"CHARU DON'T WASTE THAT PAPER TOWEL!" I heard my mom shout from a different room. "How did you even know I was using a paper towel?" I wondered, as I flattened the crumpled sheet for the next person to use. My Asian immigrant parents are the "sustainability OGs", as they like to call themselves. When we had a lesson on the Great Pacific Garbage path in 6th grade Earth science, I was unable simply to move on to the next topic. Knowing that the plastics we use every day will never, ever disappear from the oceans struck a chord in me that no other lesson had. On the way home from school, I mentioned this to my mom and she lamented "I wish they still did things like they did in India, when I was growing up." Confused, I asked her to elaborate. Growing up in America, especially before the modern environmental movement, I was used to a culture of convenience. People bought new machines instead of repairing old ones and happily grabbed an extra couple of plastic bags at the store. My mom contrasted her upbringing in India with mine. “I used to take Paatti’s (the Tamil word for grandmother) metal box to the store to get spices. To bring sugar, we put it in a rolled-up newspaper and tie the top with a jute string. We didn't have the luxury of plastic." I'd never heard plastic described as a luxury before. My parents carried this mindset of disposability being equal to luxury to the U.S, even when our family could afford plastic dishes. We reused every single sauce container from the store and transitioned old clothes to cleaning rags rather than throwing them out. Our Indian culture presents as one of conservation and respect for the Earth, something I am extremely proud of. My parents' mindset combined with my attention to the Earth turned into a fervent passion for sustainability I carried through high school and into college. At Tufts, I'm majoring in Data Science & Environmental Studies, hoping to ideate a technical solution to our environmental problems. To get more involved in this field, I joined the Tufts Office of Sustainability as a Program Intern. Here, I was responsible for coordinating between office groups, such as the Green Fund and Communications groups, to ensure that events were zero-waste and got plenty of student attention. Furthermore, I planned EarthFest by reaching out to over 80 organizations and garnering ~400 student participants. But somehow, it wasn't enough. I wanted to make an impact on the Somerville/Medford community where Tufts is located, not only on the students attending. In order to do this, I founded the Tufts National Student Data Corps (NSDC) Chapter, with the main goal of using project-based collaboration to make data-driven decisions to help local small businesses. We have contacted an environmental nonprofit that teaches elementary schoolers sustainability using hands-on learning principles. Students are in the process of learning data science skills to be able to accurately clean and visualize the nonprofit's marketing data. Although this club is in its nascent stages of development, my team and I have amassed over 70 students passionate about making an impact on their community. While I'm extremely proud of our club's ability to utilize Tableau and PL/pgSQL to help the environment, I know fancy code isn't always necessary. As my parents and grandparents taught me, just by reusing my plastic spoon and walking instead of driving, we can all make a difference.

"Medium cold brew, please", I said. Swiping my card, I looked at the worker I had already seen twice that day. It was my third cold brew of that day and I was exhausted. Instead of actually sleeping, I had fallen into an unfortunate cycle of drinking cold brew to fend off tiredness and then being too jittery to sleep, and thus needing more caffeine the next day. My energy kept spiking and crashing, not letting me do the work that desperately needed to be done. "You should try matcha", I heard my friend next to me say. "That's tea, though. It won't give me enough energy to survive the day." I retorted. I had always shied away from matcha, thinking it to be somewhat like black tea, and not giving me the boost in energy that I needed. However, inspired by that comment, I decided to give it a shot the next day. Suddenly, I found myself being able to actually get things done. My hands weren't shaking and I could focus. With my newfound success in matcha, I decided to Google it and discovered it was a "superfood". I scoured the list of superfoods and their benefits, and ended up discovering a multitude of amazing foods. Some were things I had already incorporated into my diet as a vegetarian, such as broccoli and leafy greens. However, some were new and I realized they might be able to help mitigate some problems I faced. Since I had always struggled to get enough protein while minimizing carbs, I saw that soybeans and tofu would help me meet this goal. After that year ended, which was my first year in university, I was cooking for myself for the first time. As I scanned the Trader Joe's aisles, my memory of Googling superfoods came back to me. While my parents did vaguely remind me to be healthy, I didn't have much knowledge on the macronutrients in my food. However, I tossed some tofu and edamame in the cart, knowing that, at the very least, these superfoods would at least help me balance out the frozen Mac n' Cheese in my cart. At home, I realized there was a myriad of recipes to be made with this tofu. I could crumble it up and roast it in the oven to make an eerily similar beef substitute to be used in chilli. I could air fry it with soy glaze and serve over rice. I could blend soft tofu into smoothies for a protein boost. The possibilities were truly endless. Tofu was able to make my summer a lot healthier, and combined with a strong gym routine, I was finally able to stray away from the 3-a-day cold brew habit that my freshman year created. Without matcha and tofu, my health may not be in the shape it is today. I can thank my physique and well-being to these superfoods, the ones that will always help me avoid that next cold brew.