Neymika Jain (12) has spent years diving into STEM but has a unique way to ward off excess stress. She bullet journals and writes slant poetry, which helps her understand herself more.

“I think one of my main struggles [has been] trying to understand myself and why I’m feeling certain emotions and what essentially the cause of it is,” she said. “I think that I’ve struggled a lot with that over the last four years. Slowly, I’ve begun to come to terms with ‘Oh, ok. This is why I’m feeling frustration.’”

She believes in living a life with purpose in order to make life exciting.

“I think without a certain amount of drive, life is kind of obsolete and mundane, and I think having that every single day is what makes each day unique and kind of makes life exciting,” she said. 

Neymika’s community has humbled her as she realizes that there are many people who have shaped her into who she is today.

“I come from an Indian family, and we have a lot of community values. I think it shaped me to never take praise as just my own. It’s something to be thankful for in terms of ‘Oh, I got praised because of the way I was raised, the community that I was born in and my own privilege,’” she said. “I think that growing up in the kind of family that promotes such community values kind of fit me into the person I am.”

She values the time she can spend alone with just her, her thoughts and her music.
“I think that I have kind of gotten into the routine of driving to fade away into my music,” she said. “I think it’s a routine now where I gather my thoughts every single day when I’m driving to school because it takes about 40 minutes to an hour to get to school. Having that time to just only be with myself in my thoughts, I think that that’s become a routine for me.”