Anustha Shrestha: Taking the Lead

by Cecil Harris

Students who are high achievers in the classroom and leaders outside of it are largely responsible for the longevity and success of the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business at Adelphi University.

Anustha Shrestha, a junior majoring in economics, is one such student.

“I like a certain level of engagement, and Adelphi has lived up to my expectations,” Anustha said, who came to America in 2011 from Nepal, a country in Southern Asia. “I went to a college in Nepal for a year. But I wasn’t satisfied.”

Anustha, who lives in Elmhurst, New York, applied to Adelphi and several other schools in the Northeast, including Fairfield University and Pace University. However, her belief that Adelphi would be an ideal fit has been justified.

“The student-to-professor ratio at Adelphi [10:1] is really low, so you can have a close relationship with your professors here,” she said. “I’m the kind of person who needs that personalized attention. I would feel lost in a class of 200 people. Learning at Adelphi has really given me the opportunity to grow.”

As a senator in the Student Government Association, Anustha advocates on behalf of students from the School. She is also a mentee in a program called Jr. Moxxie, which is designed to provide female college students with a competitive edge for their entry into the business world. She’s one of two students selected by the Willumstad School of Business for the program.

During the past two summers, Anustha has taken part in Adelphi’s Community Fellows Program, which places students in paid internships at nonprofit organizations.  In 2012, she was a community-planning intern at Sustainable Long Island. In 2013, she was a public-relations and marketing intern at Five Towns Community Chest, a fundraising group.

“I got to see how a nonprofit organization really works because I followed the executive director around to see what impact a nonprofit has on a community,” she said.

During her one-year term as an Adelphi Youth Ambassador to the United Nations, Anustha went to the U.N. to hear speakers from nonprofit organizations discuss news from around the world.

GEICO awarded Anustha a $1,000 scholarship because of her academic prowess and essay writing. Before coming to America, she was a features reporter for a newspaper in Nepal. She’s now a student-writer in Adelphi’s Office of Public Affairs.

Anustha is also president of Adelphi’s International Students Society (ISS), a platform for students of all nationalities, including native-born Americans, to interact and learn about other cultures. Among the multicultural events ISS will present in the 2013–2014 academic year are International Tea Party on November 22 and International Night on March 6.

Having learned to bring diverse groups together, she is still considering how best to utilize her academic and interpersonal skills in a career.

“When I came to Adelphi, I was more interested in community economics, economic development in Third World countries and long-range planning,” she said. “Now I’m more interested in actuarial science. It’s a good combination of business and math.”

Anustha said she would pursue an internship at a for-profit corporation in Summer 2014 to compare that to her experiences at nonprofits.

Regardless of her career path, she is almost certain to take the lead.