Senior Smayana Kurapati has spent her time at Pepperdine curating community.
Ahead of graduation, Kurapati is reflecting on the past four years of her involvement on campus as part of the Student Wellness Advisory Board, Women in STEM and Gamma Phi Beta. After starting her first year on Zoom, she said she was determined to have a real college experience.
“I love just being involved in things,” Kurapati said. “So by putting on events and going into these events, it really allows me to be more involved with the student body — especially people that I probably would never have interacted with.”
SWAB
Kurapati joined SWAB when she first came to Pepperdine in 2020 because she wanted to find a way to meet other students remotely. She said she looked into the Student Government Association and The Student Programming Board, but she resonated best with the wellness goals of SWAB.
“I was given the most opportunity to connect with the students [in SWAB],” Kurapati said.
Aside from the one semester she went abroad, Kurapati has been a part of SWAB for her entire Pepperdine journey. During her junior year, she reached her goal of leading one of the organization’s branches — Healthy Communities.
“My branch holds an event at least once a month, if not more often,” Kurapati said. “And so it’s really nice because I can see how students are reacting to things, how they’re responding to things and if they’re actually taking information, which was a big draw to Healthy Communities for me.”
One reason Kurapati said she stuck with SWAB is its emphasis on overall wellness. She said the holistic outlook of SWAB’s events and the efforts it promotes are important for college students.
“It’s not just mental health or physical health, but relational health,” Kurapati said. “We’re focused on having good health, just personally and spiritually.”
Senior Cassie Kinnear, Kurapati’s co-president in SWAB’s Healthy Bodies branch, said Kurapati’s dedication to supporting the student body is impressive.
“She is very enthusiastic and reliable,” Kinnear said. “Working with her, she’s just always excited to do things.”
Women in STEM
Kurapati is a biology major on the pre-med track, and said she has been attending Women in STEM meetings since she was a sophomore.
When a friend asked if she wanted to apply for an open position on the executive board at the end of her junior year, Kurapati said she knew she wanted to be part of the movement to empower other women.
“It’s focused on giving women a voice in the field, especially at the school [program], which is heavily male-dominated,” Kurapati said. “It gives an opportunity to meet with women mentors in other STEM fields, and also just have a good camaraderie with other women in STEM.”
Being part of this group gives Kurapati a foundation for her future career, which she said she is “very grateful for.”
“I have been able to meet a lot of people — both upperclassmen and underclassmen — who are on similar paths that I want, or had careers that I was thinking about,” Kurapati said. “I was able to communicate with them and hear their perspectives and their stories about why they chose that path or career.”
Kurapati also said she appreciates learning from people she might not have come across had it not been for the club.
Gamma Phi Beta
From the beginning of her time at Pepperdine, Kurapati has been a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority. Fall 2020’s remote recruitment enticed her to participate.
“It really helped me find my place at Pepperdine, which, was like my biggest worry,” Kurapati said.
Kurapati is now president of Gamma Phi Beta. Just weeks from graduation, Kurapati said she could not imagine not joining.
“Thinking to three-and-a-half years later and I am the president of this sorority, it was a crazy jump,” Kurapati said. “It is amazing because I found a really good group of girls.”
Unlike her other roles, Kurapati said she enjoys the escape Gamma Phi Beta provides her from school life.
“GPhi is kind of like its own thing, it just exists at Pepperdine,” Kurapati said. “So it’s really nice. It’s nice to just kind of focus on something else that isn’t purely Pepperdine related.”
Looking toward the future
Kurapati decided to take it easy during her final semester as a college student, only enrolling in nine units so she could dedicate her time to the organizations she belongs to. She said she will soon take the MCAT and begin applying to medical schools, so she is focusing on nurturing the relationships she has made at Pepperdine.
“This is the last time I probably will get to be living with all my friends,” Kurapati said.
Her SWAB adviser calls post-grad the “afterlife,” a concept Kurapati remembers because it conveys how many students feel at this time of transition in their lives.
“You don’t know what to expect, because you’ve never been there, and also it’s different for everybody,” Kurapati said. “The anticipation of the afterlife for me is enjoying my time now, but also knowing that my future is important and that I have to put time into prioritizing it.”
______________________
Contact Liza Esquibias by email: liza.esquibias@pepperdine.edu
Follow Currents Magazine on Twitter: @PeppCurrents and Instagram: @currentsmagazine
