Ambi Narula, a communications pro and master’s student, juggles her roles by day and night as she spearheads Comedy Bonfyre, a thriving comedy venture. From fostering a diverse comedy scene to pursuing her MiM at UMD, Narula is reshaping narratives both on and off stage with humor and determination.

When Milan Chaudhary ’26 began making shirts in high school for local school basketball teams, it was just a passion project. Fast forward four years later, and now his apparel company is changing the game.

Being a Maryland Terrapin is something that runs in the family for Helen Feng ’24. But as a business marketing and studio art double major at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Feng is making the most of her own experience.

For Alejandro Smith ’18, MBA ’23, broadening his horizons has always been at the core of his decisions. “I am a first-generation college graduate,” Smith says. “It has always been a passion of mine to pursue higher education to set a good example for my family. Coming back for my MBA made sense.”

It was September 2021 and Ayelette Halbfinger ’23, was struggling. “I suffer from hearing loss and have since I was a little kid,” she says. “However, I never really felt like I needed academic accommodation until I was thrown into an environment where everyone in class was wearing a mask and microphones weren’t working all the time.” Halbfinger, now a senior finance and operations management and business analytics major, says her studies suffered.

“I feel like for a human being, it’s really hard to be in the middle.” That’s what Ksenia Popovich says about being a Russian citizen of Ukrainian descent, as a war between the two countries continues.

Oscar Casasola ’24 is working toward obtaining his finance, marketing and management degrees, but his career as a social media influencer is already off to the races.

I wanted to be at Smith since it’s a hardworking, collaborative environment where all students and faculty are committed to the success of one another.

Ilan Orgel has always had an entrepreneurial drive – and a sense of style. Before coming to the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School and beginning his finance degree, Orgel lived in New York, where he’d often wait in long, early morning lines to buy sneakers he would later resell at a profit.

He’s just a semester into his college career at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, but freshman Michael Zhao already knows exactly what he wants to do for the rest of his life – use a finance and computer science education to make the world a better place.