Learn about students’ experiences in the New York University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Undergraduate Student Exchange Program.
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Author: Katie L
NYU Students Selected as 2024–2025 Schwarzman Scholars
Five NYU students from all three degree-granting campuses were selected as 2024–2025 Schwarzman Scholars. The honor supports master’s degree study in global affairs at Schwarzman College within Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
Bincheng Mao, a Liberal Studies senior at NYU; Valentin Josan, Sachintha Pilapitiya, and Addie Mae Villas, seniors at NYU Abu Dhabi; and Li Peirong, a senior at NYU Shanghai, were among the 150 scholars selected for the class that represents 43 countries and 114 universities around the world.
Bincheng will attend Harvard Law School after his time as a Schwarzman Scholar. He founded the East Coast Coalition for Tolerance and Non-Discrimination, a charity inducted into the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community, which focuses on combating anti-Asian discrimination. He also interned at the United Nations Development Programme.
Valentin, the chief of staff of NYU Abu Dhabi’s student government, interned at the Brunswick Group and cofounded both the first set of licensed TEDx education conferences and Model United Nations conferences in Moldova, his home country.
Sachintha helped found Default LK, an organization creating civic economic awareness in his home country Sri Lanka. Sachintha also conducted research at the Institute of Policy Studies in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
Addie Mae served as the president of the Debate Union at NYU Abu Dhabi and cofounded the first-ever UAE Conference on Debate and Public Speaking for Women and Girls. While volunteering with Safe Passage 4 Ukraine, she has helped resettle over 800 Ukrainian refugees fleeing war.
Li served as both NYU Shanghai’s student body vice president and president. Throughout his college career, he worked with TEDxNYU Shanghai, the NYU Shanghai Office of Admissions, and the NYU Shanghai Center for Career Development to bolster communication and connection between university community members.
Congratulations to the scholars!
Repurposed with permission from NYU News
Global Programs Booklist
Inspired by the first NYU Bookstore display collaboration between the Office of Marketing Communications and the Office of Global Programs, this list of books representing NYU’s global locations promises to broaden your perspective and enrich your knowledge.
NYU Abu Dhabi
Temporary People
By Deepak Unnikrishnan
The skylines of Abu Dhabi and Dubai are recognizable around the world by their resplendent glittering towers—but how did they get there? Deepak Unnikrishnan, an Indian-born writer raised in the United Arab Emirates and associate arts professor of literature and creative writing at NYU Abu Dhabi, knows the answer: a foreign labor force was brought in to construct them. Using a series of clever and surreal linked stories, Unnikrishnan gives voice to a humanitarian crisis that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
NYU Accra
The Hundred Wells of Salaga
By Ayesha Harruna Attah
Based on a true story, The Hundred Wells of Salaga tells the tale of two women from very different backgrounds whose lives converge in an unexpected way. It’s a novel that will entangle you emotionally, while offering you crucial insight into precolonial Ghana, particularly the slave trade and its impact on a people.
NYU Berlin
No Photos on the Dance Floor! Berlin 1989–Today
Edited by Heiko Hoffmann and Felix Hoffmann
History books offer what we think is a full story, but this photography book provides a peek into the city’s after-hours culture through the club scene that blossomed in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s not only a delightful visual romp but also a history book in its own right, telling the story of a city in transformation, one party at a time.
NYU Buenos Aires
The Aleph and Other Stories
By Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges might seem like an obvious choice for Argentina—for a country that produced so many famous writers, he is arguably the most famous. Still, who can deny this selection? The brilliant, inventive tales of The Aleph and Other Stories will surprise and stimulate, and they are must-reads for diving into Argentine culture. Borges, after all, makes magic happen in the most unexpected ways.
NYU Florence
NYU London
White Teeth is a rare novel that is entertaining while simultaneously layered with so much richness, one might want to read it all over again as soon as it’s over. Starting with two unlikely friends whose stories blossom into a poignant yet funny family saga, Zadie Smith’s debut novel keenly witnesses the immigrant experience in London, traveling to other continents as well while navigating the relationship between tradition and change.
NYU Los Angeles
NYU Madrid
NYU Paris
NYU Prague
NYU Shanghai
Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade
By Anna Greenspan
This brilliant book contextualizes China’s largest and most cosmopolitan city through the lens of modernity. Author Anna Greenspan, an associate professor of contemporary global media at NYU Shanghai, reexamines the changing landscape of the city as it steps well into the 21st century and takes its place on the world stage.
NYU Sydney
Mirror Sydney: An Atlas of Reflections
By Vanessa Berry
A fun and unexpected romp, Mirror Sydney takes us on a tour of the harborside city via engaging essays and clever hand-illustrated maps. Based on a blog Vanessa Berry started more than a decade ago, Mirror Sydney is clearly more than a mere guidebook—it’s too much fun to be that typical. Moreover, it tends to direct the reader to the kinds of places the average tourist wouldn’t care to know about or explore anyway.
NYU Tel Aviv
The Bibliomaniacs: Tales from a Tel Aviv Bookseller
By J.C. Halper
On Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, J.C. Halper—originally from New Jersey but now an Israeli for four-plus decades—runs the city’s most popular secondhand bookshop, containing a dazzling 60,000 books. And in 2022 he published this book of clever, often funny short stories from the point of view of a shop owner. While the stories are allegedly fiction, one can’t help but wonder if we’re learning more about real locals than the author lets on.
NYU Washington, DC
Lost in the City
By Edward P. Jones
It’s a joy to read anything by Edward P. Jones, the gifted, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer. His debut collection of short stories, Lost in the City, is no exception and first cemented his literary reputation. These 14 tales tell the everyday encounters and struggles of Black citizens in Washington, DC. But Jones has a gift for making even the most mundane situation meaningful, and his rich, textured stories give weight to life’s most quotidian moments as viewed through the lens of the Black experience in the nation’s capital.
Written by Marti Trgovich
NYU Paris Staff Spotlight: Martina Faltova
In 2001 Martina Faltova was a study abroad student in Cambridge, England, when a chance encounter with an NYU professor led her to becoming his family’s au pair in New York City. Since her visa required a language course, she enrolled in Intermediate French at NYU. She loved the University so much that, when she returned home to the Czech Republic, she applied to work at NYU Prague. Now, more than 20 years later, she’s the assistant director for student life at NYU Paris.
Your job starts before students even arrive: organizing events, arranging housing, and prioritizing everyone’s safety and wellness. What inspired you to work with study away students?
I was a guest in another culture, and when I was leaving New York City, the family I lived with told me there was an NYU site in Prague and I should apply to it. And I loved that because I just came out of New York, I knew who the students were, and I felt like I could give back. Also, I love traveling, languages, meeting new people, and helping people learn more about Czech culture.
What role does language have in a student’s success at NYU Paris and NYU Prague?
In Paris the language course is required, so everyone has to take French. And it really makes your life easier. It’s a wonderful feeling when you can communicate, and it’s a really big sense of accomplishment. In Prague, though language courses are not required, learning Czech helps you make connections with the local people and understand the culture better too. Other language courses are offered at NYU Prague as well.
What are additional ways students can connect to local communities?
In Paris students can take courses at partner universities and hold internships. I also see students who choose to stay in a homestay, where they meet local families and become more connected to the place. In Prague I saw a lot of connections for the music students because they were performing in local places like pubs and would practice at other schools around Prague.
What attracts students to each site?
In Prague there’s centuries and centuries of history around you. It’s also very affordable. You really can do anything: easily buy tickets to the opera, go to nice restaurants, or live on a budget. In Paris the arts scene is incredible for anyone taking art or film courses. Here, students leave the classroom and see the paintings they discussed, and they wander the streets featured in famous movies.
You mentioned that NYU Paris is also branching out from the arts.
NYU Paris has changed a lot in the past six years. When I arrived, the majority of our courses were in the humanities. Now we have more and more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses. So we see a lot of students studying computer science and mathematics.
Which initiative are you most proud of?
At the beginning of the semester, we bring in people from local communities like nongovernmental and volunteer organizations and promote our cultural activities and trips. We invite all of our student and club leaders to promote their work. Students just mingle and learn about these opportunities, then they sign up for clubs. They talk to organizations about volunteering and helping. I just love that day.
Written by Marti Trgovich
The Rise of Experimental Circus in Prague: Artistic Research over Entertainment
It’s early evening and the National Theatre: The New Stage in Prague is sold out for the premiere show of Krajina těla or Land of Body. Sounds of waves crashing and a cello fill the hall as aerial acrobat Alžbeta Tichá climbs up a dangling rope, twisting, flipping, and falling dangerously fast before pulling the rope taut. While she moves through her choreography, eight LED screens placed around the stage show close-up images of hair follicles.
This is circus. Or, a kind of circus. With its understated exploration of physicality—a visual poem through movement—Krajina těla is an example of the experimental circus style emerging in the Czech Republic. Decidedly different from the theatrical and showy version of modern circus that Czech companies have mastered, the change comes as a new generation of performers enters the field, bringing with them new techniques and concepts.
Czech contemporary circus was created right after the fall of communism in 1989. “Metaphorical, symbolic—the circus as a physical form was there as a metaphor for something else. Like you are on the trapeze, so you are representing a bird, for example,” says Veronika Štefanová, research supervisor of CIRQUEON, a Prague-based circus center. Theatre folk were inspired by touring European circus companies, but, without formal training to make stand-alone circus shows, they began incorporating these elements into their theatre productions.
The style’s popularity exploded in 2004 with the annual summer festival, Letní Letná, started by Jiří Turek, who has a background in dancing, miming, and alternative theatre. When he first hosted the festival in Prague, there were 6,000 attendees. Now it attracts 60,000 people, making it the biggest contemporary circus festival in the Czech Republic. “We invite the biggest companies,” Turek says of his festival direction. “We must do it. The smaller festivals cannot invite them; it is too expensive.” The necessity of featuring large companies has developed a large, unvarying style of circus—commercial and theatrical.
Cirk La Putyka is a case in point. It is the latest company in Prague, currently performing Cesty, which features more than 50 performers in a classic circus top. The acrobats, dancers, and actors wear flashy costumes while thunderous sound effects accentuate the stunts. In one act nine women flip around Hula-Hoops spinning high in the air. In another, a man walks amid the audience seats and breathes out orange flames. These moments are interspersed with storytelling and dialogue. The show is a glamorous spectacle.
This “wow” factor is necessary, explains researcher Štefanová. “They would like to really live on circus and work only in circus, and it means you have to sell a lot of tickets.” Cirk La Putyka and other large companies have successfully done so, regularly selling out shows. In recent years the experimental shows have gained popularity with new techniques by younger artists. The kids, who 10 years ago signed up for informal circus classes at CIRQUEON, are of a professional age now. Tichá, the rope acrobat in Krajina těla, performs in several avant-garde shows. Along with Krajina těla, she is part of Thin Skin, a production staged in the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art.
Tichá emphasizes that she is not so much entertaining an audience as pushing the limits of her art, conducting a kind of research while onstage. “When I go on the rope, I have to be present. There is no chance to think about anything else.”
Repurposed and edited with permission by Dispatches
Service and Immersive Education in Calais
NYU London and NYU Paris students recently had the opportunity to go on a volunteer trip to the French port city of Calais. Situated on the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel, Calais is an important transfer point for people who are seeking asylum en route to the United Kingdom. The group of about 40 students supported Care4Calais, a nongovernmental organization that provides refugees with food, clothing, shelter, health care, and legal resources. Students helped out with various tasks, like sorting donations of clothing, food, and toiletries and cooking meals for volunteers. They also toured the Calais Lighthouse and WWII Museum and tasted local cuisine at Au Côté d’Argent.
A Deeper Understanding of the European Refugee Crisis
For Margi DiPietro, a junior Global Liberal Studies major on the prehealth track who studied away at NYU Paris, traveling to Calais was an ideal opportunity to learn in real time the challenges asylum seekers and French citizens encounter. Moreover, she perceived an opportunity to build relevant experiences toward her goal of becoming a doctor for Médecins Sans Frontières. Prior to the trip, Margi gained insight into relevant issues in the course France and Islam. “We learned about the Calais Jungle and analyzed information about immigration in France and the French responses to the refugee crisis,” she says. “I had not realized that there are camps of this scale in Calais, or that refugees are trying to cross the English Channel on boats like you see in the Mediterranean.”
Unforgettable Personal Connections
Kaila Jones, a junior Theatre major studying away at NYU Paris, also joined the trip. Kaila has been volunteering since childhood and describes how taking part in service opportunities while studying away was a chance to find common ground with people who use different languages and come from diverse backgrounds. Care4Calais changed Kaila’s perspective on refugees. “I had some prior expectations and assumptions about what these people would be like,” Kaila admits. “I was surprised to see so many smiling faces, and how people who had so little were willing to give and share with me. Despite everything they were dealing with, they still made room for fun, laughter, and happiness. Seeing that firsthand hit my heart in ways I will never forget.”
The Importance of Education Outside the Classroom
Ahmed Nasri, communications and student engagement coordinator at NYU Paris and one of the trip’s organizers, emphasizes the importance of taking advantage of cultural immersion opportunities while studying away. “The trip offered a transformational shift in perspective that enriched students’ academic journeys, since their theoretical knowledge was grounded in a real world context.” He explains further: “There is a significant difference between learning about a subject theoretically and experiencing it firsthand. This trip to Calais aimed to bridge that gap. While we can absorb information about the refugee crisis and immigration challenge from books and lectures, witnessing it in person amplifies students’ understanding.”
Written by Auzelle Epeneter
Study Away Prepares Students as Global Professionals and Global Citizens
We recently caught up with Rawan Al-Wakeal, manager of global career development at the NYU Wasserman Center for Career Development and Office of Global Programs (OGP). Below, she describes why study away is important for students to become global citizens as well as competitive applicants beyond their time at NYU.
Tell us about your role at Wasserman and OGP.
As manager of global career development, I coach students to develop their career narrative with a global lens and cultivate relationships with global employers and alumni abroad. I travel to various NYU locations each semester to introduce career development opportunities to our students around the world. And I am also in charge of reading global internship applications. I do all of this through an identity, diversity, belonging, equity, and accessibility (IDBEA) lens, with a particular focus on coaching study-away students to support them in their professional development.
How does studying away help NYU students in their careers?
Global experiences help students gain violet ready skills. The 10 skills in this set—including collaboration, professionalism, and intercultural fluency—are ones we’ve identified as being particularly in demand by employers. At the Wasserman Center, we work with students to ensure they can develop and enhance their skills, even while studying away.
Having a global mindset and international experience can set them apart in the job search, since many organizations are global. The global nature of NYU influences our alumni’s ability to adapt to a variety of environments, connect with people from different backgrounds, and excel in new places. Especially in uncertain times, those skills are vital to standing out among the crowd.
You’ve had a lot of international experience yourself. After going to college in Canada, you traveled in the Middle East and Africa. How have those experiences helped you in your career?
My international experience exposed me to various experiences and skills, such as intercultural and global fluency, communication, self-awareness, and reflection, that have supported my career development. Through my travel experiences and interaction with locals, I learned the importance of cultural diversity and sensitivity as well as gained an understanding of social cues and etiquette.
Additionally, I learned to actively listen, express myself clearly, and build relationships with colleagues from around the globe. I also learned to communicate and understand different languages and dialects such as colloquial Egyptian Arabic and North Levantine Arabic, which added to my understanding of Gulf Arabic.
Moreover, growing up as a global citizen and third-culture kid, I’ve witnessed how global issues and being from underprivileged backgrounds affect not only one’s livelihood but also one’s career development. I strive to advocate for these issues in my career and recommend that study away students interact with different cultures and make a positive, global impact through their careers. I encourage my students to try and understand the world around them while they are abroad and take part in every social, artistic, cultural, and diverse experience they can. These experiences will live with them for the rest of their lives. My own experiences live with me and made me who I am as a person and professional.
Written by Kristin Maffei
Student Reporting in Buenos Aires
When Maureen Zeufack, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development Class of 2023, researched options for studying away, she wanted to explore somewhere new and was immediately drawn to NYU Buenos Aires. A Media, Culture, and Communication major, Maureen found the opportunity to immerse herself in Argentina’s unfamiliar yet vibrant and multicultural lifestyle too good to pass up. “I wanted to go somewhere I didn’t have a connection to, somewhere completely out of my wheelhouse,” Maureen explains. “Academically, I wanted to improve my Spanish. Plus, the media classes aligned with my major, so it really was the perfect fit.”
The daughter of Cameroonian immigrants, Maureen has family in Africa and Europe, and she lived in Asia as a child. What she didn’t expect while studying in Buenos Aires? Finding a slice of home in a place she’d never been.
Maureen was intentional about her class selection, especially when it came to choosing Santiago O’Donnell’s course Reporting Buenos Aires. “I took the class because I knew the semester would go by quickly, and I wanted to have an excuse to explore the city, get more familiar with the culture and the people, and dive into everything,” says Maureen. O’Donnell, a former staff writer at both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, assigns students stories that require them to engage with the surrounding city. This way they learn more about the city’s culture by putting themselves in new situations, observing their Argentine neighbors, and meeting people they may not otherwise encounter. “Since I’m Cameroonian American, I was interested in seeing what the African diaspora is like in Buenos Aires and, if there are Africans in the city, what’s going on in their communities,” says Maureen.
For one of the class assignments, Maureen was tasked with writing a restaurant review. She was surprised to find there was only one African restaurant in all of Buenos Aires. Even more surprising? The owner and head chef, Maxime Tankouo, is also from Cameroon. And not only that—he and Maureen are from the same tribe.
“I thought, ‘What are the odds that in this country, where there aren’t many Black people or Africans in general, that not only is he Cameroonian, but he is also from the exact same tribe and the same part of the country as me?’” Maureen says with a laugh. “That was something we really bonded over.”
While sitting inside the walls of Tankouo’s restaurant, El Buen Sabor Africano, Maureen says she “immediately felt at home.” Although she was far from her familial home, there were pieces of it right there in Buenos Aires, from the music Tankouo played to the decor that filled his restaurant’s walls. She enjoyed a full meal—grilled corvina fish bathed in orange and red African spices, perfectly cooked sweet plantains, and a dish of spicy sautéed red beans and vegetables—all under the gaze of a large, painted lion, Cameroon’s national symbol, on the restaurant’s wall.
Maureen gained more than just a good story for her class. “I know now that I’m especially interested in exploring the African diaspora experience in Argentina,” she says, which is what she focused her final class project on. She adds, “I realized the world is a lot smaller than you think. For something like this to happen while I was there, in a place where sometimes you don’t see a lot of people who look like you, it was necessary and refreshing. It was nice to see a familiar face and know that someone there had a similar background as me.”
Written by Kelly Stewart
NYU Madrid: A Day in the Life
Gabby, a Global Liberal Studies major concentrating in art, text, and media, learns about Spanish culture. Her day starts at her favorite coffee shop, then the Prado Museum, Retiro Park, and her internship at el Chico, an art gallery, and it ends at the NYU Madrid academic center where she attends her evening class on Spanish cinema.
Focused on the Future of NYU London: A Conversation with Executive Director Mojtaba Moatamedi
Dr. Mojtaba Moatamedi, NYU London’s new executive director, joined the staff in January 2023 and has big plans for the global location’s future. Formerly the president of Al Ghurair University in the United Arab Emirates, Moatamedi says it was the possibility surrounding NYU London and what lies ahead for the site, especially its new, state-of-the-art academic center slated to open in fall 2024, that drew him to the job.
Moatamedi brings a wealth of experience in senior leadership, research, and teaching to NYU London, and, prior to his role as Al Ghurair University’s president, he served as the university’s dean of the College of Engineering and Computing. He has also held leadership roles at Imperial College London, Cranfield University, the Arctic University of Norway, University of Salford, and the University of Sheffield.
Moatamedi’s education includes a PhD in Engineering from the University of Sheffield, an MBA from the University of Manchester’s Alliance Manchester Business School, and an LLM in International Business Law from the University of Leeds. His research and teaching focuses on multiphysics, modeling and simulations, and engineering design.
Global Dimensions recently caught up with Dr. Moatamedi. Here’s what he had to share:
Global Dimensions: What drew you to NYU London?
Dr. Moatamedi: The main excitement for me was the future of NYU London. A lot can happen with the new academic center building, opening next year. The University is very invested in NYU London, and I was drawn to the opportunity to really build something and make a difference—that is the biggest reason I came here.
Global Dimensions: You mentioned the new academic center on the horizon. How will this new space impact NYU London students?
Dr. Moatamedi: First, the last 25 years of NYU London has helped us shape what our students need both space- and technology-wise. So we kept the shell of the new building but removed everything else, designing it exactly for our students. Our current space is somewhat limited. For the most part, students come to class and then they leave. They don’t really have a place for “student life” just yet. But with the new building, the whole design—an outdoor space, student lounges, a place to pick up food and beverages—will be really exciting.
Second, the building is in one of the best locations in London. In terms of universities, we’re next to the London School of Economics and King’s College London. Being adjacent to other universities will enhance the student experience immensely. We’re also 10 to 15 minutes away from Downing Street and the Parliament of England. And it’s on one of the oldest streets in London in a central area for music and arts. So building this new academic center and becoming a neighbor of these universities will help us enhance the profile of NYU London in the United Kingdom.
Overall, the student experience is going to be amazing. Our students will really get to experience being a student in the UK while also getting a great education.
Global Dimensions: The building is anticipated to open fall 2024. Where are you in that process?
Dr. Moatamedi: We’ve already started. If you look at the building, the scaffolding is up and they’re hard at work.
It’s really exciting and, for me, personally, this building represents a long-term commitment. The future of NYU London is bright and it’s going to be different from any other academic site.
Global Dimensions: When it’s all said and done, what do you hope your students take away from their time at NYU London?
Dr. Moatamedi: Our students are getting to work with some of the best academics in the country (we have more than 100 faculty) who’ve worked at some of the top universities in the UK. And they all work hard to bring bits and pieces of UK history into our courses. When students are in class, we don’t want it to be a generic classroom experience—we want them to really learn about the UK.
Written by Kelly Stewart