Sep. 9 marks the fourth Monday the Class of 2028 has spent on campus. How the time flies! Before life becomes too busy, assignments pile up, and campus dirhams run out, I wanted to reflect on Marhaba and the beginning of the year with two first years — Vuk and Mariam. Vuk, a Montenegrin hoping to major in Business, Organizations, and Society and minor in Political Science, and Mariam, a Canadian Palestinian Egyptian with a major in Biology, met during the on-campus Weyak dinner. In an interview with me, they reflect on their experience of Marhaba, the challenges and lessons they learned, as well as their hopes for the semester and first year.

The Zoom interview takes place between two NYU Abu Dhabi realities — my midday calling from my second study away in New York, eight hours behind Abu Dhabi, where Vuk and Mariam have just had dinner before preparing for their Friday recitations.

I step away from interview guidelines of posing easy questions first and skip the cliché.

“Could you describe Marhaba in three words?” — I ask, immediately seeing the two of them are over ice breaker games. “Fun, overwhelming, (but) informative,” said Vuk. “I do not want to bounce off of your overwhelming but it has to be in there … overwhelming, action-filled, insightful,” said Mariam.

I pray my first question did not tank the whole interview. Yet, I gotta bother them more about Marhaba. What is another basic question about events I can ask? I do not think much but shoot with:

“What is one Marhaba event that stands out to you?” Vuk went on to say, “The flashmob opening scene! I knew something was going to happen after the first speech, but I did not know what. After [the flashmob], the Weyak leaders and Marhaba teams started saying welcome in different languages and I found that great.”

Mariam thought, “The chicken shawarma shop … can I say that (laughing)? The Weyak dinner was a lot less structured so you had a chance to speak to a lot of different people in your assigned group.”

“What is one piece of knowledge you took away from Marhaba?” Vuk told me that, “You gotta ask for consent to take pictures of people!”

That right there is a Marhaba classic! I vividly remember hearing that in my own Marhaba, the warning to respect the locals' preference for consensual photo taking.

Mariam told us “An [piece of] information that stuck with me is the variety of tailored resources available … I have learned about the Career Development Center, Academic Resource Center library workshops. They provided information, maybe even too much of it, but now I know where to look for resources when I need them.”

“I know Marhaba is a week that fosters a lot of interactions with students and members of admin - what is your favorite interaction from Marhaba?” Both Vuk and Mariam smiled and said, “The lactose thing!”

Vuk then narrates, “This is actually the story of how we met. Marhaba felt like you were talking to people all the time but not actually saying anything. It was always what's your name, major, and where you are from. The organized Weyak dinner on campus felt like the rare time I was making a connection with people, especially those that I would not have met otherwise. Those who you do not live with, those who do not live on your floor, or those who are not from your country. I would not have met Mariam otherwise … we have no classes together and our schedules overlap … setting up lunch is impossible. [The dinner is] how I met Mariam … she explained to me how lactose intolerance works.” “That was our first interaction … it's random!” said Mariam. “I do not think I have a specific memory that stands out. A lot of the interactions were like Vuk said … your name, major, country. It felt like you were a broken record. But even in those interactions, presenting yourself to people, it was refreshing knowing that everybody is in the same boat. A lot of the time the conversation would be a dead end, it felt like you were throwing darts in the dark. But sometimes you got a deeper conversation and that was great.”

“What is your overall experience of Marhaba?” Vuk honestly replied, “I wouldn’t say that Marhaba was the most amazing or groundbreaking experience. It felt a bit rushed at times. It also sometimes felt like you were trapped in the Red Theater for hours.” Mariam added on, saying “But even that had positive sides because it created camaraderie with people sitting next to you.” Vuk agreed. “Yeah and you know we wouldn’t have all these sort of inside jokes that we made throughout if we weren’t there for hours.” Mariam added, “While I found all the information provided valuable, in a sense that nothing could’ve been cut out, maybe it would have been better if there was one day extra. This would allow for more free-flowing events and the time you’d spend with the connections that you formed.”

After sufficiently torturing them with questions about Marhaba, I was interested in hearing how these two were finding being a first year at NYUAD.

“What’s it like being a college student?” Vuk said “I come from a boarding school of similar size [to NYUAD], with a community that’s tightly knit in the same way the one at NYUAD is. We have a lot of support here, which I like. To be honest, though, I have found and continue to find classes academically challenging. The transition is big in terms of seriousness and workload. While you might be used to always having the ability to cut corners in high school, in college it's time to get real.”

Mariam remarks, “You need to give it your all! Being from an international background softened the blow [of coming to Abu Dhabi]. But, I always love learning how little I know. You will pronounce people's names wrong, and you will say culturally incorrect things accidentally but the most important thing is to be open and excited to be wrong. Learning [at NYUAD] is not just inside the classroom. You find you have a lot of similarities with people from completely different backgrounds and different upbringings and I was not expecting it. It is not just surface-level interactions and I love tapping into that. You expect to know so much about the world but you come here….”

Vuk observes “You expect to know so much about [the world] and you do not realize how little you know until you come here and realize how little you know about speaking to the people who all have their own deep, complex, diverse stories to tell.” Mariam adds, “Also, academics can be super intimidating in your head. I spent a week stressing over one assignment and another seven hours on an assignment that took one hour to complete.”

Though a bit premature, I was interested in what pieces of advice my interviewees could give themselves from three weeks ago.

“What is one short piece of advice you would give on the first day of classes?” Vuk said, “Do your readings on time. Interact with your readings, have a conversation with them.” Mariam nods, and earnestly says, ”Google Calendar, Google Calendar, Google Calendar, Google Calendar, Google Calendar a million times over.” Vuk adds on, smiling: “Mariam’s going to teach me this next week.”

“Looking ahead, what are some of your goals for the semester and your first year at NYUAD in general?”

Mariam says “My goal for the end of the semester is to diversify my areas of interest. Dabble into the different resources available on campus. I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and dabble in areas I wouldn’t normally be in. For the end of my first year, I want to have a clear idea of how I want to continue my academics - both technicalities, like do I want to do a minor, but also what I want to do with the rest of my university life.” Vuk says, “My goal for the semester is to get the ground running and involve myself with the basic things I am interested in. I want to build a support system in all the subgroups of my life I can come back to, even if I go to J-Term, Study Away, or if have to take a semester off. More specifically, I would like to learn techniques to successfully tackle university academic challenges. These are very different from high school and while you are continually being told that is the reality, you do not understand what you are getting yourself into until you have to face it straight on (like a Foucault reading on a Friday morning). [My] more long-term goal is similar to Mariam’s … to have a clearer image of what I want to do while I am here. See what university has in store for me, but also use every chance to explore Abu Dhabi.”

Vuk adds “I want to know more about the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East as a whole. I want to get an understanding of what it means to live in Abu Dhabi, what it means to be Emirati, what are the social norms, what are the traditions, the customs, and what the best hang-out spot to go to or the best museum to go to. I want to use these four years, but in particular, this first one, to see what life in Abu Dhabi is like.“

This interview meant a lot to me. Most upperclassmen relate to this one set of feelings you get with talking to first years — a parental concern, mixed with the (sometimes overbearing) desire to share all the knowledge you have and prevent them from making the mistakes you made. These feelings were especially heightened for me this year. A little secret I did not tell you at the beginning of the article is that Vuk is actually my brother and that I spent the whole of Marhaba week stopping myself from booking the next flight to Abu Dhabi to be there with him. But, I have one key takeaway from this interview I want to share with you — you need to let them go their own way. They always figure it out.