2024 Media, Culture, and Communication Graduate Ray Sun's Journey, from COVID Care to Law School

Ray Sun (BS ’24, Media, Culture, and Communication) shares how he supported fellow students during COVID, gave back as a peer mentor, and discovered his post-undergraduate path to law school.

Ray Sun’s first visit to the United States was as a middle school student on an international school trip visiting college campuses on the East Coast.

“I barely spoke English at the time, and I didn’t know how to order from a coffee shop,” he recalls. What he did know was that he loved NYU’s campus. “I really liked the idea of a no-campus campus. The boundaryless campus gave me the feeling of boundaryless possibilities.”

Several years later, the NYU Steinhardt Media, Culture, and Communication graduate with a minor in Business of Entertainment, Media, and Technology – sipping his go-to order of an iced espresso with oat milk – is looking forward to the next step in his education at NYU School of Law.

For Ray, it’s a natural progression from his time taking media, culture, and communication courses at Steinhardt, with lessons that aligned with a jarring semester abroad in Shanghai during an Omicron outbreak and subsequent lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2022.

He says he saw an upbeat government narrative that did not match the food scarcity and inadequate medical care affecting the local population. As the social media leader in the Dean’s Service Corps at NYU Shanghai, he and his colleagues sought to assist the masses by using the organization’s WeChat – which previously promoted social advocacy information including environmental protection and elderly care – to publish resources and tips to procure food and supplies. His experience reinforced the power of narratives and the potential to harness the media for social awareness and justice, but he felt he needed additional tools that a law education could provide.

“I want to take further steps to make a change with the knowledge that I learned, not just to critique something happening, but to contribute and make a difference.”

In addition to his studies in China, he worked a consecutive internship and externship in criminal and financial law, respectively, managing databases, studying cases, compiling evidence, and creating memos and reports. 

Upon his return to NYU in New York, he became a peer mentor, co-teaching a seminar for new students, and facilitating orientation events, activities, and tours. Before starting his senior year, Ray returned to China for another law internship assisting attorneys in capital market transactions. 

“I really enjoy helping others. Every time I had one-on-one conversations with my mentees, I felt like I was participating in their journey of growing up and transitioning to college,” he says. “And because I also hosted office hours with them, sometimes when they asked for help, I felt really honored and privileged that I could convey [this university’s] tradition of helping others to the new students.”

Notably, during Ray’s myriad professional and educational roles, he remained committed to one special position as a writer and video editor for a Chinese fan account for Taylor Swift on Sina Weibo.

For Ray’s next chapter, he is excited to bring his vast media and legal skills to his first-choice institution – NYU Law – to build a career promoting civil rights and preventing abuses of power by governments and institutions.