Alisha Gupta '20
Student, University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business
Major: Marketing and business, certificate in innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship
“In my Contemporary World Problems class with Mr. Cannon, it was the first time I felt I could have an open discussion on topics that we weren’t sure what the boundaries were or how to think about. A lot of what Mr. Cannon taught me, I carried on. That class is the reason I decided to start my podcast for youth, ‘What Cause Inspires You,’ to talk about causes they are passionate about and have open discussions with each other.
“Mr. Cannon was one of the teachers I stayed in touch with. He saw that I was doing work with entrepreneurship, and he brought me back into the Lancer community to help him create one of the entrepreneurship classes at Saint Francis. Being a Lancer means you have a community that you can fall back on. Sometimes we don’t realize the resources and the support system we have, but when you take a step back, that becomes more apparent afterward.
“Being a Lancer also means continuously improving and striving to enact the most change. My brother graduated from Saint Francis [Adarsh Gupta ’23] and everything he experienced was a better improved version of what I experienced, which is amazing to see. The school has taken into account what students want to do with innovation and creativity and design, added more courses and become more inclusive and diverse. Being a Lancer means we’re striving for the next change and working together to improve.
“The throughline between what I did in high school and what I’m doing in college has a lot to do with the principles I learned: being grateful; giving back; and respecting your teachers. Those core principles are what grounded me going into college because college can be a lot all at once. Going to a school like Saint Francis and being in religion classes that take 10 minutes in the morning to practice gratitude helped me stay grounded when I moved to college.”