“I aspire to use my education to continue this mission of pushing for financial awareness for everyone,” says Mosammad K. “Truly, this field needs representation of women of color to provide a gateway for those who do not have the education to do so themselves.” This Girl on the Rise readily recognizes that her Bangladeshi culture is “wonderful, but a gap in progression exists.” She is fueled by correcting this for all women to come. To that end, she also wants to get her MBA and become a venture capitalist.

What is something you are most proud of?

StuyHustles is a club I founded in my freshman year because I found myself very limited with the programs I was able to apply to because of lack of work experience. I recognized that this was a common problem many students dealt with as we are full-time students and just started high school.

I joined every business- and finance-related seminar I could get my hands on and started my club. Within Stuyhustles, I help students create a startup based off of any skill they may have — from calculus tutoring to crocheting! I firmly believe that branding and marketing can take any idea and expand it.

Running this club for the entirety of my high-school career has been a learning experience to say the least: I learned to better communicate with people, organize schedules, research content, create aesthetically pleasing presentations, appoint secondary leaders/assign roles, and generally how to be a good leader which I then applied to all the organizations I participated in after.

While creating a startup was the focus, I also found opportunities to research a variety of topics I didn’t know a lot about (websites, resumes, networking, pitching, e-commerce, marketing, etc.) and invite guest speakers, including business professionals, CEOs, and more.

Overall, we ended with 300 members, being in the top 15% of clubs at Stuyvesant. I have helped people fall in love with and learn about business alongside me, improve their confidence in pitching themselves, and fund their endeavors. This experience has undoubtedly been my most meaningful endeavor and passion project in high school in terms of shaping my career pathway. I love working with people and creating projects that showcase our interests and want to pursue this throughout college and beyond.

Have you gone through any tough or challenging times? If yes, how did you deal with those challenges?

I think back to an interaction with one specific guest speaker who worked in business technology. He had been waiting at Stuyvesant High School’s lobby for my vice president and me. Once I spotted him, I reached my hand out to greet him and his first response was ‘Hi, do you know a Mosammad?’ He didn’t realize I was the president of this club.

He then turned to my Black vice president and proceeded to ask him the same thing as neither of us fit into the white male expectation he had for someone running a business finance club. This interaction was truly awakening to me — as I recognized this white male in a field I aspire to be in could initially not wrap his head around the fact that a Bengali woman ran this finance club.

This moment truly empowered me to emphasize the need and importance to have women of color represented in this field. To pursue this, I hosted female-specific meetings which had more female turnout than usual, later increasing female turnout in general.

What does it mean to you to be selected as a Girl on the Rise?

It means i get to participate in a helpful community who will help me achieve my life goals.

What inspired you to want to be involved with Girls on the Rise?

I wanted to be around a helpful community and get funding for my endeavors.

How will funding from the 1,000 Dreams Fund help you reach your goals? In other words: Why is the opportunity to visit your prospective colleges important to your journey?

It will help my family with funding college visits and even help with funding for my SAT prep.

What schools will you use the funding to visit, and why?

i would really like to visit Cornell and Harvard because they are known to be excellent — and I think I actually have a shot at Cornell!