Robotics club helped top American Heritage grad find path
Meghana Vemulapalli of Delray Beach wasn’t trying to be American Heritage’s valedictorian. She just wanted to absorb as much knowledge as she could during high school while finding a way to apply it to her everyday life.
But now that the 17-year-old has finished at the top of her class, she couldn’t be more excited. “It feels really good to be valedictorian after four years of hard work,” Vemulapalli said.
She had a 3.95 unweighted GPA throughout high school, laughing as she added, “I got some B’s along the way.”
Her favorite subject? Math. “There is a lot of beauty in math. Certain things are so elegant, like when you prove an equation. It’s graceful in a sense.”
Vemulapalli also put a lot of emphasis on her extracurriculars, to which she attributes her growth as a person and student.
“Being on the robotics team taught me a lot of technical things, but also taught me that I’m capable and powerful,” she said.
When Vemulapalli signed up for robotics in 10th grade, she was one of only two girls on the team, a fact she described as a little nerve-wracking.
“I definitely felt like if I did something wrong then people would think that all girls can’t do this, which isn’t fair,” Vemulapalli said. “The team was never discriminatory, but you could sense it. I wasn’t intimidated, but I felt like I had to learn more than what was in front of me. I felt like I couldn’t make a mistake.”
Vemulapalli wanted to challenge gender stereotypes and change the fact that females were underrepresented in robotics at her school. She began actively recruiting female students to join, and now girls make up one-quarter of the robotics team.
“I think having more girls is helping to change the culture of my team,” she said.
Vemulapalli, who also has a love of Spanish, will put her skills to use on vacation in Spain this summer. To improve her language proficiency outside of class, she became part of a local group where members converse for 45 minutes in English and 45 minutes in Spanish.
“For me, personally, it was a way to get better at the language, but I liked talking to people from different places,” Vemulapalli said. “We talked about politics, movies, anything.”
She is deciding between attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale. She is also deciding among a slew of majors, including electrical engineering, computer science and applied math.
Before tossing her cap, though, Vemulapalli had some advice for her younger peers: “Try everything you can in high school. You have the time to explore different interests, and if you find something you like, stick with it.” Q&A
What are your hobbies? Reading (fantasy, historical fiction, and science fiction especially), hiking, tinkering. What would you do if you were invisible for a day?
I would like to sneak up to the top of a really tall building, like the CN Tower in Toronto or the Sears Tower in Chicago and just sit (safely) near the ledge and look at the city and all the sprawling life around it.
If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be? Why?
Emily Roebling, the first female field engineer who led the team that built the Brooklyn Bridge. I would love to talk to her about her experiences and the way that she shaped the path for female engineers like myself. What is the best advice you ever received?
Continue exploring academically; don’t necessarily narrow into only one area because a lot of new fields are emerging that integrate multiple disciplines.
What event in history would you have liked to have witnessed?
I would’ve liked to witness the historic Salt March in India in 1930 led by Mahatma Gandhi. What is your favorite childhood memory?
I loved going to my grandpa’s rice paddy in India, splashing in the water and playing tag along the dikes with my cousin, laughing in the sun.
Who is your hero, someone who inspires you?
My mom inspires me every day, through her tenacity and warmth. Some of the best lessons I’ve learned are because of her advice and experience, about things like persisting and trying new things and becoming comfortable being uncomfortable.
What is something most people don’t know about you? I’m trying to learn how to beatbox!
What three things would you bring with you if you were stuck on a desert island? Books (for leisure and survival), matches, and Indian spices (to approximate home-cooked food).