‘We get to start again’

Moorestown High School valedictorian Neeka Vojdani and salutatorian Dishita Singh are well equipped for the next phase of their lives, having seen first hand how quickly the past four years went by.

“People say that high school flies by, but it really does truly fly by,” Vojdani said. “I’m excited to graduate with all my friends and I can’t wait to see where everybody is going to land, and I can’t wait to see all of the success that they will achieve.”

“As we come to a close, what’s really shocking is how many people have ended up becoming a part of our journeys,” Singh noted. “We started with a few group of friends freshman year and that has just grown and multiplied … So, it’s hard knowing that this might be the last few weeks that we see a few of these people for a year, but it’s also full circle, because I know that all of us are going off to restart the process in our different colleges …

“It’s exciting to see that we get to start again.”

When Singh, Vojdani and their peers first walked into Moorestown High, Singh remembered everything being so new and large, and she felt wonder in the air. Over time, that feeling diminished a bit, but the feeling of being high schoolers never left.

“I remember when I was a freshman, we knew the school somewhat well, but there were upperclassmen and older students that I knew who acted as mentors and told us the ins and outs of the school, different advice about different teachers or different classes,” Vojdani noted.

“And now, as I walk the halls today, I feel like I’ve grown into that role and that role has shifted onto us as the current seniors, so it really has that full-circle feeling of now we’re the ones giving advice to the younger students.”

Vojdani and Singh have been close friends for 10 years and have always pushed each other to do better.

Vojdani, who was selected as one of 2,500 students nationwide to receive the 2026 National Merit Scholarship, will attend Princeton University this fall to study neuroscience and public policy. Singh, editor in chief of the high-school’s Nutshell Magazine, is currently building an RV-12 aircraft with the Teen Aviation of New Jersey Program. She will attend Columbia University and major in mechanical engineering, with minors in finance and aerospace.

“It’s a way to branch out, explore different interests that you have and gain new friends with different perspectives, because you have people coming in from all over the country and all over the world,” Vojdani said of college. “I’m excited for the new opportunities and being able to explore on my own.”

“Now I get to go to the city and meet people who think differently than I do, or who have experiences that changed their perspectives,” Singh observed, “and I think it’s really valuable to be able to be exposed to those perspectives, especially when you’re at our age … to have a more comprehensive view of how the world works.”

Civic engagement has been a passion of Vojdani’s in school, but on the flip side, she likes to make art in her free time. She’s interested in taking advantage of that hobby at Princeton, but also wants to apply the knowledge she’s gained in the STEM field to the humanities.

For Singh, there’s great potential in engineering to transform the world. It may sound crazy, she acknowledged, but she believes that within lifetimes, people will see things like space resource utilization.

Among Vojdani’s many influences is calculus teacher Paul Sinatra, whose class helped her find out the most efficient method of studying. For Singh, there is language teacher John Lloyd, who pushes his students to analyze writing in a way that still allows them to explore their passions.

“He’s a teacher that really connected with me because in the classroom, he really liked to talk to us, catch up on the events that were happening in the school, and also obviously teach as well,” Vojdani noted of Sinatra. “So it was easy to find that balance between being a teacher and also being someone you could just talk to and someone who would lend an ear.

“For our research project, he (Lloyd) gave us free reign to research whatever we wanted,” Singh recalled, “and even though he didn’t know much about each of our individual topics, he would put in the time to do the research and help us whenever we hit road blocks.

“I just found it very moving how he was able to personalize his teaching to each and every one of us, even beyond the classroom.”

Vojdani advised incoming freshmen to stick to their passions and not be afraid to explore new ones. Singh recommended a focus on the process, on themselves, and what they want to do and need to do to get to where they want to be, because then the results will speak for themselves.

“Envision your goals and never give up,” Vojdani related. “Finding fulfillment in the process will lead you to success. People say it’s the people that make the place, and I would say that’s especially true at Moorestown High School.”

“What we’ve achieved here … this was never our goal,” Singh stated. “This is just the outcome or the side effect of us being curious in classes, staying after to ask questions and looking for ways to help ourselves when we’re struggling …

“I’ve met so many diverse people, and I hope I can continue keeping these connections strong as we move forward.”