AJ Noble always knew he wanted to go far.
Born and raised in the US, AJ spent his early childhood in Singapore– and it was that first exposure to an international environment that ignited a spark in him. That curiosity about other cultures, languages, and backgrounds stayed with him and inspired him to search for a university experience outside of the US.
“That was a huge pull factor for me,” he said. NYU Shanghai “felt like the perfect opportunity for me to get that US education abroad, as well as being in a very international environment.”
That interest in living an international life wasn’t the only thing he picked up during his time in Singapore. While there he also begain training in gymnastics, circus arts, and trampolining, which he continued to pursue after moving to the US. When he got his acceptance letter from NYU Shanghai in 2021, AJ had to make a difficult choice—start university in the fall or take a gap year to train for the 2021 Trampoline and Tumbling World Age Group Competitions in Azerbaijan.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and AJ decided to defer his enrollment a year to fully pursue trampolining ahead of the competition. AJ’s hard work paid off and he was off to Azerbaijan to represent Team USA on the world stage.
With that accomplishment under his belt, he felt ready to move on and start his college career. It was an unconventional start, as AJ and his international classmates arrived on campus only after completing two weeks of hotel quarantine.
After quarantine ended, he and his classmates quickly got to know each other and by the time Thanksgiving came around, AJ had made friends from all over the world, the international experience he had hoped for. “It was just this crazy mix of cultures and experiences that I don't think you can get in a lot of places,” he said.
The international atmosphere had him hooked, and inspired him to become an Orientation Ambassador in his sophomore year, welcoming new first year students to campus. He also began working as an Admissions Ambassador, which he continued through the rest of his time at NYU Shanghai. “That first year was so much fun, I loved it, and I wanted to talk to people about NYU Shanghai and share my experiences with potential future students,” he said. “The experience is what you make of it,“ he said. “If you’re coming to Shanghai, you have to go out and explore and be willing to travel [if you can afford to] and make the most of the experience.”
It’s that same passion for learning about other people’s languages and cultures that inspired him to major in Social Science (International Relations) and minor in Humanities. He wondered if he could keep making connections across countries and cultures after graduation, as a career. “It gives me energy. I love meeting new people and I love learning about their experiences and lives,” he explained. He thought, “I have to make this into my job somehow.”
A class in comparative politics allowed him to think about International Relations in a new way, understanding and comparing the domestic politics of different countries. Meanwhile, studying at a university in China also gave him a chance to learn more about the US-China relationship. In Associate Professor of Practice in Political Science Ivan Rasmussen’s US-China Relations class, he read journalist John Pomfret’s The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom (2016).
The book left an impact on AJ. “It just provided so much more context about the relationship between the US and China and so many things started to make sense that had never been explained to me through US media,” he said. “It really opened my eyes to there's a lot of things that the US got wrong (about China).”
When it came time to study away, AJ used the opportunity to build up his language skills, a crucial tool for building connections across cultures. “I think that's something that you can apply to your work or life forever,” he said. Studying away in Buenos Aires and Berlin allowed him to expand his existing Spanish language skills from living in Texas in high school, and further his German language skills, which he began studying informally while at NYU Shanghai.
His senior capstone project, inspired by his background in sports and his study away experiences, focuses on how authoritarian governments use mega sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup as a propaganda tool to improve their image on the international stage, using the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina (held during a military dictatorship) and the 1936 Berlin Olympics (held in Nazi Germany) as examples. AJ says the research allowed him to consider competitive sports from a new angle. "My capstone allowed me to understand there’s a lot more politics and international relations involved [in sport] than I had ever thought about,” he said.
As AJ looks ahead, he’s open to a future that could lead him in many directions. He hopes to find a career in the US State Department or working on international sporting events like the Olympics, to combine his love of competitive sports with international relations. “That would be a really cool way to blend the two things that I'm really passionate about,” he said. “It would feel like a full-circle moment.”