Asad Rahim

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“Before entering college, I wasn't fully aware of race or social injustice. I had spent my entire life beforehand with people of my own race, so race was never a particularly important characteristic. And in retrospect, social injustice was everywhere around me, but it was all I knew so I wasn't able to identify it as injustice. However, once I entered college and found myself around people of different backgrounds and different experiences, I was able to put my own experiences into perspective. I became both fascinated and incensed by the ways in which race and class helped to dictate a person's future. With that, I found my passion and the basis for my life’s work.”

  • Program: 2009 Graduate Scholarship Recipient
  • Resides: Cambridge , MA
  • Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
  • Age: 25

Biography

PROFILE: Asad Rahim was a self-described “mediocre” student during his high school days in inner-city Chicago. But, looking back, Asad said his less than stellar career during those formative years basically saved his life. Forced to repeat in summer school classes he failed, the experience helped open his eyes to a future he didn’t want which was lurking right around the corner. “In summer school, a lot of my classmates were drug dealers and ex-convicts and teenage parents. I began to realize that if I didn't get my act together, I would likely end up in the same situation they were in,” said Asad as he recalled the experience that changed his life. “At that point I started to take responsiblility for my future. I began to put forth effort in school, in my community, develop passions and strive to be my highest self.” The young man from the Windy City attacked his studies with a passion, attended Babson College in New England where he was an honors graduate and from there to Hong Kong and the business world where he is currently an emerging markets financial analyst for a major investment firm. In between graduation and work in the financial sector, Asad earned a fellowship from Humanity in Action and taught English in China as a Princeton in Asia fellow. He’s now back in the United States attending law school at Harvard where he’ll concentrate on critical legal studies. 

INSPIRATION: One of Asad’s professors at Babson, Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg, shared his interest in social justice. “Although we were not of the same race or class, she was just as outraged by the injustices faced by minorities.” Asad noted that although “she was incensed, she was able to remain upbeat and open to opposing ideas” and through Dr. Goldberg he found “a template for how I could channel my passion into something postive; use the outrage as fuel to make positive change, but not let it consume me.”
 
ASPIRATION: Upon graduation from law school, Asad would like to work on cases dealing with civil rights, perhaps with the American Civil Liberties Union, or a similar social justice organization. He would also eventually like to work as a legal correspondent for network television. His ultimate goal would be to some day host a television program that focuses on current legal and political issues, “particularly those issues that are largely ignored by mainstream media outlets.” 

MAKING A DIFFERENCE:  Asad is most proud of creating a mentorship program pairing inner-city high school students with college students. Often, he explained, young people don't achieve because they don't believe they can. “They haven't seen anyone like them achieve, so it's not within their range of possibilities. Through the mentorship program, we were able to provide students with hope and proof that success was within their reach.”
 
ACCOLADES: Asad won the 2007 Roger Babson Award, the top honor for a Babson undergraduate student “given to the graduating senior that most embodies the spirit of leadership, service and academic achievement of Babson’s founder.” That same year he also earned the Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award, which honors the member of the Babson community who most reflects Dr. King’s principles and ideals in philosophy and action. His junior year at Babson, he won the Wooten Award for Outstanding Writing. 
 
INTERESTING FACT: Asad participated in a semester at sea with 600 other college students, circumnavigating the globe in 100 days.

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