Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series of stories on the 2014 valedictorians from each of Suffolk’s five high schools. Look for the last one — Nansemond-Suffolk Academy — in an upcoming edition.

A laser-like focus on a dream job requiring high academic standards is responsible for turning out many high school valedictorians, but not Lakeland’s Amanda Hamm.

Hamm knows she’ll be shipping off to Virginia Tech in the fall, but to study what she can’t exactly say.

“I’m undeclared,” Hamm replied when asked. “Not sure.”

She said she would take the next year and a half to two years to “take some classes that I haven’t been exposed to yet and develop my interests a bit further.”

Is Hamm worried about lacking direction? Not really. Or not anymore.

“It worried me a lot in the beginning,” she said. “I’d be visiting colleges … and I’d say, ‘Undeclared,’ and they’d say, ‘Well what are you leaning toward?’

“I was really bothered by it in the beginning, but now I think it’s really good. I will be able to find my niche, and won’t have to study toward a specific major from the get-go.”

But Hamm could be pinned down on one thing: She’d like to explore “diverse world regions and cultures.”

“There is a world regions course at Virginia Tech that I have heard has an amazing professor, that I’d love to take,” she said.

From her psychology courses, she said, she’s also interested in childhood development. More to the point, “the transition from childhood into adulthood”

Her parents, Linda and Timothy Hamm, “were really excited,” Amanda Hamm said.

“My dad, he made this huge big deal about how proud he was of me, because he remembers waking up in the middle of the night and walking by my door and my light still being on and me studying.

“There were lots of late nights and early mornings.”

Hamm said she hasn’t taken anything less than a college-level class since she was a sophomore.

Before the fall, Hamm will continue waiting tables at George’s Steakhouse on Holland Road, where she began working in December.

“I really loved my experience in the band program here,” the clarinetist said of her Lakeland High experience.

It was also a lot of hard work, she said, but “I will always remember walking across the track one summer night in my uniform … and how memorable that was for me.”

Hamm has also participated in the National Honor Society, Suffolk Youth Advisory Council, Girl Scouts and the Virginia Youth Symphony Orchestra.