Hello! It’s your friendly local creative and artistic WOC in STEM, 22-year-old Taurus with big ambitions, dreams and a free-spirited heart. I like to think that my personality resembles a butterfly, colourful, bright and independent. Yet, at the same time, it needs time for itself to grow in a cocoon. Being an only child to a couple of strict Indian parents whose job involves travelling worldwide was similar to a butterfly’s life. I thoroughly enjoyed breaking out of my shell, venturing out to meet new people, and building new relationships that I will be grateful for eternally. But the downfall to this was picking my life up once every few years, leaving my dear friends behind, and moving on to the next adventure, where I essentially needed to repeat the entire process to make new connections. Because of my father’s occupation, I am grateful for visiting different countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Argentina. Moving around helped me quickly adapt to new beginnings, gain confidence in being unapologetically myself, and introduce my authentic self to the world. My name has a unique origin story; My newlywed parents travelled to Jerusalem, Israel, to pray for a baby girl. A few weeks later, they would receive a phone call to announce my mother’s most awaited pregnancy. Therefore in remembrance of visiting such a holy place, my parents named me “Shalom,” meaning “peace/hello” in Hebrew.
One of the few cherished memories I had as a young kid was to stargaze with my father on our roof/terrace. My dad’s job as a Foreign Affairs Official gave us the chance to move to a new country every three years and experience each place’s culture, food, clothing, and customs. Still, it was quite difficult to call one place “home.” However, the sky was one of the few things in my life that remained forever constant. The Big Dipper, Orion, and Cassiopeia constellations were my best friends through the hard moves I had to go through as a child and young adult. These “friends” carried me to study my high school passion, where I challenged myself to take a few Astronomy college courses in my sophomore and junior year. After graduation, I had decided that I would pursue Astrophysics as a career path later in college, which was my imminent step. My major also involved astronomy and the physical nature of planets and other celestial bodies.
With the help of a few renowned professors and peers at UCLA, I discovered the vastness of the universe we call “space” and its contents. Did you know that a car ride to the nearest star at 70 miles per hour would take over 365 billion years to reach? And that Saturn has 27 suns? Learning and adding to my limited pre-existing knowledge about the world beyond Earth encouraged me to indulge in art people create and make art of my own. My medium is painting on canvas. My main subjects are flowers, planets and constellations. I started viewing the world we live in from an artistic perspective, noticing all the little details that might get overlooked. For instance, I spent approximately 3 hours painting an ocean wave and perfecting each brushstroke to make it seem as realistic as possible.
During my second year of college, I decided to minor in Journalism in hopes of reaching the world’s population remotely through my words, Because everyone has a page-turning story, and it needs to be told, whether it be in a series of visuals or disguised as books. And as mass consumers of media, we owe it to the community online to take advantage of the different tools and tricks the worldwide web offers, also widely known as the “Internet,” and design programs to their utmost potential. In 2020 when historic times swept the nation and a contagious pandemic hit, a significant percentage of the human population is forced to live online, making it rather tricky for some small local businesses to remain afloat. As a Journalism minor, I strive to be the primary representative for the crowd suffering from these unfortunate events and act as an anchor to help re-build their empire from the ground up remotely.
Thank you for taking the time to get to know me. You can find me on all social media platforms. Just look for the girl with a friendly face and a unique name. I guarantee we will become close acquaintances.
In community,
Shalom Mahitha Bandi
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