“The worst situations can turn into the best adventures.”
Shobita Suresh
“Life is better when you’re having fun and doing things,” senior economics major Shobita Suresh stated. She, a pastel-pink-loving, self-proclaimed Slytherin quadrilingual, is the face of adventure.
Being adventurous comes naturally to her. “Putting values that aren’t materialistic and more experiential first, is really important to me,” Suresh stated. While some value large homes or fancy cars, Suresh equates life experiences with value. Therefore, she decided to create a bucket list.
As cliché as it may sound, this is no ordinary list. The tasks that fill this page have nothing to do with Mount Everest, the pyramids, or even becoming a millionaire. “A lot of the things on there are normal activities people sometimes just don’t get to do,” Suresh explained. This includes solving a Rubik’s cube, flying a kite, or shaving her head. Which she did. Last year.
Suresh also actively demonstrates her sense of adventure by exploring different nations. She’s gone to London, Bolivia, Brazil, India, Argentina, China, Mexico, Canada, Iceland and across the United States. India, her family’s native country, is one of her favorite places. “At first, I was nervous to travel there,” Suresh recalls, “Most countries have one to two main languages but in India, there’s more than twenty.”
Suresh’s adventures allow her to be more understanding of diverse cultures. Consequently, adaptability has become a key element of her life. Without it, she wouldn’t have been able to handle the academic adventure she embarked on this year. Towards the beginning of 2019, Suresh was an environmental engineering major at Michigan State University. She had worked hard to gain acceptance into the College of Engineering, when something changed; her mind.
“When I finally got into the College of Engineering, I lost all my motivation,” Suresh remembered. She realized her passion never truly lied in engineering, but a completely different subject; economics. As a result, Suresh took a huge leap of faith and changed her major halfway through her junior year.
“It’s been nuts,” she said, “You have to start from ground zero, when everyone you know is ahead of you.” Although the road hasn’t been easy, she knows following her passion is always the right decision.
While constantly seeking adventure intrigues her, Suresh admits it has some drawbacks. At times, her adventurous nature puts a strain on her relationship with her parents. Due to their high expectations, she constantly fears they won’t approve of the way she chooses to live her life. For this reason, she finds herself keeping things from them; her dreams, her goals, parts of herself, she chooses not to reveal. “That’s been really hard to deal with,” Suresh expressed. “Overall, I know I am making the right decisions it’s just, that part of the adventure isn’t fun.”
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“I am the face of adventure because I’ve learned bad experiences are adventures to,” Suresh stated. She understands we learn just as much from less favorable experiences as we do from favorable ones. Sometimes bad experiences help us appreciate the good ones more. “If everything went our way, our life would just be some perfect, boring story,” she confirms.
And who would
want that? Shobita would much rather be the face of ADVENTURE.