At just 13 years old, Danish Rai moved to a new city and away from his family to get the best education he could. Rai is now a few short months away from graduation.
Rai is originally from a small village in Pakistan and came to Plattsburgh State as an international student to study accounting and business administration with a minor in economics.
He moved to a bigger village called Karachi to get his education. There, he received his primary and secondary education.
“When I was in my village, there was no school, so I had to move to a different city, and I started living all by myself,” Rai said. “So I’ve been living all by myself for like quite some time now, probably like eight years, until now I’ve been living like away from my family.”
Rai decided to come to PSUC to further his education. Rai had a friend that attended PSUC, and after doing some research and discovering he could complete his Certified Public Accountant certificate with his degree, he decided to apply.
Rai said his father, Lajpat Rai, is his biggest inspiration and that he was given a similar choice of staying at home or going away to study business to support his family and opted for business. Rai said his father dropped out of college, started a business and got married without anybody’s help. He hopes to be like his father.
“We were very poor and underprivileged when my father was young, and he brought up the entire family, and now we are very well off just because of him and the struggles and sacrifices he made throughout his life,” Rai said. “I look up to him a lot when it comes to that, and every time I feel like giving up I look up to him and feel like ‘Hey this guy kept going on, regardless of how much trouble he got.’”
Rai has followed in his father’s footsteps, and he will be graduating this May after completing his undergraduate degree in three years. Rai is also a stand-out student to his professors.
According to Professor of Accounting Mohamed Gaber, Rai is a visionary, passionate about education, has respect for others, is culturally diverse, has excellent leadership potential and is friendly. He said Rai can also handle multiple and demanding projects efficiently, be on-time and achieve highly successful outcomes with them.
On top of focusing on his academics, Rai has also been a resident assistant in Harrington Hall, as well as the former president of the Accounting and Finance Association on campus.
Rai’s friend Sujin An was also a part of the association’s board, and she talked about what it was like to work with Rai.
“He was the president, and I was the treasurer for the club,” An said. “It was really nice to work with him running the club, and creating the budget and stuff like that.”
When Rai isn’t focusing on school work, he likes to watch different TV series, especially “Game of Thrones.” He also likes to go out, watch movies, play ping-pong, work out and hang out with friends.
“Danish is one of the smartest people I know,” friend Ameet Kumar said. “He is very ambitious and is very passionate about his work and career. He is also very caring and a great friend. He is always there for you when you need him.”
With his graduation right around the corner, Rai is very excited. He hopes his parents can come to attend graduation. Rai is also excited to come back to PSUC in the fall to attend graduate school and receive his degree in data analytics. After graduation, he has a job lined up to work at Deloitte, a multinational professional services network.
Going through college, Rai has some advice for students on not giving up.
Rai believes that a lot of students need to learn how to keep striving, being motivated and keep putting in their work because whenever they are in a situation they don’t always see the bigger picture. Instead, they start looking for problems, but the bigger picture is always there.
“I feel like a lot of times I see students, they give up easily and that might be because things in the past have come in easy but they need to understand that life doesn’t give everything easy and if there is something that you get easily, you don’t appreciate it,” Rai said. “Once you start looking at the bigger picture you know where you’re coming from and you know where you’re trying to go. Those tiny problems then don’t matter and that’s when you start finding other loopholes and other ways to reach that point rather than just giving up where you are right now.”
