Malia Ward is not your average college student.

As one of her professors, Karen North, puts it, “She is Miss All Around Everything.”

Like most students, Malia spent the last few weeks preparing for finals—all while training to achieve her lifelong dream of qualifying for the World Surf League’s Championship Tour.

Malia comes from an unorthodox family. Her father, Chris Ward, was a professional surfer. Her mother was a model. Growing up, her father was often traveling for surf competitions and Malia didn’t see him very often.

“It was hard,” Malia says. “He was kind of a stranger to me.”

Her family situation got messier as she grew up. Her parents separated when she was young and her father eventually landed in prison.

“You wouldn’t necessarily expect that kid to be at an elite university, excelling academically and excelling at a sport and excelling socially,” says North. “She is all of those things.”

Malia first attempted to surf at 4 years old when her father took her tandem surfing on a longboard.

“I actually didn’t like it,” she says. “I was like, this sucks.”

However, she stuck with it and caught the surf bug at age 11 after spending a summer surfing with friends. Growing up she was often the only female in the water. Even at a young age she says guys cut her off and dropped in on her waves.

Then, in 2014, Malia went viral after pushing World Champion Gabriel Medina off a wave when he tried to cut her off.

“The whole surf community thought it was so amazing. I got so much respect and so many more fans,” she says. She wants women in surfing “to have more power and more confidence in themselves because we’re just outnumbered out there. We have to have each other’s backs and inspire each other.”

Since then, Malia established herself as one of the best up-and-coming female surfers in the world. Many of her surfing peers dropped out of school as it became clear that surfing was a pathway to success for them. However, Malia had different plans for her future.

“Seeing my dad, he dropped out of high school so he’s kind of kicking himself in the butt,” she says. “He doesn’t have anything to fall back on except his surfing legacy. I don’t want to feel that way, wishing I had done something different.”

Ever since the character of Jeff Spicoli in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the stereotype surrounding surfers is that they are air-headed stoners with backwards priorities and low intelligence. Malia is working to break this stereotype. At age 18, she enrolled at the University of Southern California. Even though she is one of very few surfing professionals in school, she says the narrative is changing.

“I think the surf community actually supports it,” she says. “Surfers could be competing and going to school, it’s a new thing.”

Malia is at the forefront of this change, pushing others to chase their dreams in the process of becoming a professional.

“I hope to inspire a lot of other surfers to not think that there’s only one way,” she says, “that you can go to school and still compete. Yeah, it might be harder, but if you really want to do that, then you should be able to.”

While Malia is accomplished in surfing and school, many of her goals are big-picture oriented and don’t directly revolve around these things. In her free time Malia writes poems and draws.

She says she wants to write a children’s book, do entrepreneurial work, and get into acting. It’s a lengthy list of goals to achieve on top of reaching the Championship Tour. Some people would say the list is too idealistic. However, Malia is confident she will accomplish them.

“I’m going to prove you wrong,” she says. “It kind of fires me up that people have doubts of other people’s dreams and passions.”

Malia’s drive to succeed led her down an untraditional path. Her career choice is one that many write off. Her journey through the surfing industry is one few, if any, have taken. She strives to accomplish everything she can fathom regardless of what others think, and this led to numerous successes at a young age.

“She is really grinding everyday,” says Malia’s classmate, Emily Smith. “It’s just really inspiring to see her attaining all of the things she wants to have.”

Malia’s contributions to the surfing community are reshaping the norms associated with the sport. While no one can predict her next step, one thing is clear: Spicoli is a figure of the past. Malia is the future.