Sitting in a classroom worth of gaudy costumes and face-painted students wasn’t what senior Danish Akbar was expecting during his first week at Munster since his move from Botswana, Africa.
“At this point, I’d just joined the school during homecoming week,” he said. “And since I was new, I couldn’t ask anyone I knew to tell me what’s going on.”
Danish’s older brother graduated in the class of 2021, and their parents set on transferring his education to a college in the U.S. due to the limited options of postsecondary options in Botswana. Danish was soon to follow this similar arrangement, graduating the following year, until covid struck. The severe pandemic regulations in Botswana prevented him from continuing his third year of high school. For his own future, Danish and his brother moved in with his aunt and uncle, leaving behind their world to start anew in Munster.
Along with the cultural shocks of an American school from a non-uniform policy to an abnormal amount of breaks, All the new opportunities opened Danish’s eyes to a new realm of possibilities for this future, leading him to his position today as co-president of the Muslim Culture Club. He plans on attending Purdue University in Computer Science this fall.
“Before I moved here, I really didn’t know what I was gonna do. In Botswana, there’s no postsecondary education options after high school. You graduate and that’s it,” he said. “But here, I realized how many options I have during my time here and after high school. It’s really given me something to look forward to and how I’m gonna achieve it.”