A Small Town Girl Chasing Big Dreams – Aakanksha Sharma, MDI Gurgaon
I come from a very small town in Uttar Pradesh where there was only one English medium school. I have been lucky to have parents who value education and have always sent me to the best school available. I always felt out of place in that town and knew deep down that I wanted to do something big and meaningful. I was 7 years old when I first heard of Kalpana Chawla and was instantly inspired by her wonderful journey of reaching NASA from Karnal. I started reading every piece of news related to Ms. Chawla. This inspired me to dream big and I started to set big goals for myself. I would study for hours, trying to learn more than what was taught at school. I came across this beautiful quote said by Ms. Chawla – “If you want to do something, what does it matter where you are ranked?” and that helped me focus on what was really important in life.






