Seminole Ridge’s Shreya Patel inspired by brother’s success
There are a couple of things that Shreya Patel can point to as reasons why, when the Seminole Ridge senior class assembles for graduation, she will be the one giving the valedictorians’ address.
She’s seen it happen before. Her brother, Parth, was salutatorian of Seminole Ridge in 2015, laying a path that Shreya was more than happy to follow and, eventually, surpass.
“Being valedictorian was something I aspired to. I saw how hard my brother worked and it paid off for him with this honor,” Shreya said. “He has had a lot of success in college as well. If I put in the same amount of work and effort in school, I knew I could be honored with an award like this and continue onward to college.”
It also helps that Patel is constantly reading. Everything. It doesn’t matter what it is, if there
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are words on it, Patel will read it.
“My dad used to get the Harvard Business Review and I was, like, 8 years old and would just pick it up and start reading it even though I didn’t understand a thing I was reading,” she said. “I love to read almost anything.”
When asked what her favorite thing to read is, Patel narrowed it down to “pretty much anything that is around me” before settling on “historical fiction books where the characters aren’t real but the setting is.”
She said reading helps with her studies because she sees words that come up later and that recognition gives her a context and, usually, meaning for them.
When she isn’t reading, Patel serves as member of the National Honor Society and as the president of Mu Alpha Theta, the math honor society.
This summer, Patel will take her talents — and her books — to north Philadelphia, where she will study at Temple University. Once again, following in the footsteps of her older brother, Patel plans to major in actuarial science, seeking a job in the insurance field.
Being an actuary — preferably at a big firm in the northeast, Patel said — takes her love for history and proficiency in math (she’s finished both high school calculus classes and three years of statistics at Palm Beach State College) and melds them perfectly.
Temple was an easy choice for Patel, she said. The full scholarship helped but her trip to the campus over spring break was the final determining factor.
“I really liked it. Obviously, it was cold, even though it was spring break, but I’m looking forward to the city life,” Patel said.
“I like that it didn’t feel like too crowded of a city. It was everything you would expect in a city, without the feel of a big city.” Q&A
What are your hobbies?
I like to read. Anything at all will work. And I like helping out on my family’s farm. There is always something to do. It’s never boring.
What would you do if you were invisible for a day?
I would travel. I really like to travel and if I were invisible, I could go everywhere for free. The first place I would go is Australia.
If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be?
It would be with Narendra Modi, the current prime minister of India. When he was younger, he would sell chai tea at the train station and now he is the prime minister. He is very intelligent and smart without being showy. I think I could learn a lot about life and success from him.
What is the best advice you ever received?
Do your best and believe the rest. Doing your best, to me, means putting forth your best effort and praying to God .... You can’t worry about what people have to say. What event in history would you have liked to have witnessed?
I would have liked to have been there for the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That was such a monumental day in American history.
What is your favorite childhood memory?
Playing Monopoly on rainy days with my cousins. We all lived on the same street and there were seven of us .... It would get really intense and competitive.
Who is your hero, someone who inspires you?
Mahant Swami Maharaj. He is my spiritual leader, which holds prestige in our religion similar to the pope in Catholicism.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
Most people don’t know that I live on a tropical fruit farm. We are one of the few farms in the United States that sells Sweetheart lychees. It is really sweet and has a lot more juice than the more common lychee.