Following Her Purpose

Charu Gaur ’17 made the leap from her home in India to Forman as a midyear junior student. She recalls seeking a school that better accommodated her learning needs with ADHD and was eager for a change. 

“I went to four different schools in India, trying to find myself in an environment that would fit, where I would thrive better,” she says. “I had different interests in mind that were not aligned with the curriculum that was provided in the Indian education.” 

After her interview at Forman, Charu’s life changed quickly. “I was there in ten days—figuring out my visa, saying bye to my friends from my school and my family, packing up, and moving to a whole new country,” she says. 

Charu was greeted with a snowstorm—a stark contrast to her home in India, where temperatures rarely go below 70 degrees—but found warmth from Forman’s community. 

“Everyone was just so welcoming, like my dorm parent, Ms. (Sandy) Garcia,” Charu says. “My dorm had a few international students, too, who I closely resonated with.” 

Ms. Garcia was more than a dorm parent; she was also Charu’s Art Teacher. “Art was my favorite subject … I found my love for art, and I still continue going to a lot of art classes around me because it helps me fulfill my inner child,” Charu adds, noting that she enrolled in Art classes every semester, from painting to ceramics to jewelry making. 

Forman surprised Charu with the many opportunities available to immerse herself in. 

“You’re telling me that I can get a saw and make a ring? That’s crazy! And you’re telling me that I can do theater as part of my sports [requirement]? You’re telling me that I can play basketball after school?” she recalls thinking. “I had so much exposure to all these different activities and all these different things that no other school would have been able to offer me.” 

With ADHD, Charu struggles at times to articulate her thoughts, adding that it feels as if her mind is “running with one million different thoughts per minute.” At Forman, she says executive function coaching and her teachers were great resources. “All the teachers really motivated the students to come and see them after class and made sure that you’re on top of things,” she says. “They were always readily available.” 

A highlight for Charu was her time in the Rainforest Project, which she considers a life-changing experience and one that boosted her confidence in public speaking. Her participation in Dissertation Day prepared her with the skills to present to large crowds in her career today. She also credits the support she received from Science Teacher and Rainforest Project Director Wendy Welshans P’24 for her willingness to go on the trip. 

“I don’t know if I would have signed up for it, but there was just so much support around me,” she says.“[The support] was overwhelming in the best way possible in that it just pushed you forward to do it.” 

Charu attended Ithaca College, where she initially set out to become a dentist. However, a realization one day in the lab changed everything. She recalls asking herself, “If I had a drill in my hand, would I rather be drilling someone’s teeth, or would I rather be drilling a jewel?” 

“I started exploring from there. I switched to business, and I took a few business classes, but I realized that was really not for me,” she continues. “Then I took up cultural communications … And I [thought] this will be a great aspect for me to combine where I come from and learn more from people. I learned so much about culture during my time at Forman because my closest friends were from different countries.” 

Once she shifted gears, Charu found that she really enjoyed marketing, which allowed her to be creative and work closely with others. After college, she worked at the U.S. Department of State and as a recruiter at Audible before starting at Datadog, a monitoring and security platform for cloud applications, three years ago. Today, Charu lives in New York City and serves as the Corporate Marketing Manager of Global Social Media. Reflecting on her journey, Charu encourages current students to seek out their purpose. 

“Find your purpose and find who you are, go with that mindset, and live life. My purpose was clearly to do something with creativity. I ended up in marketing, not in pre-med,” she says. “Know where your best interest lies. You already have that skill, so just polish it up and present it to the real world because everyone is unique in their own different ways.”

This article was originally published in Forman School's Fall 2024 Forman Letter magazine.