Scholars in the News
Reshma Tharani, 21, is part of a new breed of community college student
Anita Gupta
"I have seen that children.everywhere.are in need. This is the reason that I am pursuing a strong pediatric background in primary care. I want to be able to take care of children anywhere."
- Alumni of: 2002 Graduate Scholarship Program
- Four-year College or University: University of Virginia
- Graduate School: Vanderbilt University
- Other Interests: Helping Victims, Underserved, and the Unfortunate
Biography
One of Anita Gupta's professors was taken aback when discovering that this student volunteered and participated in so many meaningful activities at one time.
A partial list of Anita's current ongoing activities contains: chief of staff of the Student Council; a hotline volunteer for the Sexual Assault Resource Agency; a volunteer mentor for the Big Sibling Program for a 10-year old girl from Ghana; a program director at the Community Among Volunteers; a volunteer EMT-certified triage nurse at Charlottesville Free Clinic; an ER patient representative at UVA Hospital; and 14 other activities with no less than seven 3-credit courses and one 1-credit course for the spring 2002 semester.
Gupta, who has maintained excellent grades even with all her activities, was a class valedictorian in high school. According to her teachers, she is clearly one of UVA's all-time top students.
Her professional goal is to be a pediatric physician, perhaps in a remote area of the world. Her long-term career plans were cleverly stated in a letter she wrote to herself looking back on her experiences that included helping adolescent girls in a far-flung village where traditional medical facilities didn't exist.
Anita overcomes shyness by drawing others out - a theme that runs through her volunteer work and demonstrates sensitivity toward herself and others.
Her personal essay in the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship application was uniquely devoted to the relationship she had with her parents during high school: helping her mother recover from breast cancer.
"Only as I was leaving home did I become strikingly aware of how much I took them for granted," she says. "Even when things were falling apart at home," she continues, "reaching out to someone else rebuilt my strength. Nonetheless, about helping abuse victims on a hotline, she adds, "Each time I hang up the phone. I am shaking."
Other Scholars Like Anita
Annika Hawkins
Graduate Scholar
Johns Hopkins University
Masha Marchevsky
College Scholar
Macalester College
Bukhosi Dube
Graduate Scholar
University of Utah
Alethea Gallman
Graduate Scholar
University College London