Senior Jamila Hubbard is taking the lead with her siblings as a high school graduate and now has her eyes on a degree in education at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

Hubbard, 18, will graduate from the Georgia School for the Deaf on Thursday with a goal in assisting others to triumph over challenges that she herself faced as a deaf student.

“I do want to help people,” said Hubbard. “I can use my experiences to help them to succeed in the way that I have.”

With a love for math, Hubbard feels that she’s unusual in that subject regard. During her time at GSD, she tutored other students in it and said the experience further convinced her that teaching was in her future.

“I can see myself as a teacher,” said Hubbard. “It gives me that greater motivation to teach and also I get that urge to inspire motivation in other people.”

Hubbard grew up in Montezuma, Ga., where she said she struggled to communicate in an area that lacked a supportive deaf community. She told her parents that she wanted to attend GSD, and at first they were hesitant.

“When I came here and they saw how very quickly I was picking up language and how fast I was learning, that was it,” she said. “They knew the decision was right.”

Hubbard was an active student at the school, participating in basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, step team, dance team and academic bowl.

She feels grateful that her parents consistently encouraged her to do well in school and instilled in her a rigor to graduate and continue her education.

As the first of her three siblings to complete high school, she said she’s proud of her accomplishment and now wants to extend that same passion to others as well as her younger siblings.

“I want to inspire people to enter college and succeed in whatever they might want to try as well,” said Hubbard.

GSD’s staff interpreter Dean Evans contributed to this report.

If you go

What: Georgia School for the Deaf graduation

When: Thursday, May 24, 2 p.m..

Where: Whitworth Gym