You might not know her personally, but you must have at least heard of the “pink scooter girl” on campus. That’s graduate student Aarthi Arunachalam, who has been on and around Washington University campus for 10 years. It seems that she is the most undecided student in Washington University history—Aarthi majored in environmental studies as an undergraduate from 2005 to 2009; not knowing what to do after graduation, she worked as a part-time aftercare counselor at an elementary school in St. Louis for a year. Meanwhile, she applied to the Brown School of Social Work and several law schools. In 2010, after getting off the wait-list, she enrolled at the Washington University School of Law. Then, one day during the semester, she decided to temporarily leave and take some computer sciences classes. Right now, 10 years after Aarthi’s original matriculation as a Wash. U. undergraduate, she is in her fourth year of pursuing a master’s degree in computer science. Aarthi is still unsure of what she’d like to do, so she has decided to prolong the two-year master’s program to four years.

AB Brooks | Student Life

Graduate student Aarthi Arunachalam sits on her pink cycle by the South 40 underpass on Sunday afternoon. Arunachalam, commonly seen around campus with her bike and bright outfits, is currently a masters student studying computer science at Wash. U.

An hour late for our scheduled interview, Aarthi shows up with an outcry of a high-pitched apology projected across Whispers Cafe. She said, “Momo, I am so sorry—I was kept in the lab for so long!” She is a busy and well-respected teaching assistant; there was even a guy alongside her asking tech-related questions (despite our meeting being outside of office hours)—he still would not leave her to me, even under my intensive stare.

As Aarthi sits down at the couch next to me, I start to observe her and immediately categorize her into one of those “urban nomad” types. She has long, dark hair that reminds me of seaweed; her long plaid skirt covers her entire lower body as she sits cross-legged; her forearms are covered in stacks of colorful rubber wristbands.

“I wear them all the time, and I would love to talk about the meaning of each one of them if we have time,” she tells me.

After learning about her zigzagging academic history, I ask her what kind of job she’d like to have in the future.

“I have three standards,” she said. “First, the working environment is very important to me—I have to like the people and the ambience. Second, I don’t like repetitive work. Third, if it is something that I have to do for the rest of my life, I would love to be able to make a positive difference in the world.”

Aarthi loves her teaching assistant job at the computer science department, which she has been doing for five consecutive semesters, since her second semester as a master’s degree candidate.

“Honestly, I love my TA job so much that I would love to keep doing that for the rest of my life—I am so happy whenever I help my students to figure something out!”

Apparently Aarthi’s students reciprocate her passion. According to sophomore Natasha Harpalani, who comes over to say hi while Aarthi and I are chatting, Aarthi is the “greatest and most eccentric TA” she has ever had.

Through building connections with people in the computer science department, Aarthi met her current boyfriend of a month, who is a senior. When she talks about her boyfriend, her eyes start to blink like butterfly wings.

“We participated in the St. Louis [videogame programming competition] ScatterJam last year. We had similar tastes in art and music so over the course of that year we became better friends. He asked me out on a date quite early, but I held back at first because I needed to get to know him first. And then I knew that he is caring, loyal and dependable.” Aarthi giggles. “So I asked him if he still had feelings for me because I had started to care about him romantically.”

It is amazing to see that Aarthi opens up so easily and enjoys talking about herself so much. She has that attitude of self-assurance—a bubbly aura that concentrates the spotlight on herself when she starts talking. Aarthi identifies herself as someone who grew up “in an typical Asian household.” Her parents are both doctors of Indian descent working in Florida, and she has one younger brother who just started his first year in medical school. On the other hand, Aarthi’s confidence and the privilege of not having to be decided about her future might be attributed to her family background—her parents help with the tuition and the rent.

She tells me that before she first graduated as an undergraduate, the improv group K.A.R.L. put on “The Aarthi Show,” which focused on her as the main theme.

“I was very, incredibly touched,” she said. “Friends who came to see the show filled LabSci 300. And it is a large lecture hall.”

Talking to Aarthi also creates an opportunity to peek into Wash. U.’s recent past.

“I think during the years that I have stayed here, not only a lot of visible changes happened on campus, the most direct and recent being Ruby [the Residential College] that was just torn down, but also the general college culture has shifted. There is more emphasis on liabilities. For instance, we used to have [a] water balloon fight for the celebration of Holi on the [South 40] Swamp,” she said.

“There was also an underground tunnel system that is almost like a rite of passage of your college experience. When I was a freshman, my friends and I went exploring with some juniors one time; we went in through a manhole cover near Louderman; it was cold and wet and gross underneath, but we got to Graham Chapel and made it back. But now it is just harder to do those adventurous things; every dorm has alarms and card readers—we used to have actual keys.”

Talking to Aarthi is like taking a fresh breath of air from outside the so-called “Wash. U. bubble.” It is okay to not be sure, to be unconventional and to not be so directly goal-driven. She is definitely smart, earning good enough grades for her to become a TA for the computer science department. She is also bold and self-aware; as soon as she felt that she did not fit in at the law school, she sought out another option. She is comfortable with herself and can talk about her past decisions in an articulate and analytical manner.

She talks about her internship this past summer at Amazon, where she designed front-end beauty product blurbs. Aarthi likes Amazon, but she is not anxious about getting a post-grad job. “I feel like there is a stereotype of engineering as being ‘solitary.’ I want to dismantle such types of myths. I want to have direct impact on people like doctors do on patients—some positive difference,” she said.

Having spent so many years at Wash. U., Aarthi said that she feels a sense of belonging here. She is confident in being the quirky and spontaneous girl on campus. She takes pride in having a wide array of friends, some of whom were random strangers before she so much as complimented them on their outfits.

“It is like both the blessing and curse of being here,” she said. She feels like the longer she stays, the scarier moving towards the next step becomes.

“I have a plan—a vague plan. I find a feel I like, and take one step upon last time. The next step is to be decided,” she concludes. “Oh and by the way do you want a short quick ride on my pink scooter? Before WUPD officially bans it?”