A Medal for a Model Student
This article was originally published by Colby News.
Bibatshu Thapa Chhetri ’25 [learned] during Colby’s 204th Commencement that he was the winner of the Condon Medal, the highest honor given to a graduating senior.
The computer science and science, technology, and society double major from Kathmandu, Nepal, has been a friendly and familiar presence around campus. He served on the Student Government Association, including as student body president his first year and co-president his senior year. He’s also won multiple awards, including a Projects for Peace grant, Dean of the College Community Excellence Award, the STS Impact Award, and the Leila M. Forster Prize, which is awarded to two first-year students of great promise.
“Coming into Colby, I wanted to make the most out of everything that the College had to offer,” he said. “It’s such a privilege to be at a place like this one.”
The Condon Medal, established in 1920 through a gift from Randall J. Condon, a member of Colby’s Class of 1886, recognizes the finest qualities of citizenship and is the only student award presented at commencement. In Condon’s words, “Character is the supreme end of education. Citizenship is the expression of it in the community.”
There’s no one who took advantage of everything, and I mean everything, that Colby has ever offered, except for [Bibatshu]. He’s been phenomenal.
In recent years, the Condon Medal winner has been announced during the annual Student Awards Program rather than during commencement.
“The medal has been presented annually by both the graduating class and the faculty to the senior who has exhibited during the college course the finest qualities of constructive citizenship, something we take very seriously at Colby,” Greene said before presenting the medal to Thapa Chhetri. “There’s no one who took advantage of everything, and I mean everything, that Colby has ever offered, except for [Bibatshu]. He’s been phenomenal.”
Following his dreams
As a young person growing up in Nepal, Thapa Chhetri wasn’t expected to consider attending college in the United States. But the new graduate, whose father once worked in the Himalayas as a porter and mountain guide on high-altitude treks and whose mother runs a small handicrafts business, had dreams that stretched beyond the mountain peaks that surrounded him.
Through the U.S. Educational Foundation in Nepal, a program run by the U.S. Department of State, he was able to get free SAT test preparation and advice about applying for higher education. He also learned about another State Department program that helps highly qualified international students figure out how to study in the United States. That’s how he came to Colby, where he has thrived.
Here, he’s had the opportunity to research intellectual property piracy in Silicon Valley, Calif., and Nepal. During one Jan Plan, he took a course in leadership exploration and community living, which included a 12-day wilderness expedition in Baja California Sur, Mexico, with the National Outdoor Leadership School.
He was a student speaker at the COP28 global climate summit in Dubai, and last summer, he and Joe Grassi ’25 helped improve internet access in rural Nepal through the Projects for Peace grant. They made a 16-minute-long documentary about their work with subsistence farmers and others in Nepal, Project Digital Kisan.
‘An incredible place to grow’
In lighter moments, he’s also an enthusiastic player and proponent of spikeball, a fast-paced team sport played with a ball and a round net that has become a popular pastime on Miller Lawn.
“Colby has been an incredible place for me to grow my intellectual, academic, and social self,” Thapa Chhetri said.
Next up, he will continue to do an internship at impact investment firm Second Horizon Capital. He’s also planning to move for the summer to California’s Sierra Nevada to work at a restaurant owned by world-renowned climber and mountaineer Conrad Anker. In Thapa Chhetri’s free time near Yosemite National Park, he wants to practice the rock climbing skills he learned at the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center.
Down the road, he would like to find ways to work with people to solve complex global problems like the climate crisis. He credits the courses, people, and opportunities he’s found through Colby with helping him learn about the global policy world and diplomacy. He wants to continue that path.
“I think my hope for the future would be that I keep growing and learning from people who have amazing values, and who are bold, and empowered, and keep moving forward,” Thapa Chhetri said.