“I cried in my office”: After 3 H-1B rejections and degrees from Duke & Harvard, woman leaves US after 4 years ,“Thank you, America, for the education, growth and heartbreak”
This is the story of an Indian girl with big American dreams. For Shreya Mishra Reddy (34), her American sojourn began in 2021 when she left India to pursue a master’s degree at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. Then, she didn’t know, four years later, she’ll have to leave America, not because she failed but because a visa lottery would decide how long she could stay in the country. She shared her story in a Linkdin post and it’s quite positive.For a number of Indians, travelling to the United States is more than boarding a long-haul flight and reaching the country. For many, it can mean leaving behind their whole family, comfort, familiar food, and an entire way of life, all for the promise of a different future.Shreya’s story is also a reminder that international travel can sometimes become much more than sightseeing. For students, crossing a border can mean building a temporary home thousands of kilometres away, only to discover that staying there can be harder than getting there.Her Visa story
Outside Harvard (PC: Instagram)
Shreya reflected on that journey in a widely shared LinkedIn post. She wrote that after four years in the US, three H-1B rejections, three years at Visa, degrees from Duke University and Harvard Business School, and the creation of a non-profit for international students, she is leaving the country.From India To North Carolina
Shreya Mishra (Linkedin )
Shreya came to America in 2021 to study engineering management at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. But her journey was not effortless.As per her account, she arrived with around six years of work experience in India. She eventually graduated from Duke in 2022 and began looking for opportunities in America. Her first major breakthrough came with Visa, where she secured a job. For her, it was no less than a miracle.The Visa problemsHowever, like many international graduates, she needed a longer-term work visa to continue her professional life in America. She entered the H-1B lottery not once but three times.Three times, in hopeThree times, no luckDespite having degrees from prestigious institutions, professional experience and a job at a major international firm. Yet the H-1B cap process still left an element of her future to a lottery.In her post, she also remembers crying in her office after receiving her third rejection. It was not simply the loss of a visa but also meant leaving the country which she called home for four years.Shreya eventually left the US in January 2026 after her student work authorisation expired.An analysis of US State Department data found that 41% of F-1 student visa applications were refused in the 2023-24 fiscal year. More recent reports suggest a sharp decline in F-1 visa issuance to Indian students during parts of 2025.Tourists experience countries through hotels, attractions, and photographs. Students experience them through ordinary life. Over four years, those ordinary experiences can become the strongest memories.A new chapter in TorontoAmerica, however, was not the end of Shreya’s journey.She is now in Toronto on a tourist visa, where she is considering whether Canada could become her next home or whether she will eventually return to India.Toronto therefore represents something different from her first arrival in America. She is not travelling there as a student chasing a university admission. She is looking at another country with the perspective of someone who has already experienced the highs and uncertainties of building a life abroad.And perhaps that is the most positive part of her story.Returning to India, she has said, would not represent failure. She has seen the growth of India’s startup ecosystem and opportunities in cities such as Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.The journey was bigger than a VisaShreya’s American chapter did not end with the H-1B lottery going in her favour. But neither did the rejection erase what she accomplished there. Her story is neither an anti-America nor a simple success story. It is more of a travel story about movement, ambition and starting again.She arrived in America as an Indian student looking. She left as a professional with an international education and work experience. As she put it, if one door did not open because of luck, she would build new ones.
