This month, we introduce you to two of our upperclassmen, Thanu and Karthik, as they prepare for their 10th and 12th grade board examinations.
At Shanti Bhavan, springtime means that our 10th and 12th grade students are busy preparing for the ICSE and ISC national examinations. These examinations are an important part of the college application process, and our students are hard at work reviewing the content they’ve been learning all year. Read more about Karthik and Thanu’s preparations for their upcoming exams in their features below. As the 2019 exam season begins we wish our students “Good Luck!” – we can’t wait to see how far they go!
Thanu
Thanu has wanted to be an architect ever since she was a child and would visit construction sites in Bangalore with her father. When her father later left the family, her grandmother kept Thanu’s creative spirit alive, showing her how to build castles, pyramids, and houses out of simple building blocks. Today, her favorite subjects are trigonometry, geometry, and art. She often finds herself doodling intricate designs, building more detail into each new drawing – great practice for her future career!
Thanu is currently a 10th grader at Shanti Bhavan studying for her Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) exams. While she’s a bit anxious about her exams – particularly chemistry – she is confident that the past year of hard work and good study habits will bring her one step closer to graduating from Shanti Bhavan, beginning college, and pursuing her dreams.
Thanu’s grandmother encourages her to follow her passions, including her biggest one: to own an architecture firm. Thanu looks forward to being able to create beautiful structures and good, economical housing for the poor, but she has another goal as well – to help her mother and grandmother, who have spent their entire lives toiling just to survive. With her own business, Thanu will ensure her family never struggles again.
Karthik
In Karthik’s rural village in Tamil Nadu, poor families like his do not have access to modern conveniences such as toilets. Clean drinking water requires a walk of several miles. Karthik’s father works as a farmer, but his mother is unable to hold a job because of injuries sustained in a car accident. He dreams of the day when he can return to his village and use his education to help both his community and his family.
Karthik is currently a 12th grader at Shanti Bhavan, studying for his Indian School Certificate (ISC) exams. His English, economics, computers, and accounts exams are already complete and he is preparing for his favorite subject – commerce. His preparations have given him confidence – he is often sought out by his classmates for tutoring and has found that the best way for him to study is through teaching others.
After graduating from Shanti Bhavan, Karthik intends to seek a degree in business. Karthik loves accounting and commerce courses because he enjoys problem-solving and critical thinking. His long term plan is to pursue a career in corporate finance. At the same time, he wants to share the gift of education with others, which he sees as the best way to solve the systemic issues of poverty and discrimination that plague communities like his own.
