129 students from eight different countries joined NYU Shanghai’s Study Away Programs this Fall semester, an increase of nearly 50% from last fall. Students from NYU’s campuses in New York, and Abu Dhabi, as well as an increasing number of visiting students from universities outside the NYU network chose to make NYU Shanghai their home for the semester.
A three-day orientation helped students get acquainted with both the campus and Shanghai. Orientation Ambassadors (OA) picked up the new arrivals at the airport and helped them move into their dormitories. Haya Faisal ’27, a Study Away OA, said she loved being able to connect with new students during their end-of-orientation dinner and city walk excursion to East Nanjing Road and the Bund. Orientation was “a great experience,” says Justin Strong, NYU ’25. “Everybody was really friendly. I met a lot of people and made a few friends.”
Speaking to the new cohort of students at the Study Away University Welcome, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs John Robertson encouraged them to “get out and experience the city.” He advised, “Push yourself. Experience culture shock. We have a safe space here.”
Duke University student Montana Lee ’26, is looking forward to exploring all the opportunities NYU and Shanghai have to offer. Lee is of Chinese descent and grew up in New York City. She decided to come study at NYU Shanghai with hopes of improving her Mandarin skills, connecting with her heritage, and exploring the city where her mother grew up. “Chinese is very useful, but also given my background, it's very important to me to be able to speak it, so that I have some way of being in touch with my relatives,” she said. This semester, Lee hopes to join the Language Peer Mentor Program and volunteer for the Dean’s Service Corps to meet locals and practice her language skills while engaging with the Shanghai community.
For NYU Abu Dhabi student Batool Al Tameemi ’26, NYU Shanghai is the last of NYU’s campuses to cross off her list. “This is the first time in my life I’m in a country where not the overwhelming majority [of people] speak English,” she said. Although Al Tameemi has visited non-English speaking countries before, studying in China is her first experience being in a place where she can’t always get by using English. However, “that sense of being lost told me how to observe things rather than talk; to talk less and look more and listen more and see more and explore more,” she said. “[It’s a] therapeutic experience.”
Al Tameemi, who grew up in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates and is currently double-majoring in Interactive Media Arts and Visual Arts with a minor in Design at NYU Abu Dhabi, is hoping to engage with the interactive media and arts community in Shanghai during her semester here. She will be working as a gallery host at the Institute of Contemporary Art this semester and said she is “very excited about the diversity of courses here, especially in IMA.”
Similarly, Justin Strong, NYU ’25, a Business major with a concentration in Marketing and Management, is looking forward to studying business and learning about Chinese consumer habits while also furthering his knowledge of Chinese language and culture. Strong began learning Mandarin in eighth grade and studied it in high school, but he had never been to Asia before. “I wanted to unveil a lot of biases I have about China, since I’ve never been here before, and learn more about the culture,” he said.
As the students begin their classes this fall, the Study Away Programs will continue to support them throughout their time at NYU Shanghai. Program Assistant Rebecca Hu ’25 said she and her team are organizing many activities for the study away students this coming semester to introduce them to traditional Chinese culture in Shanghai and other cities around China. One trip in the works will take the students to Suzhou, where they’ll visit a traditional Chinese garden and sample the local cuisine. “It's very nice to learn what students are looking forward to so that we can make programs accordingly,” Hu said.