From the president
For the past two years, Azeem has been active in UCF’s LEAD Scholars Academy (a selective leadership development program) focuses on academics and community service for incoming first-year students who have demonstrated a commitment to these areas during their time in high school. Beyond LEAD Scholars, Azeem continues to display a dedication to scholarship, leadership development, and community service. Most notably, as the president of BookShacks, a no-cost book exchange program he created with a group of friends that has grown to include three lending libraries on UCF’s main campus with dozens of books in their inventory. BookShacks’ goal is to encourage student reading for relaxation, well-being, and community building, inviting participants to engage indirectly with their peers by sharing stories that they have enjoyed with others. Azeem has also served our campus and community as an undergraduate research assistant; a discharge coordinator for Shepherd’s Hope, a free clinic for uninsured citizens of Central Florida; a volunteer at Dr. Phillips Hospital; an honors orientation ambassador; and a member of the American College of Cardiology Young Scholars Program — all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA as a Burnett Honors College student.
Personal Statement
To get the BookShacks up and running, a lot of teamwork and assignment of roles were needed. Beyond all these logistical challenges, as president, establishing a brand for the group with great assistance from my officers (e.g. logo and website designs) and advertising our club and its mission was a big factor in attracting attention to our club this recent semester, with our consistent efforts at tabling at both Opening Knight and LEAD All Access effectively doubling the number of social media followers we had supporting our lending libraries. However, the biggest input of effort on my part as president of the BookShacks, was in trying to stay true to our mission of encouraging reading and education through having an easy system in which anyone can take or leave a book. I realized that establishing a book exchange system outside of the main UCF library inventory would allow my peers to engage indirectly with each other by sharing the stories they found to be most stimulating. This collaborative effort that has potentially led to long-term good for the UCF community is the biggest accomplishment of the BookShacks and was the reward for setting up the club in the first place.