TikTok Philanthropist

Junior Mirajur Rahman has gained lots of followers on the popular social media app TikTok. He has used his platform to create scholarship opportunities for his peers and other people his age.

TikTok+Philanthropist

Almost every day, junior Mirajur Rahman gets on TikTok and films a video for his thousands of followers. He makes videos detailing and providing study tips and tricks to help students in all kinds of classes. His most popular videos deal with preparing for the SATs and AP exams.

Rahman was an immediate sensation, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok seemingly overnight. WishTV caught wind of it and did a segment on him on March 5.

“Truthfully, I don’t know how to answer with how I felt when I blew up on TikTok and got featured on the news. It happened so fast. The best part was the feeling of helping people,” Rahman said.

Rahman’s inclination to help people stemmed from his early childhood. Rahman grew up in Bangladesh, and has had two very different experiences with school. What he wants to do after college is return back to his home country and build a hospital and provide free healthcare for his community that helped raise him.

“It’s definitely not the same school and background as it is here. It really made me think and, honestly, made me tear up. I really left that life behind and came here and there’s so many opportunities here. I just want to give back to the
community,” Rahman said.

Before Rahman can make a difference in Bangladesh, he is starting closer to home by creating scholarships for students in the community. There are two scholarships that can be applied for with answers of a few hundred words.

“Honestly, the biggest idea for the scholarship had to come from a very close friend of mine. When I read about her story and was helping her with her college essays, I found out that she’s also not from here. It just made me connect with her and think about my past,” Rahman said.

Growing up in two different communities provided Rahman with meeting lots of different people that have had an impact on him. These people shaped his aspirations and inspired his idea to create the scholarship program.

“The people that inspire me the most definitely are the friends and family I left behind in Bangladesh. When I came here, obviously I can’t see them that much. I left them and I really feel bad for them because they didn’t get the education that I did. Also this person that I met recently- just talking to her and getting to know her, it just inspired me. It inspired me a lot and her stories just made me want to help someone,” Rahman said.

Junior Marcelina Perez is friends with Rahman and has known him for a long time. So seeing him on the news and hearing of his scholarships didn’t surprise her.

“I’ve always told Mirajur since the beginning of our friendship, ‘you’re definitely going to go places.’ I am so proud of him and texted him about the whole thing. It was so cool seeing people my age doing big things and good things like that,” Perez said.

Perez has also recently applied for one of his scholarships. Besides knowing him, though, she has other reasons for applying.

“I’m going to college really soon and the way the college system is set up it really sucks. So I have to figure out where I’m getting money for school for me to get a basic education for my life. So I applied for this scholarship and it’s such a cool experience. I think it’s really cool someone so young did this. I think anyone should apply for it. If you can, why not?” Perez said.

Rahman’s scholarship criteria is centered around what makes a student unique. His scholarship is set apart from others in the fact that it instead focuses on the student applying rather than their grades or GPA.

“For this scholarship, Mirajur really talks about it. He gives you set in stone instructions on what you should write about. No one talks about your GPA and no one talks about your past grades in it. It just talks about why you feel like you need it. In other scholarships I’ve applied for, they ask for my GPA and my GPA is not the best. I am not perfect. I have made mistakes in my high school career. But I feel as if sometimes when it comes to something like that, it doesn’t always matter,” Perez said.

Besides going through a pandemic where a lot of stress and hardships were due, there were other things weighing down on Perez.

“My GPA isn’t the best because I was at a time where I was at my lowest. I was depressed and homeless, so I was not in my right headspace. In Mirajur’s scholarship; you get to talk about yourself and it has nothing to do with your GPA. Which is the part I love about it. A lot of the time, I will not apply for a scholarship if it says something about GPA. I was really happy Mirajur’s didn’t talk about that and that’s what sets it apart from others,” Perez said.

Rahman is conscientious and wants to give back. Whether it’s to people on TikTok or in his home country, Bangladesh,
Rahman is dedicated to helping and making a difference.

“I just want to help people. That’s my goal. I just want to make an impact so I can be remembered,” Rahman said.