With college quickly approaching her horizons, Karisma Nori Kulkarni needed to find a way to pay for her post-high school education.

One way she has discovered is pageants, which provide contestants with opportunities to win college scholarships.

The first pageant Kulkarni, who will be a senior this fall at Tesla STEM High School, participated in was the Miss Teen Achieve Pageant in May. She was representing Washington and was competing against about a dozen other girls.

According to its website, the pageant is “dedicated to developing self-esteem, interviewing skills and talent presentation skills among teen women” and rewards “academic excellence, community leadership and exceptional talent with scholarships.”

Kulkarni, who is 17 and splits her time between parents’ homes on Redmond Ridge and Education Hill, said participating in the pageant was cool because she got to meet other girls who were also high achievers academically, adding that Miss Teen Achieve gives out scholarships for categories such as highest grade-point average and women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

It was during this pageant that Kulkarni was named Miss Teen Achieve Ambassador Queen. She said this was a title voted on by the other contestants.

“It was empowering,” she said.

Kulkarni added that she was grateful to receive the honor as well as surprised. She said she did not realize the impact she had on the other girls was enough for them to vote for her.

The second pageant Kulkarni participated in was the Miss Teen United Continents (MTUC) pageant in July in Houston. And like with the Teen Achieve pageant, Kulkarni represented Washington in the pageant. She was the second runner-up and was named Miss Congeniality.

This pageant was created by Gaspar Cruz.

“I liked his motto: ‘Be your own kind of beautiful,’” Kulkarni said about Cruz.

Kulkarni’s mother, Vanisha Nori-Cook, admitted that she initially felt apprehensive about the potential downsides of pageants but has since realized that “pageantry has come a long way with greater emphasis placed on empowerment of the individual, versus their physical statistics.”

“These pageants vie to celebrate beauty in diversity, build life skills, self-confidence, self-worth and support the social causes championed by the contestants,” Nori-Cook said. “Karisma has made lasting friendships (and so have I) across the U.S. and internationally.”

Kulkarni said the MTUC pageant was a national one and she competed against girls from around the country. The winner of the pageant was Abby Horton from Alabama, who went on to compete in the Miss Teen Continents pageant on the international level. This competition included contestants from Jamaica, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, Paraguay and Namibia. Kulkarni added that the contestant from Namibia won the whole competition.

For someone who has only been out of the country once in her life (in fourth grade to visit India), meeting and getting to know people from around the world was quite the experience.

“For me it was really interesting to get to learn about different cultures,” Kulkarni said.

In addition to creating the MTUC pageant, Cruz also designed the gown for Nina Davuluri, who was Miss America 2014 and like Kulkarni, is Indian American. Davuluri was the first Indian American to win the title and for Kulkarni, this was inspiring.

And while Kulkarni found Davuluri’s achievements to be an inspiration, there was some backlash when she was crowned, due to her heritage. Kulkarni said people were saying Davuluri couldn’t be Miss America because she was Indian, not American, and that was ridiculous because Davuluri is American (she was born in Syracuse, N.Y.). The teen said the United States is a melting pot and just because someone does not look like you, does not mean they are not American.

Kulkarni added that Davuluri in addition to her title, received a $50,000 scholarship and wants to be a doctor.

“Like me,” Kulkarni said.

Specifically, Kulkarni wants to be a pediatrician. Currently, she volunteers at Kindering in Bellevue, working with children with disabilities. She also works at an orthodontist’s office in Bellevue.

Outside of her volunteer work and her job, Kulkarni enjoys being outside. She likes to row (she’s a member of the lightweight competitive experienced girls team for the Sammamish Rowing Association), hiking and just recently discovered rock climbing.