By Luke Woodling | Photo by Scott Cook
Cosmopolitan Coder Shree Raj Shrestha ’17’s journey from Nepal to Rollins to a top tech company.
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or the first 19 years of his life, Shree Raj Shrestha ’17 rarely left the city of his birth. Save for the rare visit to his grandmother’s countryside home, he never ventured beyond Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley. In fact, the first time Shrestha left Nepal, he flew to Winter Park to interview for Rollins’ Alfond Scholarship. He earned that scholarship, and since arriving at Rollins in the fall of 2013, Shrestha has engineered a college experience that would rival any in the country in its richness and reach. He majored in math and computer science and studied everything from U.S. immigration law to existentialism in film. He did real-world research, developing a mobile app with history professor Julian Chambliss and designing a computer simulation based on Darwin’s evolutionary theory with business professor Richard Lewin. He studied math and philosophy in Germany and pottery and marketing in Japan. He traveled to Qatar and Spain to participate in the WISE Learners’ Voice Program, which brings together students from around the world to address pressing education issues. Last summer, he interned at Amazon in Seattle and created an app that was used for Prime Day, the retailing behemoth’s annual global shopping celebration. Ten days after he graduates this spring, Shrestha will return to Amazon as a software developer. “Rollins has meant pretty much everything to me,” he says. “Without the Alfond Scholarship, I wouldn’t have the friends, family, and support I found at Rollins. Everything I am now is because of the Alfond Scholarship.”
4 | WINTER 2017
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