Shah Amanat - Class of 2013

He was so frustrated with what he saw during recess that he’d lost his appetite for dinner. Shah Amanat could not dispel the face of an orphan boy who had not eaten in two days begging him for food. At that moment, sitting with his family in their middle-class home in Bangladesh, Shah committed to “being the change I want to see in the world.”

And he has worked ardently towards fulfilling his promise since he entered LaGuardia Community College as a Business major in 2011. “In the first class I took at LaGuardia– English 101– my professor taught me that whatever I did, I should do with all my heart,” he says about what set the premise for his future successes, “She assured me that for the best results, I have to be comfortable in my own skin.”

So, having won a visa lottery and leaving his country as a junior in college, when election time came in LaGuardia’s Student Government, he knew there was no one better than he to be Governor of International Students and Foreign Affairs. He ran
for the position and won, and later ascended to Student Government president for 2012-2013.

His work in SGA includes organizing a town hall meeting on Deferred Action where City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the DREAM Act’s fiercest advocate Congressman Luis Gutierrez responded to students’ concerns. “It’s a big satisfaction
for me as a student leader,” says Shah of his deeds, “Students who we helped to apply have received their document.”

Shah also co-organized students in support of the referendum that formalized a varsity sports teams at LaGuardia as of Fall 2013. He was also a key coordinator of SGA’s annual Student Giving Day where compassionate students make donations towards the scholarships of their financially struggling peers.

Shah is a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and an Honors Program student maintaining a 3.7 GPA. He is currently an investment-banking intern on Wall Street and aspires to own his own information technology business. He dreams of reaching a position in the world economy where he can keep children, like the boy he met in his childhood, from starving and instead offer them equal opportunity.

After graduation, Shah will apply for transfer to Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business,
Harvard Business School and NYU Stern.