Gesturing animatedly, Nicole Selvaggio (12) passionately talks about her two cats, Spock and Loki, and their latest misadventure. She chuckles after telling the humorous anecdote of the troublesome pair, affectionately scolding them as if they were beside her.

Cats have been a part of Nicole’s life ever since she was little. Her parents had first raised a cat together, and four years after her parents’ divorce, Nicole and her mom took in Spock, a bengal with large emerald eyes and a stubborn personality. Later, on Cinco de Mayo, they adopted Loki, an all black cat with a tendency for naughtiness, from a rescue shelter. Throughout much of her life, her feline pals’ comfort have helped her through family difficulties and school stress.

“They are very loving animals, pretty much unconditionally. You can be doing anything and they’ll want to be with you … even if it’s only because they want to play, but they still love you. They’ll always do something goofy, and it’s hard not to laugh when Loki’s accidentally locked himself in the cupboard again,” Nicole said with a grin and a shake of her head.

Her love for cats carries over into her school life, where she shares deluges of cute pictures with friends and teachers to spread the happiness they bring her with other people.

“Last semester, almost every week was pictures of cats. [She would say,] ‘Dr. Harley here’s a new picture of the kitten!’ and just how excited she would get to relay non-academic stuff with me and with her friends,” biology teacher Dr. Matthew Harley, who taught Nicole last year for Honors Biology and this year for biotech, said.  

Nicole holds passion not only for her fur babies but also for a wealth of unique topics ranging from martial arts to foreign languages. Her driven personality allows for her to participate in activities that would otherwise be out of her reach.

“She’s very dedicated to what she’s interested in, and she’ll go very far to pursue them,” friend Damini Kaushik (12) said.

Nicole displays this dedication through her unfaltering venture of studying the Korean language. Originally, she took Latin in middle school, but lost interest as the course became overly challenging. Several of her former friends introduced her to K-pop, and Nicole soon delved deeper into Korean culture, from its variety shows to its dramas. Because she wanted to become less dependent on subtitles, she found herself a tutor, then enrolled into a course at DeAnza college. After taking all the available classes, Nicole is now self-studying Korean using language apps and other online resources.

At school, Nicole takes Japanese; although completely different from Latin, Nicole wanted to try learning another non-romance language that she holds genuine interest for, and her success with Korean gave her the confidence to try it. Now, she believes her decisions have worked out well for her.

Nicole plans to pursue her passion for Korean and Japanese past high school and into college and the future.

“One of the things I looked for during my college search was a good language program and almost all of the colleges I applied to have at least one of the languages I’ve studied. I’m also hoping to study abroad during college and continue improving my language skills,” Nicole said.

Similar to her foreign language journey, Nicole took her interest in martial arts one step further as well. She first signed up for karate classes offered at Harker’s lower school programs, and after discovering that the teacher had a dojo, a place to practice martial arts, near Saratoga High, she decided to take classes there instead. However, due to her increasingly busy schedule, she had to drop the activity around middle school. Despite the pause, her affinity toward martial arts never subsided, and in early spring of last year, she stumbled upon krav maga, the Israeli army’s practical street-fighting.

“It’s [a] different way to deal with stress instead of just keeping it inside. You get to punch bags, and you can just forget about all the other stuff and just focus on trying to win and do your best and maybe knock someone off the ground sometimes,” Nicole said. “You don’t really have to worry about the test you have tomorrow or the homework you haven’t done yet.”

The tremendous amount of effort Nicole puts into her hobbies does not go unnoticed by her friends.

“She’s definitely one of the most adult people I know, always very on top of things. I’m not sure if she sees herself like that, but she’s very mature, she can handle a lot of work, and she’s very goal-oriented so when she wants to do something she generally has a plan to do that and more often than not I’ve seen her accomplish that goal,” friend Logan Bhamidipaty (12) said.

By pursuing her multiple passions, Nicole is able to meet new people who share her interests.

“She welcomed me into her social circle and initially we bonded over TV shows we liked, [such as] Dr. Who. We soon found out that we were in the same Japanese class and we were also the only two people there who had any prior experience in Japanese, so we bonded over that,” friend Ishani Cheshire (12) said.

Although her hobbies are diverse, they all play a crucial role in shaping her into the one-of-a-kind person she is today, admired and respected by friends and teachers alike.

“She just wants a different experience. I think that’s been a big part of her background, her personality as well. So she’s not a typical teenager in general, but I say not a typical Harker student. Less interested in her grade than most, less interested in social norms than most, she’s got her good friends and that’s all she needs. She enjoys learning and that’s all she needs,” Dr. Harley said.