Saniya Koppikar

Saniya’s a little bit of everything. She’s incredibly smart, she’s a musician, she claims she’s not a coder  (but she is) and she’s a true journalist.

I met Saniya last year when we roomed together at DECA. I knew her beforehand, but hadn’t had the chance to converse with her in a non-Sidekick related manner. It was there, in the hotel room, that I learned three things about Saniya: she’s unconventionally obsessed with cringy rom-coms, she’s everything but judgmental and she’s a Sidekicker at heart.

We were told not to work on anything Sidekick-related over our trip, but there she was, every night, working on one story or another. I don’t think she felt obligated to finish up something an editor had assigned her, she just loved the idea of writing. You can see how much she has a way with words in every single story she has written. Each word flows with the next, forming a story that will forever be ingrained in your mind.

Saniya and I have the same coding class this year. Her time in class is usually allocated into four different sections. She starts off with her codeHS assignment, but somehow ends up doing the New York Times crossword. She then pulls out her stats homework and writes down her practice problems in her tiny notebook, which I personally think is meant for journaling. She then leaves the last 20 minutes of class to do anything Sidekick related. Usually, that means reading over some long news story I ask her to edit or typing away at her computer as she churns out another story. 

With every assignment she takes on, Saniya pushes out the best quality work you’ll ever see. She edits my stories with ease and fixes each and every punctuation, grammar or factual mistake she sees. Her stories win awards left and right, for she has mastered her craft and truly is one of the best writers we have on staff. She is so influential in our program, and she is the writer we all aspire to be.