Vivian Laub isn’t your average teenager.
The 18-year-old Stafford resident, who craves peace and quiet, is a self-described “old lady in a teenager’s body.”
Sports aren’t her thing, but she absolutely loves school.
“I always say that school is my sport,” said Laub, who graduated from North Stafford High School on May 16, 2024.
What’s unusual is that she didn’t just graduate from high school—she also earned a college degree a week before her high school graduation.
She earned her associate degree in general studies through a dual enrollment program between the college and Stafford County Public Schools.
She’s the first, and so far, only student from Stafford County Public Schools to concurrently earn an associate degree from Germanna—although there is no shortage of dual enrollment students.
Mike Zitz, special assistant to the president for media and community relations at Germanna, said the community college had 1,904 total dual enrollment students in the 2023-24 school year, with 971 of them from Stafford schools. “She did this all on her own and with night classes,” said Sandra Osborn, director of communications for Stafford County Public Schools.
Laub also attended Germanna fellowship and social events, getting to know new college friends.
“They really welcomed me,” Laub said, acknowledging that she felt a split and a sense of living in two separate worlds.
The daughter of Loren and Joy Laub, Vivian Laub said she enjoys hanging out with her sisters, going to movies with friends and traveling with her family. The family lived in Pensacola, Florida before moving to Stafford—and Laub’s mother noted that dual enrollment seems to be more of the norm in Florida.
But for Laub, nothing has stood in the way of her goals. She recalled being in Iceland on a family trip and still logging on to participate in an online summer class.
At North Stafford, her grade-point average exceeded 4.0. She graduated summa cum laude from Germanna with a 3.9 grade-point average, pending her final spring grades, Zitz said.
And Laub was in the honor society at both North Stafford and Germanna. She was a member of Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society at Germanna and involved in the Alpha Lambda Psi chapter, said Frank Cirioni, dean of student development at the College.
Laub said that she had to advocate for herself to reach her goal with dual enrollment. “I got there,” she said. “I’ve been working on this goal for two years.”
Laub wants to be an orthodontist and plans to attend the University of Mary Washington in the fall as a junior. Her goal is to then attend dental school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
Just after graduating from Germanna and just before her high school graduation, Laub reflected upon her unusual accomplishment.
“Wow, I did that,” she said. “Sophomore Vivian would be proud.”