Beijing Language and Culture University
Lum attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, where she played the trumpet and was trained in classical music and jazz. At age 16, she adopted the stage name Awkwafina, "definitely a person I repressed" and an alter ego to her "quiet and more passive" personality during her college years. From 2006 to 2008, Lum learned Mandarin at the Beijing Language and Culture University in order to communicate with her paternal grandmother without barriers. Lum majored in journalism and women's studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York and graduated in 2011.