Student Spotlight: Anushk Pokharna
Introducing Anushk Pokharna, a junior at St Xavier’s High School and our featured student this month. Anushk joins the Social Change Internship abroad from Ahmedabad, India, and is looking to pursue his undergraduate degree in the US. This goal shaped Anushk and his team's final pitch in the internship—a hub to help students navigate the various resources available for the college admissions process. We spoke with Anushk to learn more about his experience and what he’s learned since completing the program.
How did you find out about the Social Change Internship?
Anushk: I am not so sure about how I got to know about Social Change Internship but it would probably be from a Discord server or any study abroad community forum.
What made you decide to apply?
Anushk: I had applied to this internship because I wanted to learn more about social change and explore similar things related to change-making. I was also looking for opportunities to make my summer more productive.
What made you decide to create Teens For Teaching as your solution?
Anushk: I have noticed that there are a lot of inequalities in the College Admissions process - especially for international students and first-generation audiences who are not aware of the American college admissions process. Hence, I (along with my team) are working to solve that issue in the hope that someone could benefit from it.
Kudos to you for joining us from abroad. Do you think more people in your community would get involved in something like this?
Anushk: For people living in India, especially my friends who have little to no knowledge about community service, it would be a really amazing learning course. Not many have experienced such type of learning which goes out of the school books so definitely students in my community would love it.
What would you say to anyone considering applying to the Social Change Internship?
Anushk: If I were to convince my friend about joining this internship, my arguments would be,
This internship is more useful than learning Calculus.
This Internship is going to expand the horizons of the mind and build up an entrepreneurial mindset.
Such an opportunity of learning is nowhere to be found other than Social Change Internship and, after all, it’s about giving back to the community.
To find out more about Startland educational programming and how to get involved, click here.
