By immersing themselves in new cultures and exploring unique academic and professional opportunities, students at NYU have experiences that shape their future selves and future paths. Three NYU students share the study away experiences that profoundly shaped their academic trajectories and career aspirations.
From NYU Accra to Sustainability Education
Lucy Whitney, a 2024 Global Liberal Studies graduate with a concentration in sustainability, health, and the environment, studied away in spring 2023 at NYU Accra to merge her diverse academic interests. While there, she interned at Ghana’s Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling, a Ministry of Education agency focused on expanding access to quality education through digital learning. “It instilled in me the importance of specialized, community-based learning, especially for environmental education,” she says.
Lucy’s time in Accra inspired her undergraduate thesis, “Empowering Ghanaian Youth: Integrating Local Ecological Knowledge in Environmental Education,” and laid the groundwork for her postgraduate roles. Today, she is a teaching fellow at the New Roots Institute, a nonprofit organization that seeks to end factory farming, and the campus education architect at Switch4Good, a nonprofit that advocates for a dairy-free lifestyle. Through these positions, she designs programs to educate high school and college students as well as postgraduate fellows about sustainable food systems while also fostering experiential learning and community engagement.
From NYU Sydney to Global Public Health
Michaela Greenlee, a College of Arts and Science Class of 2024 graduate in Global Public Health and Sociology, leveraged her study away experience at NYU Sydney to deepen her understanding of social justice in an environmental context. While studying away, she enrolled in Environmental Health in a Global World, a course that examined how physical and social environments influence health disparities. Inspired by her studies, Michaela partnered with local nonprofit Clean Up Australia to organize a daylong community cleanup event.
“Service can be very rewarding, especially if it’s undertaken abroad,” she shares. “You get to learn about a different culture’s social justice issues. This can stir up ideas to bring back to your own country to initiate meaningful change.” Indeed, Michaela’s study away experience motivated her to pursue a Master of Science degree in Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Concentrating in nutrition and public health leadership, she aims to accomplish international research and pursue health consulting, and plans to join the World Health Organization or World Bank.
From NYU Madrid to Data-Driven Change
Sarah Rivzi, a 2024 graduate in Politics and Global Liberal Studies, brought her passion for sustainability to NYU Madrid. There, she interned at the Spanish National Research Council, Spain’s largest research institution, where she worked with an environmental economist to analyze sustainability data from over 400 companies. Her research identified genuine green standards and uncovered instances of greenwashing (where organizations claim to be more environmentally friendly than they really are), providing actionable insights for forest carbon offsets in Spain and the United Kingdom.
Sarah credits her time in Madrid with shaping her analytical skills and broadening her cultural awareness. She carries lessons from her time abroad into her current role as an environmental, social, and governance risk analyst at DUMAC Inc., Duke University’s investment management company, and looks forward to future opportunities for international work. “I hope my next role has a connection to study away since it shaped me culturally,” she adds. “I always bring up my time in Madrid when meeting new people since it’s such an interesting time to talk about, and I reminisce with my friends about how much fun we had.”
Written by Dana Guterman