Anisha Holla

You know … the most life-changing interaction I’ve ever had was with a 5-year-old girl named Hope. It was back when I was volunteering at the Dallas homeless shelter when I met her. She was a resident there with her mom. Together, the two of them had bounced back and forth between two different cities, three different shelters and four different families in the span of a single year.

But let me tell you, there was something about this girl that I’ll never forget. This little girl Hope didn’t know where her next meal was coming from, where her next temporary home would be, or where she’d end up the next day. But somehow Hope just always had the biggest smile on her face. I know she had big dreams, plans and aspirations for the future. But what I noticed is that she was never caught up in the unpredictability of it all. Never did I catch her worrying about what was coming next. She lived with joy, courage and resilience, only focused on the right here and right now.

I’d like you to raise your hand if you ever — in your life — were asked what do you want to be when you grow up?  Oh, how I hate that question. I don’t know about you all, but my answers weren’t too consistent. In elementary school, I wanted to be a police officer. Did anyone else want to be a cop when they were younger? It just sounded so cool. I wanted to chase robbers, stop bad guys and ride around with blaring police sirens.

In middle school, my answer changed to detective. I wanted to spot clues, crack mysteries, find fingerprints on furniture items just like they did in my favorite movies.

But then, in high school, my answer shifted once more. I had decided that I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to save lives, perform surgeries, cure people. Who are my future med school students in the crowd? Congrats to you guys. I had trouble sticking to that, too.

But it’s interesting. From a cop chasing robbers to a detective solving clues to a doctor saving lives, yet, here I am, starting a full-time position as a business analyst, coding 9-to-5 behind my laptop for a living. Obviously, humans aren’t the best at predicting the future.

But it’s interesting. We never stop trying. How many of you can say your dreams and career aspirations have changed over the years? A lot of you, it seems like. But it’s interesting. Every single day of our lives, we’re still sitting here trying. Trying to predict the future. Our brains are programmed to always try and determine what’s going to happen next. As students in the School of Behavioral and Brain Science, we’ve had plenty of training on how to do this. But if there’s one thing this wild, wild journey at UT Dallas has taught me, it’s that much of life can’t be forecasted, diagrammed or simplified to a science — as much as we want it to be. Guys, if I had a dollar for every time I predicted something wrong in my life, I think I’d probably have enough money to buy out this whole auditorium. There was a time I predicted that I would be the first professional female football player. Imagine! A professional football player at UTD — a school that has pep rallies for its chess team!

So, this question of what do you want to be when you grow up? I have a suggestion: What if we changed the question just a little? Just one word. From what do you want to be to who do you want to be? Imagine the different responses we would get.

“Mom, I want to be accomplished.”

“Dad, I want to be respected.”

“Auntie, grandma, I want to be a college graduate.”

Guys, we’ve all faced challenges. It wasn’t easy getting here. This spot we’re standing in right now … it’s a spot that only 38% of this country makes it to. But we’re here. We’re all here, not because we knew what we wanted to be but because we knew who we wanted to be.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the people in the crowd who have made this possible for me. Thank my parents, Sudhir and Seema, who always pushed me to do my best. Thank my brother, Aditya, who was annoying at times but taught me to be patient and compassionate. And thank my friends, who made these last four years a real journey. A worthwhile journey.

And I’d like to thank Hope, the little girl at the homeless shelter who probably doesn’t even know I exist. But who, to this day, has changed the way I live my life. I’d like to thank her for teaching me not to spend every second of every day trying to predict the future. For teaching me to live in the here. To live in the now.

Think about it — if you went back and told your 5-year-old self what you are right now, would they be happy? If your dream was to be a cop back then, and now you’re a psychologist like me, maybe not. But think instead, if you went back in time, and told that same 5-year-old self who you are right now: a college graduate. An alumna of UT Dallas who has stood against the odds of the universe to be standing here today, graduating. In this crowd, I don’t see any whats. I see whos. I don’t see just the cops, the detectives, the doctors, the psychologists, the speech language pathologists, the researchers, the neuroscientists, the teachers. I see people who I know are going to change this world, not with what they are. But with who they are. In this crowd, I see the brave. I see the resilient. I see the change makers. I see the persistent. I see the selfless. I see the kind. I see hope.

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Anisha Holla is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, as a member of UTD’s Collegium V, National Merit Scholars Program and the Eugene McDermott Scholars Program. She took a year away from UTD to study psychology in Madrid and later work at the White House, where she met President Joe Biden four times. Holla was an undergraduate research assistant at the Neurobiology of Memory Lab and has published a research paper on adolescent mental health.She has been involved in several UTD organizations including Palette Hope, Brain Exercise Initiative, the American Red Cross and Bring Change to Mind. She has written a book on the overachiever mindset, started a mental health podcast series and works with the UTD Student Wellness Center on various UTD mental health initiatives. In her free time, Holla is a huge foodie. She is a food writer for the Dallas Observer and started her own company, FoodiFy,which has helped match 150 Dallas restaurants with food influencers on social media. For the impact her company has had on Dallas’ mom-and-pop restaurant scene, Holla and her startup have been recognized by local and national media outlets, including D magazine, CNN and others. Her company also received recognition in entrepreneurial competitions, including the Entrepreneurs’ OrganizationGlobal, the Texas Business Hall of Fame, Founders Live and UTD’s Big Idea Competition. Most recently, she was named one of West Dallas’ most inspiring stories of 2024 by VoyageDallas. After graduation, she plans to join Capital One as a business analyst and work on scaling FoodiFy nationally.