While watching Chinese TV dramas at home in Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shahama Samsudeen ’25 began entertaining thoughts of studying in China.
Her parents hoped for her to study engineering at NYU Abu Dhabi. But when her acceptance letter to NYU Shanghai rolled in, Shahama was secretly thrilled. This May, she’ll graduate with a major in economics and minors in math and Chinese.
Like most international students from the Class of 2025, Shahama’s college journey started online. Because of pandemic travel restrictions, she didn’t arrive on campus until the summer before her sophomore year, flying first to Guangzhou for a ten-day quarantine before arriving in Shanghai.
Her first day in Shanghai was a test of resilience. Alone and exhausted with her luggage on a scorching August afternoon with no mobile phone service and facing a language barrier, Shahama finally found her bearings at the residence hall, where she met her two roommates from the US and Guangdong, China.
All far from home, the trio cared for each other through times of sickness and health. “We would blow our noses together, steam together, and would lie down on a yoga mat with our legs on top of each other to watch shows and drink our hot chocolates over winter,” Samsudeen recalled.
“I had never lived with anyone in my life, but we’re besties,” she said. “We’ve done everything together. We did sophomore year together, and even though I now live off campus, Talitha is still my roommate.”
With new roommates came a wider social circle that included weeknight card games and the chance to find common ground with new friends. It was refreshing to finally have in-person interactions and classes, she said.
Having studied math intensively for over a decade before college, Samsudeen had a huge decision to make—go all in and major in math or choose another major that would allow her to balance her academic life with student leadership roles and extracurriculars. “I knew that if I wanted to do math, then I would have to obsess over math,” she said. “It requires that kind of commitment, but with economics, I can have a bit of both.”
In the fall of her sophomore year, Samsudeen decided to take Microeconomics—a class taught by Professor of Practice in Economics Weng Weiwei. She had heard it was extremely difficult, but driven by the challenge, she enrolled and ended up enjoying it so much that she chose econ as her major. “Professor Weiwei was very supportive and had so much faith in my ability to succeed…she gave me the confidence to give [economics] a shot,” she said.
Weng remembers frequent office hours talks with Samsudeen, and the two of them established a friendship through long Zoom conversations when she was studying away.
“We chatted like two old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time; I was so moved when she took the initiative to keep in touch with me,” Weng said. “It's my privilege to witness her growth both as an Econ major and as a youngster with a good self-understanding, the courage to try, and her growing willingness to always make the best of every opportunity possible. Her spirit of being both down-to-earth and open-minded is rare.”
Samsudeen seized the opportunity to take on student leadership roles, and she wore many hats— welcoming incoming students as an Orientation Ambassador Captain, addressing student concerns as a Student Government representative, and even tutoring students as a Learning Assistant while in Shanghai and studying away in New York.
“Studying abroad in New York and Washington, DC, I was finally in my element,” Samsudeen said. “Both semesters were really amazing.” Starting at NYU Washington DC in the fall of 2023, she was inspired by professors and courses that broadened her perspective on a wide variety of subjects.
NYU Washington DC Program Director Kari Miller and her course The Black Atlantic left a huge impression. “Kari is probably my favorite person I’ve met in the whole NYU network,” Samsudeen said. “We focused on countries like the DRC, we talked about people like Patrice Lumumba…it was very eye-opening to learn about places I hadn’t heard of or hadn't been to.”
A moment she’ll never forget? A class trip to the DC offices of Bloomberg to hear about sustainability directly from writers whose work she read in Visiting Professor Akanksha Arora’s class called Business and the Environment. “We were reading Meta’s sustainability reports and pointing out where the greenwashing is, and she would be critiquing the reports—it was a lot of real-life related learning.”
While in DC, Samsudeen was accepted to the Global Leadership Scholars Program and was one of two students to receive the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellowship. She also interned at the Sri Lankan Embassy, summarizing reports and writing up briefs to be sent back to Sri Lanka, even interviewing the IMF Mission Chief Masahiro Nozaki for one of her classes.
“DC allowed me to mainly settle down in the US at a pace that I was comfortable with,” Samsudeen said. “I felt more confident at the end, and ready for something faster.”
In New York, Samusdeen found fulfillment volunteering through a Service Learning course, Alzheimer’s Disease: Sharing the Lived Experience, taught by Peggy Morton, director of the undergraduate program at the NYU Silver School of Social Work.
Samsudeen described the warm bond and conversations she shared during her weekly visits with a man with early Alzheimer’s at his home on the Hudson River. “He would make me tea every time I visited, and every time I talked about animals in Sri Lanka, his face would light up,” she recalled.
Samsudeen recalls a memorable class where electronics weren’t allowed and where midterm essays were handwritten in blue books: Asian Economics with Distinguished Clinical Professor of Economics Joseph Foudy. “I was learning and not just studying,” she said. “It felt like the whole classroom was passionate about learning…not just thinking about their grades.”
Returning to Shanghai, Samsudeen applied for a Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund (DURF) and worked on a project about China’s labor market, using the hukou, China’s household registration system, as an explanatory factor of labor market distortions in China.
Mentored by Professor Foudy, Samsudeen and her research partner Dan Huynh ’25 presented “China’s Labor Market: Lying Flat” at the 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium, winning the award for Best Research.
Her senior capstone project explores influencing factors for workplace satisfaction in South Korea, including income, menstrual leave, parental leave, and commute time.
After graduation, Samsudeen will join McKinsey & Company working as a consulting analyst in Sri Lanka. But as much as she loves her hometown, her experience at NYU Shanghai and during study away have given her the confidence to thrive anywhere—she’s considering working in the UK in the future. “Being around people from different cultures and backgrounds prepares you for life,” she said. “You’re not scared about the idea of moving abroad anymore. Regardless of where you are, you can make where you are your home.”
And even though moving to China for college might have seemed daunting at first, Shahama says the community she’s found and friends she has made during her four years have been a huge support along the way. Her message to current and future NYU Shanghai students? “Just go land in a different airport and have the confidence to take your bags and figure it out. Here you learn that you’re going to have to be able to and that you can do things alone.”