Embodying Diversity: Aditi Thakur
Year: Senior
Hometown: New Delhi, India
Major: Economics
I first got to know Aditi through her posts on Inside Dores, and now I have had the privilege of getting to work with her and learn from her experience as a seasoned blogger! She has such great things lying ahead of her after graduation, although we will definitely miss her presence on Inside Dores.
Aditi chose to major in economics because of its connection to so many other subjects, as well as having been inspired by Professor Buckles’ class freshman year.
As a Cornelius Vanderbilt scholar, she is automatically part of the College Scholars’ program, consising of 16-person honors seminars with distinguished faculty, mirroring AXLE requirements and facilitating academic pursuits such as a senior thesis. An invaluable experience she gained from these programs was a summer study abroad session in London, where she studied the economics related to WWII and saw academics come to life. After that summer she took a history class here about WWII, and was all the more interested in it because of her abroad experience, which she would not have been able to do without the scholarship.
Throughout her 4 years at Vandy, Aditi has been involved mainly in Inside Dores, VUCept, Honor Council, and The Diwali Cultural Showcase with SACE. These organizations were some of the main reasons she enjoyed Vandy, and college in the US in general. Before attending Vandy, though she had visited the US many times before, Aditi had heard many stereotypes about the school and was surprised to see they did not hold true. For example, she had heard Vandy was preppy and the only representations of Greek life she had seen were from movies. Coming here she realized how culturally diverse and intellectually rich the students were.
Besides extracurriculars, though, the main thing Aditi has enjoyed at Vandy is the sheer breadth of courses available, part of the liberal arts emphasis which is not encouraged as much in India. What she will miss is the ability to learn about different things that do not directly pertain to her future career, which is planned to be in consulting. Once you go to grad school or start a job, everything becomes much more focused, so urges everyone to take advantage of all Vandy has to offer, such as through AXLE!
Of course, academics aren’t the only thing about Vandy Aditi will miss. Even if some dorms are not as nice as off campus apartments, living on campus provides an incomparable sense of community and facilitates friendships with so much less effort than if people lived scattered off campus. After college it will definitely not be as easy to meet up with friends, so she is a proponent of living on campus.
Lastly, Aditi gave some great advice: Be intentional about the things you do: don’t be busy just for the sake of being busy. Let your passions build your resume.
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(I am so glad I got to know her a bit better as she passes off the baton to Ashli and me as the new co-chairs of Inside Dores!)