Safiyyah, second year economics student wins place as Visiting Undergraduate at Harvard

LONDON: When Aida Safiyyah Rafe was 6, she visited Harvard University with her parents and grandparents.

A desire to return to the Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States, is sown in the 6-year-old. Fourteen years later, the 20-year-old alumni of Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur will make her way to the university as a visiting undergraduate student (VUS).

"I remember the massive staircases and knocking on doors to see if anyone was in," she said about her first visit to the university with her family after attending her aunt's graduation at another university in the US.

Safiyyah, an active and highly motivated student and who was the head of the Sen Club and Speaker Events at the London School of Economics Economics Society, said she was recommended by her professors to apply to Harvard as a VUS to deepen her understanding of contemporary issues such as economic inequality and climate change.

"In my application, I wrote about my desire to further explore the link between economic inequality and race relations, and how macroeconomic policies and financial technology can help strengthen racial unity in Malaysia.

"I was delighted when I was accepted.

"This opportunity will allow me to spend a year at Harvard in addition to my current degree at the LSE," said the soft-spoken Safiyyah, who flew off to Malaysia for a break before flying off to the US on Aug 22.

The VUS programme at Harvard welcomes students enrolled in colleges and universities around the world to spend a semester or full year studying at Harvard.

Applicants should demonstrate strong educational reasons for wanting to study at Harvard, with evidence, among others, of academic strength and personal integrity, with interest in and beyond the classroom.

"As the head of Sen Club and Speaker Events in the LSE Economics Society, I invited and hosted many prominent leaders, professors and Nobel laureates, such as economist Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Lord Mervyn King and Johnathan Gruber, to address pressing contemporary issues," said Safiyyah.

When asked about her ambition, she replied: "To positively give back to my society.

"It was truly an eye-opening and humbling moment to learn from some of the most esteemed people in the world.

"It improved my confidence in conversing with people from all walks of life. It also gave me a lot of exposure to the real world and that there is so much more to discover."

Safiyyah has an excellent academic record, having scored straight As, and won awards, including "Top of the World" in Cambridge awards. She finished her first year at LSE with a high First.

Safiyyah, the eldest of four children, loves to cook and bake. She is thankful to her mother Altaaf Nishat and banker father Rafe Haneef for always supporting her in all her endeavours.