hey! it's been a moment, and I'm still tinkering with formatting. lowercase seems to be the vibe for this one (the dust has settled on a busy, busy year).

I have completed my freshman year in NYC. I am resetting. I am reworking my baseline and trying to use new experiences in college to bring my sense of self to a more robust place! I think it's so beautiful that I thought I peaked with last summer, and yet, life keeps throwing me challenges that show me how I can improve even more. I wonder who I will be at this time next year.

here's what I've been doing - at least the parts that feel relevant to share/reflect on!

• finals, finals, finals. I know I enjoy studying but phew! this one was a squeeze! turns out that a consequence of chasing both social sciences and STEM is that you have to rise up to the dense written work of the former and the rigorous testing of the latter at the same time... but man, it was FUN. I like pushing myself this way. here's evidence of me being engrossed by my nuclear politics curriculum (SO interesting I will GLADLY explain this to anybody who asks):

• took a detour into computational bio and actually loved it! my lab put me on a brief project with a grad student in finding homologues of proteins across different organisms to see if this protein interaction we observed exists across them all... thus changing how we understand that protein. learned about the different databases (isn't it so stupendous that humans across the globe compile all their knowledge of biological life onto one database that you or I could access and then use to further humanity?). I'm also picking up more bench work and actually seeing how the plates I've been pouring get used! hooray! I am so grateful forth opportunity and for the kindest P.I. ever!
  
  • on one of the programs... alphafold is a predictive program that has achieved something revolutionary: allowing us to envision what a protein likely looks like based on its sequence alone. to explain this to those unfamiliar, nucleotide sequences are like words made from the genetic alphabet, and those words get translated into diverse proteins, which do basically everything from forming our hair structure to enabling our ability to move. to be able to paste a sequence into a program and have it *know* what that protein will look like really changes how labs can study important proteins (structure --> function, so this is important to our understanding!). I've been tinkering around with it and it's truly remarkable. no wonder it won a Nobel prize so early.
• gearing up for huge life changes. after 19 years in the city, I am shifting to a new environment. taking in all the condensed streets, hundreds of famous spots per block, and unmatched NYC hustle-and-bustle while I can. thanking Penn Station for being kind to me and the halal carts for their time in my life. okay, I'm being dramatic, because it's not a permanent goodbye, but when one takes themselves out of their usual environment they realize precisely how they were shaped by it. and that is a core reason FOR leaving - I want to explore a world outside of the one I have known for so long.
• attended network 20/20's (an international affairs organization that hosts discussion panels and salons for those in the public and private sector to discuss foreign policy in an entrepreneurial way) annual fundraising gala as a sponsored student
• ...and other galas, like a health equity awards ceremony at cipriani!

• saw a Shakira concert for free from a hotel window (talk about LUCKY!)
• put my all into my last moments on my student government, with the kids i've been coaching at speech, and other communities that have helped shape me this year :") why do you think i picked the song of the season this way?
• getting back to the GYM! FINALLY! (visualization of me seeing a converging chest press after 3 months):

• the meat of things, beyond stuff I've talked about in past newsletters: I'm reevaluating my systems, fortifying some parts, and changing others. before this year I had put a lot of stock in lone-wolfing life. it worked for me. it was a newfound discovery that I could be satisfied with my own internal world, ambitions, and attuning myself to my needs in unconventional ways. it helped me grow. it helped me achieve lot. but this year has also highlighted my love for humanity. working together on events for my scholarship program, watching my brother's curiosity develop even when he was sick, and doing things that COMBINED my joy with service to others., like volunteering at a hospital (or even the lab work that will ultimately shed light on neurodegeneration), gave me a more profound sense of purpose. I want to explore the world in its humanity and diversity. I want to reach high and push myself. at the same time, I want to use that pushing to make a difference to other people. so, my personal systems and philosophies, while they've proven to serve me well, also stand to evolve a little more. maybe I'll write another post when I've figured out a little more about that. for now, I'm making an active effort to balance that self-reliance with letting others in :)
• the boba obsession spiraled again. yikes! but if not in summer, then when?!

i have lots more coming up, but that's for the next update... wink.

So, I started the mentoring program that I really wished I had as a high schooler. I always felt this disconnect between my South Asian identity and the kind of advice out there for being successful (like, let's be real, how do you balance networking events with a curfew at the ripe age of 18?). I wanted a space with young mentors full of different interests - yes, South Asians who were NOT doctors engineers or maybe even lawyers - acting as big sibs. I wanted to create a space for solidarity in a community that honestly could benefit from some unity.

And then I started it! I got the board members, the logo, the game plan, and a decently ~20 mentors signed up! Not so bad...

But as I saw it, it totally fell apart.

• We had WAY more mentors signed up than mentees and had to drop the pairing idea.
• Over the semester, my board members started disappearing into their other commitments.
• This meant I had to take over every Zoom, which meant I couldn't keep meeting times consistent.
• The Discord? Dead.
• Our attendance never broke 75%, and over time, we only had 2-3 people show per meeting.
• Given all this, I made the tough decision to cut the 10-week program short by about 3 weeks.

I sat at my desk in a bit of numb agony when I wrote the message announcing our early end to the program. At first, I genuinely felt like a let-down. I mean, there were all these students who had believed in me signing up for the very first Behen-Bhai cohort. But also? My inner high schooler was at stake. Somewhere inside me there's the teenager who had no idea how college applications work, no mentor she could culturally relate to, and who yearned for a way to express the unique struggles that came with being the daughter of immigrants from the subcontinent.. This project was an extension of my passions. So when it didn't go to expectations, I felt pretty vulnerable.

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I took a little bit to focus on the other elements of my life that needed me (still a college student!). I let the initial disappointment pass over me. Then as I do, when the dust settled, I got out a blank sheet of paper and a G-2 pen, and got to reflecting. I didn't, or couldn't, let this thing die out, so I had to look at where I could have done better.

And clearly I made some mistakes!

• For one thing, having a board of overachievers who don't know each other all that well does *not* foster reliable communication.
• For another, starting to plan so close to the start of the program meant creating lessons from scratch. And there are NO other resources like the ones I was trying to provide (did I entrepreneur too close to the sun?), so I had to do a lot of self-compiling for good presentations.
• And finally, I had a bunch of college students on the board advertising to other college students to become mentors... but only a couple "ins" to high schools.

These are ALL things I will be remedying before launching the next cohort.

With that cancellation message, I sent  out a feedback form, expecting even more points of improvement that I haven't considered. But I was actually heartwarmed by the amount of positive responses, support, and hope for the future of the program. At the end of the day I did do my best, and that wasn't in vain:

• I had mentees telling me that they had no idea about the scope of their career options and what they actually entailed.
• Mentees and mentors were actually communicating outside of meetings to exchange advice!
• I received a lot of positive feedback on the presentations themselves (hooray, my hours of compiling infographics that didn't exist in a convenient resource were worth it!) and actually really appreciated the guest speakers
• And, much to my surprise... the participants saw how much work I was putting in. They were grateful. I teared up reading comments about how they were excited to see how the next cohort would go. 🥹

So I may have learned another lesson with this one... and it's that if you are passionate about something and give it your best shot, that others will see that. It makes it easier to root for you!

All in all, I was reminded of my "bad pancake" philosophy (also known as the crappy draft): the first time you do something will likely not be the best version of it. You've got to sacrifice that first pancake which will be deformed, burned, or whatever else. But you can still try your best and it will tell you how edible the rest of the stack will be. Getting over the activation energy to start is a big deal, and in this case, there were moments where I felt less secure about my idea because there just wasn't anything like it out there. But I am determined. I will be revamping things and coming up with a better model for the program.

I've had leadership positions before, but this was my first time actually building something from scratch, with no preexisting infrastructure, and a mission that was a little too niche to find dedicated resources for. But now I can say with confidence that I've inched forward, with mentees who told me they'd gladly sign up for a new version of the program, and with myself determined to continue bringing that mission to others who want it. Hopefully, I can write another blog post then evaluating how *well* I've improved upon these things... ⚡️

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The weekend after finals, my brain was easing off the thermodynamics formulas and different versions of U.S. nuclear plans for class. I was thankfully out of state judging this year's national speech & debate tournament, the PERFECT place to meet interesting people and kick off a summer away from my academic environment.

Ever sat in a room of outspoken teenagers at the brink of their lives changing? FASCINATING food for thought.

But what actually stuck with me was a comment made in passing by a fellow coach who was far more experienced than myself. We were taking in the excitement of the weekend ahead in a room with other coaches and practicing students. At some point, he was explaining something, I don't remember quite what, and I ended up understanding it by way of a connection through chemistry ("oh, so it's like the rate limiting step in a reaction mechanism!").

Now, I respect this coach. Very smart, talented dude. But the man cannot do chemistry.

So he said:

"I have no idea what that means. But you know, as a teacher, sometimes you just look at a student's eyes and see when a concept's clicked. So I'm always like, okay, whatever weird analogy you just made to a thing you DO get, yes, stick with that, because it worked... even if I have no idea what the analogy means.

And I just think that's really beautiful. You don't have to totally understand the mechanisms of a person's brain and craft to get what it means to them. You don't even have to know everything about someone else to extend to them basic empathy and connection. What matters is the principle of things. And, I mean, it's the job of a teacher to clock when a student does or doesn't grasp a concept. But of friendships, relationships, and more? I think that's how we build meaningful connections to people who are nothing like us. What matters is that our purpose is shared.