Hi! My name is Rohan Sarikonda, and I'm currently a junior at Mass Academy (or, formally, the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science). Before coming to MAMS, I lived and studied in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, which is about an hour west of Worcester (near Springfield). I lived there from the beginning of first grade to the end of tenth grade.
In regards to my personal life, I was born in Buffalo, New York, in 2007. My favorite color is purple, and my favorite animal is the Great-Eared Nightjar. My favorite season is winter, mainly because of what I can do during it. I like skiing a lot, which obviously goes a lot better with winter than summer. I also like swimming, but I can do that year-round. My family is fairly large as well. My dad has two brothers who live in America; each of them has a wife and two kids. I'm the oldest of all the kids on my dad's side. One of them lives in California and one of them lives in Virginia. He also has a sister who lives in India. On my mom's side, I have two uncles who live in Connecticut, one that lives in Massachusetts, and one that lives in Maryland. I also have an uncle who lives in London. My grandparents on my dad's side live in Hyderabad (India), so we don't see them that often, but they just visited in July. Indian families put a lot of importance in being close and caring for each other, so even though we live pretty far apart, we try to visit each other at least once a year.
In terms of hobbies, I have a few that I'm particularly proud of. For starters, I'm a Boy Scout. I've been involved in Scouting since I was in third or fourth grade, and it's proved to be a huge part of my life and who I am. I like to think that I'm fairly independent and can take care of myself, but I wouldn't have been able to do nearly as much as I can without Boy Scouts.
I also play music. I've been playing music since first grade: I started with the piano and the recorder, then moved to the violin, and finally to the saxophone. I've played saxophone for six years now, and I love every minute of it. For me, playing it encompasses much of the joy in my life. I love listening to music as well, but creating it yourself is an entirely different feeling and one that I don't think you can replace. Unfortunately, I'm not able to play with the WPI Music Program because of scheduling issues, but I'm playing with the New England Conservatory in Boston.
I also really love reading. I used to only enjoy fiction and fantasy books, but recently, I've started to branch out a little. I also like robotics, but unfortunately, my schedule this year won't allow me to participate in the robotics team. At my sending school, I was on the coding and electrical section of my robotics team. In addition to doing all the code, we also had to wire the robot. This led to a few issues where we didn't have enough people to fully cover for everything. As a result, we started running around a lot to try to finish everything, and it didn't feel great.
As previously mentioned, I also like swimming. I swam competitively for six years, but stopped after quarantine started in 2020. After that, I picked up more hobbies, and I would have had to quit them to pick up swimming again, so I never did.
Finally, I enjoy photography. I'm not really an avid photographer, but I enjoy taking pictures. I'll leave a link to a collage of some of my better photos here, mostly because of compression. As an example, I took the photo of the ducks on the home page; the original picture is higher quality than that, but I had to compress it to make it work for this website.
In addition to the things I do to relax, I try to help people whenever I can. I've volunteered for multiple organizations including SEWA International, IAGSMA, NSF, and Akshaya Patra. Through these programs, I've been able to give back to those who need assistance of any kind, whether it's financial, food-related, or shelter/clothing-related. Beyond helping people live better, I find that it makes me feel better about myself. To me at least, there's a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that comes from helping other people. I think you need to experience the feeling for yourself, though; I'm not sure how to fully describe it.
I did a few things for community service, and I talk about them below.
This was a school-organized trip that we took to a nearby school in Worcester. We went there and did STEM/Engineering activities with the kids including examining bird beaks and playing games with imitations, creating spool racers, and more.
Akshaya Patra is an organization I've been a part of since I was around 4 years old. It's an international volunteering organization with the aim of funding food for schools for underpriviledged children in India. We raise money here to buy vans, fund the creation of food, help support the volunteers, and more. I'm a part of the group of youth leaders; we hold fundraisers, host events, and raise money and goods throughout the year.
SEWA International is another organization that I volunteer for. It is an Indian organization, but we also do things to help people here. The mom of one of our members owns a salon, so we put a fundraiser there where her clients could chip in some money if they could to help support Ukrainian refugees here. This was also in the mid-fall time, so we also added some donation boxes for canned food and winter coats. We also set up other coat drives around town and delivered them all to a refugee center. Additionally, we helped raise money for refugees from the Israel-Hamas war.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed learning about me. Feel free to go around the rest of my website and find out more! You can also contact me here!