“I was told that America is the land of dreams,” said Neha Jain on Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park. She went on to tell a story of resilience and growth that resonated with her fellow graduates at Northeastern’s undergraduate Commencement ceremony. Jain told her classmates that she had traveled to Northeastern from a small town near Delhi because the United States was, she said, “the land of infinite opportunities and a place where I can be whoever I want to be.”
“The first few days of freshmen year were full of self-doubt and anxiety, where I constantly questioned myself if I will ever make it, where the thought of being on co-op gave me chills as I did not even have a resume or any experience in terms of working,” said Jain, who earned her degree in business administration in December 2020. “I didn’t know how will I ever fit in with people from cultures I have never even heard of—and how will I ever survive the crazy snow days that everyone kept warning me of.
“But here I am,” said Jain, who completed two “amazing” co-ops, studied abroad in Copenhagen, worked multiple different on-campus jobs and mentored multiple students at Northeastern.
Since January, Jain has been working in Dubai as a client services associate for AlphaSights, an information services company. She had made the long journey back to Boston to participate in this Commencement ceremony, which could not be taken for granted, not after the isolating year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
