My dad also emphasized the value of community service, so I always stuck with him when volunteering at cultural and religious festivals in his networks. After a certain point, I couldn't look at a video game controller and think that I'd be happy with becoming a video game developer, not when my passion was clearly elsewhere.
Today, I am in my third year at The University of Texas at Austin, majoring in International Relations & Global Studies, Economics and East Asian Studies. I chose my academic path because I was always interested in Asian cultures because of my neighborhood, and as I kept exploring the field of contemporary policy, I knew that the politics, economics and security of this region would dominate the world during my lifetime. I grew up speaking Hindi with my parents, and I learned Spanish in high school, so I focused on Mandarin Chinese in college. Maybe I'll study Arabic in my twenties next after I finish hitting the 中文!
After college, I plan to take my passion and educational experience into government work. I want to contribute to U.S. engagement with the Indo-Pacific. The "Indo-Pacific" refers to everything between the western border of India and the east coast of Japan, down to the southernmost tip of New Zealand. So far, I have been working in the humanitarian space with the U.S. Agency for International Development, where I brainstorm ideas about how to promote growth in developing countries in Asia. In the coming summer, I will be interning at the State Department, the U.S. government's go-to agency for America's foreign relations and international presence.
