“My mom is my biggest inspiration because I have seen her always working very hard and she always worked to support our family, especially her children. She used to work full-time as a teacher and then she did all of the household chores. Her kids were her life, her whole life. She wanted to make sure that her kids had everything they needed. We have needs and wants. Needs are very important they are necessities of life but wants are something we can control. I live on the same motto. I am very goal-oriented. I try to work towards my goal and I try to achieve it - I wanted to come to America for higher education so I started studying for the entrance exam for some colleges. I prepared hard and I got a very good score which got me a full scholarship to the University of Central Florida. I had a mentor in India, and she suggested that I should go to this school because I wouldn’t pay for anything and would also get a stipend for being a teaching assistant. So I had to teach a chemistry lab to undergrad students and that was very challenging because I had about 30-40 students to teach an hour-long lab while speaking in English. Another challenge was that I came with the hope that as soon as I came, my husband would follow in a couple of months. Unfortunately, his visa was denied, so he couldn’t come right away and I was feeling very lonely and devastated. So my husband's family in New Jersey suggested for me to move there.” (Parsippany, NJ)

Interviewed By: Keshav Patel