Profile.

While most of her classmates settled into their dorms to start their sophomore year, Nithya Sevugan was miles away in the villages of Tamil Nadu, India. Away from business school and surrounded by family and a different rhythm of life, she began to see her passions more clearly.

 

“My life was all crazy and I was rethinking, what do I really want to do, what am I really passionate about,” Sevugan said. “Because business wasn’t something I was really passionate about. It was kind of just something I chose.”

 

Now a sophomore studying film and media, Sevugan has turned her gap semester in India into a new direction. The time away became a turning point.

 

“I used that time in India to explore my passions,” Sevugan said. “There was actually a recording studio near my grandma’s house, and I would go there often to record songs that I was writing and that I was doing covers. I got to learn a lot about audio engineering.”

 

Her experiences in India ultimately led her to attend Southern Methodist University (SMU) and choose film as a major, a field that brought together all of her creative interests. That shows up in her electives and projects, where she experiments with sound.

 

“I’m also taking a music class because I really love music,” Sevugan said. “One of our projects right now in film is to create a film with no dialogue, just to show emotions without any speaking, and we can have music in the background.”

 

Sevugan’s passion for filmmaking and music did not come out of nowhere. As a child, she listened to her uncle, a filmmaker in the Bollywood industry, describe his career. Inspired by those conversations, she picked up her own camera.

 

“I actually really loved film ever since I was a kid,” Sevugan said. “I would be shooting films on my little iPad and editing on iMovie, and I loved to do it in my free time. It wasn’t something that felt like I had to do it.”

 

That early love for creating wasn’t just something she saw in herself. Friends who grew up with her remember her passions early on.

 

“She was always really interested in singing and making videos as a child,” Vrishti Jain, a close friend, said. “Now, she still likes creating movies and music and posts them on her arts account on Instagram.”

 

Despite film feeling like second nature to her, not everyone has shared that enthusiasm. Some have been skeptical about her choice to pursue filmmaking.

 

“I try to just ignore and not let those negative comments get to me because I know that even in the film industry, there’s going to be a lot of rejection that you have to face.” Sevugan said.

 

Even in her first years at SMU, Sevugan approaches film with focus and ambition.

 

“I really would hope to work in the Hollywood industry,” Sevugan said. “That’s a huge dream, and if not, I would want to work in a local film company.”