Mustafa Mehdi Agha thrives on connecting with people, whether they’re cross country teammates or strangers in the grocery store.
The Mercer Island High School (MIHS) senior feels that an enlightening experience is awaiting people if they reach out to others and engage in a conversation.
“I’ve learned mainly to not judge someone by the cover of how they may appear at first or what you’d heard about them before, because people are so much more interesting than what others have to say about them,” Agha said.
Displaying a zeal for life and a stellar performance in and out of the classroom, the UCLA-bound Agha received a $10,000 scholarship from the Mercer Island Rotary Club Foundation at its May 2 meeting at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center.
Also attending the meeting was Vaiva Raisys, a current University of Michigan student who received the foundation’s inaugural scholarship last year.
Among Agha’s copious accomplishments are serving as co-president of the school’s Interact Club, a Rotary-sponsored club that also focuses on volunteerism and community service; president of the Spanish Honors Society and Science National Honors Society; student board representative to the Puget Sound Educational Service District; and captain of the cross country team.
Born in Pakistan, he grew up mainly speaking English and Urdu, and he also speaks some Hindi and Arabic and is learning Spanish.
When he arrives in Westwood at UCLA, Agha plans to major in applied mathematics and carry a data science engineering minor. He’s excited to begin the next chapter of his life journey at the university level, but he’ll miss the close-knit Island community.
“All I can think about sometimes are all the good memories I’ve made here — the friends, the relationships, the teachers, just my family here,” said Agha, adding that he becomes emotional at the thought of departing for UCLA.
It was an honor to be interviewed by Rotary members for the scholarship, said Agha, who felt that he bonded with the panel while genuinely discussing helping others throughout his life. Adding to his personable demeanor, he tossed in a sense of humor, he noted.
Raisys returned home from Ann Arbor to share her first-year college experience with Rotary members. She’s become more spontaneous while exploring all types of classes and clubs and hopes to become further involved in community service. At Michigan, she continued participating in Best Buddies, a program that bonds people with and without disabilities.
On garnering the Rotary scholarship, she explained: “It was definitely extremely helpful for me, and being able to come back to Rotary has been really special to me just to connect with the people who helped me launch off to Michigan.”
When she returns to Michigan, Raisys hopes to study information science with an emphasis on user experience design, and join a professional technology or design fraternity.
Last year’s scholarship winner Vaiva Raisys discusses her first year at the University of Michigan at the May 2 Rotary meeting. She is joined by Rotarian Wally Boos. Andy Nystrom/ staff photo
