Aliya Zakir

After making an impromptu schedule change, I found myself in first period Honors Astronomy where I caught a glimpse of Aliya sitting at one of the tables. In what I consider to be the crack of dawn, struggling with a perplexing Hubble’s Law lab and the math, I struck up a conversation with her as we debated whose graphs were correct (I still could not tell you who was right). 

As we sat together, sharing our worries, troubles, successes and celebrations, I came to understand three important things about Aliya. She confronts challenges head-on, fearlessly pushes boundaries and seeks out innovation. Above all, she’s someone you can count on to provide a lending hand in a time of need. 

I have called upon her multiple times for help when I needed a photo, needed advice on a situation or even revising her own designs for the opinions section. Over time, Aliya has become much more than just a peer or a classmate, she has become a trusted confidant who I can rely on to always tell me the truth and provide me support during times of uncertainty. 

So, as we navigated the year together, despite being in different Sidekick class periods, Aliya was right next to me as we cowered in fear because of Monty the rattlesnake being out of his terrarium and as we engaged in our daily yoga and Qigong breaks. 

As former social media manager and current convergence editor, Aliya has certainly made her mark on the program as one of the most reliable and versatile staffers in our program. Despite her initial hesitancy about designing pages, Aliya was willing to give it a shot and has established herself as one of our most creative and innovative page designers. She oversees our video production with ease and has played an essential role in moving us towards a more multimedia centric program. 

I cannot begin to thank Aliya enough for being a steady presence, always there in that first period astronomy class, always there to crack a joke and make me laugh, always there to give me advice in a time of need and always there to simply be the amazing friend that she is.