NYUAD’s class of 2014: where are they now?
From Oxford scholarships to pioneering projects, the university’s 140 inaugural graduates are pushing boundaries around the world.
The University of Oxford is the oldest in the English-speaking world and one of the most prestigious on the planet. To be accepted to study there is considered not just an honour, but an affirmation of one’s extraordinary intelligence, character and commitment.
Postgraduate student Shamma Sohail Al Mazrui, a 22-year-old Emirati from Abu Dhabi, won a scholarship to Oxford last year. Her path there, however, began at a far younger university – here in the UAE.
Ms Al Mazrui says enrolling at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) was the best best decision she ever made. “Everything about NYUAD – from the students to the professors – made me challenge conventional ways of thinking and go out of my comfort zone to learn new topics.”
While her undergraduate economics research focused on Emirati females’ perception of the labour market, she is continuing to develop policies that could harness Emirati talent and improve the “public good”.
NYUAD, she says, not only fostered a hunger for knowledge, intellectual honesty and tolerance, but also, through its career development centre, “played an instrumental role in offering employment help and internships”.
Outside the classroom, she co-designed the NYU Al Nahda Institute for social and gender equality and leads a Down syndrome initiative.
For her endeavours, Ms Al Mazrui was awarded a Falcon Scholarship, to study a master’s in public policy at the University of Oxford’s School of Government. “Being surrounded by the brightest and creative minds of my generation continues to inspire me every day. It taught me that nothing is impossible,” she adds.
Ms Al Mazrui is just one of NYUAD’s 140 inaugural graduates, who are featured in a new report from the university. The students completed 22 programmes, broadly divided across social sciences, science and mathematics, arts and humanities, engineering and multidisciplinary studies.
The report, titled Life Beyond Saadiyat, reveals that more than half of its class of 2014 have already found work – across 16 different countries – and almost of fifth of them are earning more than Dh210,000 a year.
The report aims to assess how well the university has met its ambition to to equip students not just with a worldly, liberal-arts mentality, but with the skills and experience needed to compete in the modern workforce.
Revealingly, more than a third of the students featured had work published before graduating; almost all of them spent a full semester abroad; more than four-fifths held at least one internship and nearly three-quarters participated in community service.
One student who took full advantage of these opportunities is Zachary Stanley, a 22-year-old biology graduate from the United States, now studying medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.
Mr Stanley says NYUAD’s inaugural class had a unique opportunity to be an integral part of the university’s development, interacting with the administration on a personal level.
He did not even have a passport before his NYUAD interview and has since gained a new insight into other cultures. “As an American student looking to apply to medical school upon graduation, I found that having studied abroad set me apart from other, similar applicants.
“I have already found that being able to relate and be sensitive in cross-cultural encounters translates relatively well to showing the same level of respect and understanding to patients.”
Crucial to this were his experiences beyond the UAE – “once-in-a-lifetime adventures”, of which he says there were too many to recount. “Everything from exploring Mughal gardens in India; to working on an elephant reserve in northern Thailand; to studying socio-economics in Buenos Aires, were experiences that I would not have had at any other academic institution,” he explains.
He also interned at non-profit organisations and studied the UAE’s health-care system, which both affirmed that he had chosen the right path.