International student becomes international fundraiser

Zarnigar Zahra Khwaja ’09 arrived in Mount Vernon, Iowa, as a freshman from Lahore, the teeming, ancient capital of Punjab province in Pakistan with approximately 10 million people. This was her first trip to the United States.

How daunting was it for a Pakistani teenager to come halfway around the world and take up residence in a college community of 4,500 in the heartland? “I had no choice but to stay,” she laughed, recalling the transition. “Once my mother left without me, I had no way to return.”

To say she adjusted is an understatement. Khwaja hit it off well with her U.S. roommate, built friendships that last today, wrote for The Cornellian, mentored local school girls in Lunch Buddies and GIRLSS Group, and participated in Best Buddies (developing relationships with people with developmental disabilities)—en route to graduating Phi Beta Kappa.

She says in many ways getting acclimated was easier at Cornell than Harvard, where she graduated in May from its M.B.A. program. As a Harvard student she interned in Tokyo with Rakuten, a major Japanese e-commerce company. She now works for SquareTrade, Inc., in San Francisco as website product manager.

As her global resume grows, she remains linked to her native Pakistan through family and as a foundation officer for Barkat Jan Primary School for Girls. She provides fundraising and proposal writing for the school in Lahore that provides free education for underprivileged girls and a springboard to secondary levels.

“I do fundraising and proposal writing,” she said. “Education can be uphill for girls in my country, especially at the elementary level. Very often if there is a boy and a girl in a family with limited resources for school, they go to the boy and the girl is expected to simply get married.”

She also stays linked to the Hilltop. “I never had much trouble adjusting at Cornell,” she said. “The school made a real effort to help international students adjust.”