Hannah Smith is demolishing societal age norms. She graduated high school at 13. And now, at 15, she is conquering the next academic frontier as a sophomore in college.
Hannah came to the U.S. from Vietnam when she was 6 months old. Her family first settled in Idaho and then moved to Florida.
She went to public school for a month in second grade. After that, she was homeschooled until she was about 11, when she started online school.
She was able to get through the material in online classes easily and was allowed to take as many classes as she wanted to. So she did, including over the summers and during other times when her peers were usually on break.
“I was able to get through my high school credits pretty quickly,” Hannah said.
She graduated from high school at Florida Virtual School at an age when her peers were graduating from middle school.
But her journey has held many challenges.
Because her schooling happened almost entirely at home, she couldn’t socialize with her classmates.
She also wasn’t able to connect with teachers, which affected her ability to retain information.
“I feel like I didn’t remember that much of what I learned because I didn’t get to interact with my teachers that much,” Hannah said.
She said at the time, she didn’t think much of it.
“I didn’t know anything else, so I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything,” she said.
Her in-person interactions have also been difficult in some cases.
She said people often see her differently, due to her graduating early and scaling the academic ladder.
“I feel like an outsider to high school students or people my age,” Hannah said. “I feel like they see me as being, like, a level higher than they are intellectually or ability-wise.”
What helps Hannah get through tough times is her passion for performing arts.
In Florida, she practiced opera singing for six years at the Sarasota Youth Opera in Sarasota, Florida. She started taking dance classes when she was just 3 years old. And this past year she linked up with local theater companies in Portland, including the Oregon Children’s Theatre and Portland Center Stage.
“The arts bring me incredible peace in a way that nothing else does,” Hannah said.
She also tried to find friends in unexpected places. Hannah’s best friend Sofia, who lives in Italy, helped her through tough times. They met while doing an online learning program together.
“Her support means the world to me! I’m glad to have her as a friend,”Hannah said.
Last May, Hannah’s family moved again, this time to Portland. She enrolled in college courses at Mount Hood Community College, doing some classes in person and some online. Recently, after her family relocated once more to Tacoma, Washington, she transferred to Tacoma Community College, where she will start as a sophomore in the fall.
Hannah is also building up her resume by participating in the High School Journalism Institute and a local legislative internship with Rep. Thuy Tran, D-Portland.
For now, she’s thinking of majoring in psychology, one way to make more of the real-world connections that she missed as a child and teenager studying at home and online.
“I want to be able to help people and learn about their stories,” Hannah said.
— McKenzie Andersen, Acellus Academy
This story was produced by student reporters as part of the High School Journalism Institute, an annual collaboration among The Oregonian/OregonLive, Oregon State University and other Oregon media organizations. For more information or to support the program, go to oregonlive.com/hsji.