“Because this is a religiously oriented community, there’s something more substantial to our values and to the idea that all of this means something.”
Isa Sheikh ’25 took his Notre Dame journey along a global path. He came to the University as a QuestBridge Scholar and a Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar, then became a researcher at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, a member of the Muslim Student Association, editor-in-chief of The Observer, studied abroad, held an internship in Ireland, and made the Dean’s List.
An exemplary leader from a young age, Isa grew up in California and was involved in the Sacramento City Unified School District. Isa’s ambition is reflected in his family, who immigrated to the United States from India before he was born. Once in California, Isa’s father worked as a taxi driver and his mother worked in the single-room occupancy where they lived.
Isa’s mother tragically passed away when he was a rising junior in high school, and that changed his role as the oldest of three children—especially during the pandemic. However, it was his mother’s hopes for his academic future that helped guide Isa on the path to pursuing more out of higher education.
“As a senior in high school, I was content with the idea that I had a role to play in my family and that I would go to community college, then transfer to a University of California school,” Isa explained.
He shared this plan with his mom’s cousin, and her response was emphatic. “She said, ‘What are you talking about? This is not what this was all for. Your grandparents immigrated to this country. Your mom did so much so that you could get educated. Education was always your mother’s dream.’”
That set Isa’s sights on casting a wider net. “I applied to dozens of schools, and Notre Dame was my first acceptance.” He continued, “After the years of living at home in the pandemic, I was ready for a breath of air…to do something new. I decided to take the jump to Notre Dame in part because, as a Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar, not only was I getting need-based aid, I was getting a merit-based scholarship.”
Known to do his research, Isa got to know Notre Dame from across the country. “I read about the University’s history, and I watched the Hesburgh documentary before it was even assigned to me in class,” Isa began.
“The first exposure I had to Notre Dame was in James Patterson’s House of Robots series, in which the mom is a professor at Notre Dame and designs robots for a robot football team.” Coincidentally, Isa’s reality wasn’t far from fiction. “One of the first stories I covered at The Observer was the Notre Dame real-life robot football team,” he shared. A poetic bookend.
Isa changed up his academic pursuits after his first year. “I came here as a political science major and took two history classes during my first year with Professor Nikhil Menon, who’s now my thesis advisor. He convinced me to join the History Department. That was one of the great decisions I’ve made here.” Isa became an Honors History and political science major with an Asian studies minor.
Exploring curiosities beyond the classroom
“There are no limits to what you can do here.”
When Isa flew to South Bend from California, his uncle helped him move in, and then he was on his own. “I threw myself into things like The Observer, research at the Kellogg Institute, my classes,” he said. Without skipping a beat, his Notre Dame journey began.
“My first love at Notre Dame is The Observer. It always will be,” he shared. Isa started at The Observer, Notre Dame’s student-run newspaper, during his freshman year and was elected editor-in-chief a few years later.
The periodical soon shaped most facets of Isa’s student experience. “As a news writer and someone who worked in production in the office as a freshman, every single week, I was writing a different story. Because of that, I got to talk to all sorts of really cool people—students, professors, administrators. Every week, I went somewhere new on campus—places I wouldn’t normally be in as a political science student. So I really got to learn about everything happening on this campus and the various components that make this campus work. That was incredible.”
Isa reflected on another transformative part of his Notre Dame experience following his first year, recalling his trip to the Boundary Waters with the Hesburgh-Yusko scholars. The program facilitates these expeditions with Outward Bound, pushing students beyond their comfort zones to prepare them for the unexpected, build confidence, and practice life-changing teamwork.
“We had the choice of dog sledding or kayaking, both in the Boundary Waters up in Minnesota. Of course, I’m going dog sledding. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime story!” Isa and his team spent a week out on the frozen lakes with the dogs, isolated in sub-zero temperatures.
“That was one of those many moments during my Notre Dame career when I recognized that a) the world is so vast and incredible, and there are so many new things to try, and b) I am capable of a lot more than I thought I was.”
Going global
From ongoing research to attending conferences nationwide, Isa has made the most of opportunities to travel as a Notre Dame student and on his own. He has traveled to Ireland, the United Kingdom, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska, India, other European countries, New York, and Philadelphia. “Notre Dame is awash in so many opportunities,” he reflected.
During his junior year, Isa studied abroad with Notre Dame Dublin. The program connects students with local faculty at Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and Dublin City University as well as local community organizations. In Ireland, Isa volunteered with a local organization as a tutor.
“A lot of us tutored in various subjects. My roommate did math; I did reading and English,” Isa explained, mentioning they would work with their students for an hour at a time throughout the semester. “My student was Somali. It was fun because I was tutoring him in English, and we got to do conversation practice. So I asked him a lot about his life. I was enriched, as I hope he was.”
As a scholar with a global perspective, Isa’s time in Ireland would help to shape his senior thesis. He also pursued research opportunities abroad with his adviser, Dr. Susan Ostermann. Some of his research centered on the 2018 merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan and its implications on the Weberian definition of the state, as well as what it means for the understanding of coercion. He and Dr. Ostermann have traveled extensively in their research together—something Isa hopes to continue as he pursues advanced degrees in history.
The Kellogg Institute also provided Isa the opportunity to travel across the country from California to New York for the American Historical Association conference, a formative experience that solidified his interests as a historian.
In yet another widespread academic pursuit, Isa served as a federal policy and research fellow with the Campaign for College Opportunity in Washington, DC, as a rising sophomore. His aim was to foster federal conversation around transfer policy.
While 87% of Notre Dame students study abroad, it was Isa’s drive to excel, explore his vast interests, and reach for new opportunities that opened up these additional travel opportunities. The international scope of his work is invaluable in contextualizing world history and seeing accounts of our past firsthand.
Through the lens of history
“I’ve always been driven toward the intellectual pursuit—that constant learning helps us understand our existence better. For me, history is such a great way of understanding where we are now,” he said. “It offers perspective.”
As an honors student, Isa wrote a senior thesis on his work on Yeats and Tagore, situating Tagore in the context of the Irish revival to better understand the British Empire and colonialism. His foundation was built through his research in India, Ireland, and archives around the world.
Following graduation, Isa plans to attend Oxford for a master’s degree in the one-year MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies program. “The Master’s is so great because it will allow me time to refine my research abilities and maybe take on another language.” That would be Isa’s fourth spoken language.
A deeper calling
“The University of Notre Dame has a fantastic underlying mission and really attempts to live up to that in a way that other American institutions don’t anymore. I’m incredibly grateful to be affiliated with this University.”
When deciding where to go for post-secondary education, Isa knew he wanted to further his studies in a place that shared his personal values. “I chose Notre Dame intentionally based on its Catholic identity,” he said. “I’m a religious Muslim. Having grown up in California, I was tired of the explicitly secular education in California; not that there’s any problem with that, but it felt as though my belief in God was something to be ridiculed in my education back home. I knew that there would just be more of that if I went to a school out there.
So I appreciated Notre Dame’s religious values—not only for its faith in God, but also because of its belief in something greater than us, the belief in God and His Commandments, which allows us to think about what we can do in our temporary stint on this planet; the idea that God has only given us so much time and so we ought to serve Him and serve our fellow man.”
He continued, “My roommate is a very devout Catholic, and I think the strength of our relationship is in a shared commitment to that idea. I’ve built a lot of deep relationships with Catholics here, along with many other faith traditions. Because this is a religiously oriented community, there’s something more substantial to our values and to the idea that all of this means something.”
Isa credits Notre Dame for helping him develop these values and grow in his intellectual underpinnings. “Whether that was Notre Dame Dublin urging us to work in tutoring refugees in Dublin or in service here at Our Lady of the Road in South Bend,” he said, Notre Dame fostered those values. He added, “I was able to connect a lot of the Catholic Social Teaching with my own religious tradition in coursework across classes, from my Writing in Rhetoric classes to everything else.”
From a young student who hadn’t considered a university in the Midwest to an accomplished scholar traveling the world with the spirit of the Fighting Irish, Isa leads as a force for good in the world. The Notre Dame Family makes stories like his possible.
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