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Akshara Krishna (Marvin Ridge High)

What are your most and least favorite subjects and why?

My favorite subject is economics because it’s centered around decision-making. It’s interesting to see how various aspects of life depend entirely on how we allocate our resources in the face of scarcity. 

My least favorite subject is literature because it’s hard for me to see what the characters are trying to convey and what the author really wants to show through their creativity.  

If you could travel anywhere, where would it be and why?

I would love to visit my grandparents in India. They live in Tamil Nadu, which is in the countryside, a very rural area. I live in an urban area, so it’s interesting to see how everyone walks to get around everywhere. In that area, it is the same as it was 100 years ago, how society must have been with all the farms similar to what it is now.

I have traditional food, that's my favorite thing. I get to visit every five to six years. I’ve been there twice so far and am hoping I’ll get to go next summer. 

What careers interest you?

I’m interested in going into consulting because it mixes entrepreneurship as well as economics. I’d be advising different businesses in decisions like optimizing their business or buying another business. Through that work, you’d see how to grow it or make it more appealing for consumers and look at the available resources they have at their disposal.  

I am part of a nonprofit called Invest Bright. We just started a consulting project and are helping small businesses in Palo Alto, California. I’m doing all of that work virtually from North Carolina. Working with entrepreneurs who want to improve their communities and visualizing how that can look on a broader scale is a great experience. 

I found out about Invest Bright through another organization I volunteer with called Quarantunes. 

What clubs or activities do you participate in? And why? 

I am part of the broadcast team because I’m learning how to have better camera confidence. I am part of a leadership committee focused on the school climate. I've also just founded my club, Blooming Melodies, centered around soft skill mentorship. It is a passion project I worked on during the summer outside of school and wanted to bring to school.

Blooming Melodies originally started as a violin academy because I’ve played the violin since I was seven. As I continued teaching violin, I wanted to have a more meaningful impact on my community. While I still teach violin to support as a source of funding, the academy has now transformed into a program that helps develop life skills.

If you had to choose between spaghetti or pizza, which would you choose?

I would choose pizza because when I did visit my family in India, we went to a Pizza Hut. They combined Indian and South Indian spices into the pizza on this fluffy bread base. 

What three words best describe you?

  • Curious
  • Determined
  • Hard-working

What is your happiest school memory?

My favorite school memory was participating in an economics competition during my junior year. I had multiple career interests that ranged from being an environmental lawyer to economics. By going to the competition, I met like-minded peers and found that the group within my school was very passionate about economics. Together, we were exploring and deciding our college career paths and futures.

What advice would you give your parents or teachers?

What helped me the most as a violin teacher and running soft skill camps was that I had to do a lot of introspection. What does it mean to be a middle schooler? What does it mean to be an elementary schooler? As you grow older, you can get detached from that mindset. If parents or teachers engaged in that just a little bit every day, it would remind them that this is where students are, how they are trying to balance having fun and being serious about school. It would make it a  more interactive and relatable environment where students can open up and grow into the person they want to be.