Atif Zaidi

A Brilliant Young Pakistani, who brings pride for Pakistan due to his brilliant performance.

Belonging to the family of an army officer Mr. Atif Zaidi had the opportunity to attend an assortment of schools. By the time he reached 9th class he had attended quite a few prominent schools including Saint Mary's Academy, Rawalpindi and Saint Anthony's High School, Lahore. His 9th and 10th class saw him studying at Army Public School, Sialkot.

He had the fortune of topping Gujranwala Board with 92 percent marks in the board exams of class 10. For this feat he was given the award of "Top Student" by the school. In class 9 he was chosen to hold the rank of a "Senior Prefect".

His interests also lay in taking part in sports and extracurricular activities. Atif was the captain of the Hockey and Track and Field teams and vice captain of the cricket team. To this day he holds the school record in the 100 meters sprint and long jumps. He regularly took part in both urdu and English debates and speeches and always annexed first position. In light of his performance in studies and overall accomplishments Atif became the "Headboy" of the school in class 10.

This is the highest honour and position that can be bestowed upon any student in that school. Under his command he had 2 Head Prefects, 10 Senior Prefects and 20 Junior Prefects. Since he had also been a Senior Prefect in class 9, he knew most of the duties of this office before hand and had little difficulty in fulfilling them.

After taking his board exams Atif came to Lahore and opted to study at F.C. College, pursuing Pre-Engineering. His performance in both first and second year was quite exceptional and he passed his FSc exams with A+ grade. Studies at the college level gave him little time for extracurricular activities.

However, his passion for cricket kept him abreast with the sport and he actively took part in competitions. The National Cadet Core training of the college saw him become the Platoon Commander, the highest rank awarded to any cadet during the course of this training.

Quite a bit of his time in first and second year of college was spent in obtaining information about universities in the United States, corresponding with them and deciding which university he wanted to apply to. This took away from his time even more and kept him from participating in college events.

Atif applied for admission to New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) to pursue the degree of Bachelor of Science (BS) in the field of Electrical Engineering and was readily admitted.

All international students newly admitted to NJIT have to take placement tests which determines their calibre. This helps the university in deciding which courses the student should start his studies with.

Atif's results in those exams led the university to offer him Honours Courses and to invite him to join the Honours Program as well. It is not enough for students to simply take Honours courses to graduate with honours. For that purpose they have to have been scholars in the Honours Program throughout the tenure of their studies as well.

According to NJIT's policy students cannot apply to this program themselves. It is upto the university to decide whom it finds fit to be invited as a scholar to this program.

In the United States, usually students my graduate with honours by simply attaining a Grade Point Average (GPA) of more than 3.4. But universities with higher standards offer the students an opportunity to graduate with university honours as well, the requirements for which are declared separately and are much more difficult to fulfil.

For this reason graduating with university honours is considered to be far more prestigious than simply graduating with national honours. It usually requires the students to maintain a GPA of much more than 3.4 and to fulfil other requirements that the university has set to maintain a higher level of education while at the same time preparing the student for the practical world.

As stated before, according to NJIT's policy, to graduate with honours from the university the student's performance has to be satisfactory enough for the university to invite him to the program.

Atif holds the honour of being the "First Pakistani at New Jersey Institute of Technology to Graduate with both University and National Honours".

Upon graduating from NJIT he was bestowed upon two separate degrees. One of graduating as a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and other one of Graduating with Honours from New Jersey Institute of Technology.

While still at NJIT pursuing his bachelors degree he was inducted into two Honours Societies as well. The first one was "Eta Kappa Nu", the Honours Society for all Electrical and Computer Engineers in the United States and the second one was "Tau Beta Pi", the Honours Society for all Engineers pursuing a bachelors degree.

The method of being inducted into these societies is by invitation as well. Again, one cannot apply to them. The criteria of Eta Kappa Nu is that the student must be among the top 5% of all Electrical and Computer Engineers in the university at the time of his induction. Tau Beta Pi looks for the student to be in the top 8% of all Engineering students in the university.

Apart from this during his studies he was offered internship at Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals as well where he received two awards for excellence in performance.

It was a great honour for a Pakistani that after his graduation Atif was offered a job at AT&T, the largest communications company in the world where he has been working as a Software Engineer. Alongside, he is also pursuing a masters degree (MS) in Computer Science and currently holds the perfect GPA of 4.0.

Atif's interests lie in both indoor and outdoor activities. He enjoys surfing the Internet and maintains a homepage at http://megahertz.njit.edu/~aaz6893/main.htm.

Apart from that he enjoys reading, listening to music, and playing chess and bridge to name a few. In sports he likes to play cricket, hockey, and squash. He also has a passion for skiing, a sport he picked up only after going to the States.

In music he enjoys listening to an assortment of singers both Pakistani and foreign.

Atif also likes to play the guitar. In Urdu literature he likes to read both prose and poetry. His favourite poet is Mirza Asad Ullah Khan 'Ghalib'. In English literature he admires the writings of mystery authors, especially Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the genius who created Sherlock Holmes.

Atif's ambition in life can easily be summed up by what 'Hali' said in one of his verses: "Hai justujoo keh khoob say hai khoob tar kahan..."

Or by what 'Einstein' once said: "I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details."

In fact, this young Pakistani Atif has established a good example not for Pakistani youth, but for all the youth of third world countries that on basis of hard work, devotion and commitment, anyone can achieve the goal of success in life.

Pakistani nation is proud of this young man who brings a good name for it.