What Studying Remotely at NYUAD Might Look Like

I took an online summer course when I left campus, so I was taking class that went from 5-9am EST for a month. Studying remotely was definitely challenging — a few days I actually fell asleep during class. But my professor was really understanding, and did not force us to keep our cameras on. It definitely meant that my schedule had to change, but I got to see the sunrise every day which always made my day.

Samantha Jasen, Rising Senior, USA

Taking classes in a different time zone was less than desirable, but manageable. I took my summer course at home, in Hawaii. The 14 hour time difference meant that my course ran from 11:00 pm till 2:00 am. So my life revolved around that course for those four weeks. However, I think this routine was beneficial in some aspects. It reminded me that my assignments and course work should be one of my top priorities as a university student.

Wilder Worrall, Rising Sophomore, USA

Social Media has been a great help to check in with friends. Whether it’s tagging each other in memes on facebook, watching movies together on Netflix party or playing Mafia on Zoom, I have stayed connected with my friends.

Amna Hasan, Rising Senior, Pakistan

I never would have imagined that building community through online means could be as effective and valuable as it was for me.

Farah Sadek, Rising Senior, Qatar

The campus completely changed once news about the virus became more serious. Classes became remote, all professor-student interactions became remote, and the gym and dining hall closed. If we left the building or were in public spaces we had to wear masks. Also, the campus is usually open to the community but they closed it and monitored all people coming onto campus. There was also hand sanitizer everywhere, and we had daily updates for quite a while. In all, we were scared because the world was changing in a way that our generation had never experienced. The university took it upon themselves to make sure we felt supported, secure, and safe.

Samantha 

There was a swift action from the administration to put in place very strict measures to enforce the COVID-19 protocol. The community responded fairly well. For example, the D2 Dining Hall completely transitioned to “take-out only”. All the furniture was removed, forcing the community to get food as quickly as possible and head out.

Yehowai Sekan, Rising Junior, Ghana

It was an interesting experience to say the least. Of course, going from in-classroom to studying remotely almost instantaneously was a really huge change and it required a lot of dedication, focus and self-discipline.

Farah 

It was very difficult at the beginning, just as most things are — it still feels strange, in fact. However, finding a space (far from my bed) where I could concentrate and feel motivated helped me get through my online Spring and Summer courses.

Yehowai

I did some zoom fitness classes, I scheduled zoom meetings with a few advisors from the CDC to talk through what the future my look like, whether graduate school would be a viable option, etc.

Samantha

The resources of the NYUAD library are outstanding. If you are passionate about something I highly recommend learning more about it through the academic databases NYUAD subscribes to. Now is truly the time to educate yourself.

Wilder

I conduct research under Justin Wilcox, one of the primary investigators in the Falcon Genomics Project at NYUAD. Originally my research focused on falcon parasite identification by extracting the parasite DNA from falcon feces using various kit-based methods.

In early March my research transitioned to bioinformatics and coding work. We would meet every week, at first educating me on the various aspects of Dalma, the High Performance Computing system of NYUAD’s Research Institute. In between our meetings, I would recreate the coding environment he had walked me through. I went from zero knowledge in bioinformatics to create a phylogenetic tree with a Nucleotide sequence from GenBank.

Wilder

My research was focused on ethnic attrition of the first, second, and third generation of American immigrants of Hispanic and Asian descent. We looked at how subjectively identifying as Asians or Hispanics in the US impacted their average years of education. Working [on research] while studying remotely was hard in the first week. But after a routine was set up with frequent zoom calls and lengthy email chains, things became a lot easier.

Amna

The Career Development Center (CDC) was very flexible in setting up virtual meeting with students. I contacted advisors numerous times to have them critique my CV or Cover Letters and give me tips about finding remote internships.

Amna

I had an internship lined up from the fall for this summer, and they actually canceled. So I scheduled many virtual visits with the career development center to talk about different ways to stay engaged this summer, and other productive things outside having a job. I got to take an online class (data analysis) that would mean I could start working on my capstone. After applying for CDC Test Prep Funding, I took online classes to study for the GRE. I’m super lucky because my internship actually re-hired me a few weeks into the summer. But the school definitely gave us options to stay productive but also take some time to reflect.

Samantha