She then worked as a student nurse at the Beiyang Women’s Hospital in Tianjin, China from 1916-1917, under Ida Kahn [aka Kang Aide 康愛德 1873-1931]. Kahn, a Jiujiang native and one of the first Chinese women trained in Western medicine (she was a University of Michigan alumna), was credited with establishing the first corps of female Chinese nurses. It was likely during her time working in Tianjin that Shih established contact with Nankai and Zhang Boling, such that she was able to join Zhang and the group of Nankai graduates to travel from Tianjin to the US together in 1917. She arrived in town in 1917, together with a Nankai cohort led by Nankai President Zhang Boling. However, Shih did not start her American education at Grinnell, but rather went to Oxford, Ohio for 1917-1918. She first went to a high school there for half a year and then attended the Miami University of Ohio for one semester before being admitted to Grinnell in 1918 as a freshman (GH 09/24/1918). Here she stayed for the next two years until 1920.

As the first and only female Chinese student at Grinnell, Shih attracted plenty of attention from the College and town from the very start. She boarded with Professor J. D. Stoops and stated her plan to pursue the studies of medicine and music (GH 09/24/1918). She also actively participated in extracurricular activities. A member of the Chinese Students Club at Grinnell, she helped with their celebration of the seventh anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China (ROC) in October 1918; the Chinese students put up an exhibition of Chinese fabrics, needlework, books, pictures, and other artifacts and gave a reception that entertained over sixty guests, including President J. T. Main and his wife. They also performed: singing songs, delivering a speech, and giving a reading, with Shih playing a piano solo (SB 10/16/1918). It was also Shih, together with five male Chinese students, who hosted the visit of Zhang Boling and three other prominent Chinese educators in November 1918, when the delegation visited Grinnell for four days. Additionally, Shih participated in YWCA-related off-campus conferences, such as the Student Conference in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in August 1919 (SB 09/20/1919) and the International Student Volunteer Convention in Des Moines, IA from December 31, 1919, through January 4, 1920 (SB 12/31/1919). Unfortunately, she came down with pneumonia and was taken to the town hospital barely a month later (GR 02/19/1920).

It was reported in several Chinese newspapers that Shih spent four years at Cornell University and earned a Bachelor of Science and then studied music at Columbia University for another two years, earning a certificate in music education, though those experiences cannot be verified by extant archival records at the two institutions. However, she was listed as a member of the University of Iowa’s Chinese Students Club and their Kappa Phi sorority as a freshman in 1922 (Hawkeye Yearbook, vol. 31). She took courses in their College of Pharmacy for Fall 1920, and in their College of Arts and Sciences for Spring and Summer 1921 and for the full 1921-1922 academic year, without receiving any degrees. She returned to China in 1926. From 1926-1936, Shih taught at several institutions, including Nankai Middle School, where she worked as an English and Music teacher. In 1936 she was charged by the Jiangxi provincial government to study Western women’s vocational education in Europe and the US and left Shanghai in December 1936.

On January 1, 1937 she entered the US again via Seattle, and on Jan. 16, 1937 she got married to C. I. Tseng, another Grinnell (and Nankai) alumnus who arrived in 1918, and had been her “partner in crime” organizing Chinese students’ activities such as the celebration of the founding of ROC in October 1918. Tseng gave a speech on that occasion, and later co-hosted the Chinese educators’ visit in November 1918. The 1940 US census listed their family in Ward 4, Chicago, Cook County, with Charles I. Tseng as the head of the household, his wife Nancy (so called likely because the pronunciation was similar to her Chinese name; she was also perhaps following her husband’s naming convention in English), and their baby daughter Cynthia, then 11 months old. The 1950 Census showed that Tseng was working in Dearborn, MI while Shih and their daughter Cynthia were living with her sister Evelyn Shih in Detroit, MI. She was naturalized to become a US citizen in 1956.

Their daughter Cythia later became a medical doctor, fulfilling her mother’s old dream of pursuing medicine. In 1963 Dr. Cythia Tseng was married to Henry Chow, and the wedding notice listed her parents’ names as Charles Tseng and Mrs. Tseng. C. I. Tseng worked in Illinois and Michigan in the 1940s and 1950s, and passed away in Oakland, MI in 1986. Shih passed away in Oakland, MI in 2002, at the ripe age of 105.