Campus Celeb: Aswathi Pradeep ’16

The first thing I noticed about Aswathi Pradeep were her eyes. Next, I noticed her smile and her friendly greeting. Aswathi is my Self Engineering Leadership Fellowship (SELF) “mother,” assigned to meet with me and coach me throughout the year. As a senior finishing her four years at the University of Kansas with a major in civil engineering with an emphasis on environment, she’s had plenty of experience with the difficulties of balancing an engineering curriculum with college life.

Aswathi’s college life is full of many interests and a passion for involvement. Like most freshmen, she joined a lot of organizations during her first few months on campus as resume builders. One of these organizations was the South Asian Student Association (SASA). However, through experience, she came to realize that SASA is much more than a group who puts on events throughout the year.

“It’s about building a community, a network,” she said. “It’s about bringing people together who have the same love and passion for cultural awareness that I do.”

As Co-President of SASA, Aswathi loves seeing the difference that organizations like SASA have made on campus throughout her years on KU’s campus. She notes that she’s seen a growth in the representation of many cultures and the appreciation of these cultures due to these groups, which give voices to minority students.

(Source: YouTube)

Another way Aswathi helps spread cultural awareness is by being a part of KU’s fusion dance team called Jeeva. The Jeeva dancers work hard throughout the year to combine varying dance styles to create an 8-10 minute competition piece. The group takes moves from Bollywood, Hip Hop, Bhanga, Contemporary, Ballet, Indian Classical and many more. Since joining Jeeva, Aswathi has strongly encouraged and supported the group towards performing competitively, particularly with the goal in mind of winning their circuit, Bollywood America. Having danced since the age of four, though never competitively, she says her favorite part is working hard and performing with such a great group of dancers, some of whom have become her closest friends.

As the lead dancer on Jeeva, she’s learned a lot of real life skills like patience, communication and perseverance. 

“Being able to share a stage with your friends is an experience I can hardly put into words,” she said. “It’s exhilarating and so, so satisfying.”

Now, here comes the balancing act. Aswathi is also a teacher and tutor for the Kansas Algebra Program. She’s also a SELF fellow, working towards a capstone project along with her other responsibilities of a soon-to-be graduate. In addition, she’s currently taking part in motorcycle lessons. Since her uncle in India gave her rides on his motorcycle when she was young, she’s always wanted her own to ride. She told me that she promised herself that one of the first things she would spend her hard-earned paychecks on would be the lessons, which she is also taking with her dad.

“So far, I have yet to injure myself… knock on wood!” she laughed.

So what drives Aswathi to carry out such a diverse, adventurous and strenuous lifestyle? It’s her passion. While she’s always been involved with dance, she says she can’t claim it as a passion because she always wants to be involved with other things as well.

“I am passionate about doing as much as I can with the time and the energy that has been given to me,” she said.

Despising boredom and enjoying the exhaustion that comes with stretching herself thin, Aswathi derives her pleasure from continuously doing my part in whatever she is involved with.

As you can tell, Aswathi is a perfectly example of versatility. She reflects this by her explanation for what color best describes her: a range of yellow.

“I can be bright and cheerful like a sunny yellow, or calm and pensive like a fall leaf yellow,” she said after thinking for a moment.

I wholly support this statement after meeting with her just two times. She’s peppy and determined, taking on the world with a dancer’s grace as she plans to head into industry before going to law school.

I’m very grateful and extremely ecstatic that I got so lucky with my “mom.” I have a feeling I’ll learn many lessons from her in the coming years. I’ll leave you with some advice from her, and I’ll leave them in her own words because I can’t make them any better:

“The only limitation that you should ever have is your physical strength,” she said. “Never push yourself past its breaking point, but never let your exhaustion be an excuse. Do anything and everything you want to during your college years, in terms of the classes you want to take and the organizations you want to join. Even if you fail, you’ll learn more from it than you ever though possible.” 

All photos sourced from Aswathi Pradeep.

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• University of Kansas