Yuvraj Shah, '26

Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya and London, United Kingdom

Languages: Gujarati, Swahili, English

Major: English Literature and History

Main extracurricular activities: Senior opinions editor at the Campus Newspaper, ResLife, House Manager at the Arts Centre, Hindu Students Association, International Student Association, South Asian Student Association. 

Favorite study spot? Davis library first floor carrel 

Favorite food in the dining hall? Baked maple salmon!

Favorite Vermont spot: Otter View Park! 

Favorite academic experience: In April 2025, I was awarded a $5000 research grant as part of the Mellon Foundation at Middlebury. The Mellon grant is a $5000 grant awarded to juniors or seniors from the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities For All Times initiative to support its project, “Migrant Justice in Vermont and Beyond.” As a fifth generation Kenyan British of Indian Heritage, this past summer, I used the grant and travelled all over the United Kingdom and Kenya, interviewing over 50 different migrants. With these interviews, I plan to write a 25 page paper detailing the unique stories of this demographic of people, and help answer the question: “what is a British East African Indian?”. I am grateful to my supervisor, Professor Benjamin Graves, and the Mellon Grant selection committee. 

Where did you study abroad? During the Spring 2025 semester I studied abroad at Keble College, Oxford University, United Kingdom  through Middlebury’s Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies program. I was able to study under the supervision of Oxford tutors, taking two full time tutorials, one seminar style class, and a month long large scale research paper. At Oxford, I was a full student, accessing all of the universities library resources. For my final, I wrote a 25 page research paper on the depiciton of the 1770 Bengal famine in British newspapers and magazines. As an Oxford student, I was able to use those original newspapers and magazines! I enjoyed visiting Oxford’s cathedrals and churches, and was a member of Oxford’s South Asian student group. 

Why did you choose to attend Middlebury? Middlebury’s international student organisation has a motto: “Small town, big community.” Middlebury is an excellent school for its global outreach, and as a student with a very international background, I was very attracted to the college’s global student body, diverse in terms of the countries my peers hail from, and the states too! Classes all have an international focus, and Middlebury’s study abroad program, complement this. I attended high school in Hong Kong and learnt Mandarin Chinese. Middlebury was an excellent place to continue learning Chinese, with its language program.