young,” Collier said. “After two years, she is free to transfer wherever she wants; if she wants.”