Purnank Gandhi thanks family, Rutgers and the Educational Opportunity Fund
A decade ago when Purnank Gandhi entered eighth grade in Salem County, speaking almost no English, he wanted nothing more than to get on a plane and go back home to India. He missed his friends, didn’t like living in a motel and was frustrated that he had to learn English instead of using his native Gujarati which was spoken by everyone he had ever known.
Today, the 24-year-old Rutgers student who will graduate as valedictorian from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, with a 3.99 GPA, is looking to the future: working as a retail pharmacist, having a family, and, most important, getting his parents out of the motel where they have lived and worked as desk clerks since they left their homeland at the beginning of the new millennium to give their children a better life.
“I have always felt that I have an obligation to get my parents out of the motel because they have done so much for me and my sisters,” says Gandhi, who only recently learned that he had earned the coveted number one class ranking. “I now want to be able to give back to them.”
He also wants to pay tribute to family members, teachers, and mentors who, he says, played a big part in his academic accomplishments. These include: ranking number one in the class of 212 pharmacy students, being named an Edward J. Bloustein Scholar, making the dean’s list throughout his university career, receiving six academic scholarships, and being recognized for his academic promise by the state Educational Opportunity Fund Program, which provides financial and academic assistance to low-income residents who excel.
Tops on his thank you list besides his parents is his uncle. His father’s brother encouraged his father and mother to migrate to the United States and told the teenage Gandhi – who remembers calling his friends in India daily to tell them he would be home soon – to give himself one year to adjust to his new country.
And then there were his two high school teachers. One helped him learn and speak English; the other sparked his love for chemistry. He also can’t forget the pharmacist he has worked for and learned from over the past five years.
“These people really contributed to my success,” says Gandhi, whose twin sisters are juniors at the Rutgers Business School in Newark. “They believed in me and saw something in me even when I didn’t see it in myself.”
When Gandhi came to the United States in 2000, he says he went through school feeling lost. In India, he spent a lot of time with friends, visiting their homes; here, he often felt alone and isolated.
“You go to school day to day but you are not really learning anything at first because you can’t understand the language so you don’t know what you are listening to,” says Gandhi.
But by the time Gandhi entered the 10th grade, his uncle’s prediction that life would get better came true. He felt more comfortable with his new language, became a high school honor student, and started to think about his future in his adopted country.
At first he thought about becoming a civil engineer, following in the footsteps of his beloved uncle. But instead, he decided to become a pharmacist like his cousin and combine his love of chemistry with the knowledge that he could help others manage their health care.
Rutgers, he decided, was the place he could make his dream happen. He liked the diversity, felt comfortable in his new environment and thrived. He was president of Chi Alpha Epsilon Honors Society, treasurer of the student pharmaceutical, Rho Chi Honors Society, and held leadership positions in other national student pharmaceutical associations.
At 19, about a year after he began the six-year pharmacy program at Rutgers, Gandhi became an American citizen. Over the next five years, he followed his own rule to study hard and gain the knowledge that he needed to do well. He tutored other pharmacy students and worked as a library assistant in the Mathematical Sciences Library when he wasn’t working at the Acme Pharmacy.
Earning his pharmacy degree makes him feel as if he has a purpose in life and a reason for his journey from India to the United States. He is off to Brownsville, Texas, in July to take a job at a CVS Pharmacy, the first step, he says, in becoming financially able to give back to his family for all that they have done for him.