A Weekend in Abu Dhabi

Hey loves!

I returned to Hong Kong on Monday morning after a short trip to Abu Dhabi. I was originally planning to fully participate in my theatre project about the LGBTQIA+ community in Hong Kong but NYU Abu Dhabi invited me to join them for their candidate weekend in Abu Dhabi. When applying to NYU, I did not really believe that I would make it to the candidate weekend due to the university's large applicant pool which is why I was quite surprised when I got the invitation.

I spent four days in Abu Dhabi (Thursday-Sunday) and it was a wonderful weekend. The candidate weekend itself ran from Friday to Saturday but they organised city tours on the other two days for candidates who arrived early. NYU Abu Dhabi covered all costs for the trip and organised everything for us. Therefore, I basically only needed to print out my ticket and get on my plane. When I arrived at NYU Abu Dhabi, I could not believe how diverse the university. They literally invited candidates from all over the planet and I felt a little bit like being in a UWC when interacting with the other candidates. There were also quite a few UWC students at the candidate weekend and almost everyone I met knew about UWC and its mission. Normally, when I tell people about UWC, they ask me to explain because they have never heard of it, but this place seems to be a melting pot for UWC students.

Throughout the weekend, NYU Abu Dhabi organised many activities for us so that we could get to know the university and Abu Dhabi. They took us to the desert where we watched a traditional Arab dance and they also took us to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. The title picture of this article is one of the pictures I took in the desert and I also attached a picture from the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque for you guys. We also got to visit the Louvre Abu Dhabi which was very interesting for me because I had seen quite a few of the art pieces in the Louvre in Paris and it was cool to see them in a different environment.

We also got a campus tour and throughout the tour, I realised how many opportunities you can get by joining NYUAD. The university offers free courses in different areas such as wood or painting and you can just join them in your free time and gain some new skills. The professors were willing to share information about their projects with us and they answered all our questions during the tour. We all got to attend a sample class and mine of was on migration and law. It was quite interesting to sit in this class because this was the first time that someone asked me why people care when others move. I always simply assumed that we just cared, but then I asked myself why we do.

I also had two conversations during the weekend, one with an admissions officer and another one with a faculty member. All of us initially thought that the conversations would be like an interview but they turned out to be casual conversations. We got to ask them any questions about the U.A.E., NYUAD, and university in general. We could also always ask our peer ambassadors if we had any questions. Our peer ambassadors were current students who accompanied us throughout the weekend.

I have met so many incredible people throughout this weekend and I am very grateful to NYU Abu Dhabi for giving me the opportunity to attend this weekend!

Lots of Love,

Elena