Facing a truncated semester with no breathing room between fall 1 finals and the start of fall 2, a cohort of interactive media students have launched an exciting new initiative. Using their vast technical know-how and deep well of personal experience, they have recreated several iconic NYU Abu Dhabi fall break moments in virtual reality. Starved of wasteful, frivolous adventure for far too long, NYUAD Global Leaders™ have broken into the IM Lab to chase the fix of simulated travel amid the pandemic.

“They’re even more life-like than the birds!” exclaimed Ress Liss, Class of 2022, in her real-time review of the quite fake environments. “It’s like I’m really there! I can actually feel my Wirecard info being stolen by an ATM skimmer!”

Short on time, hardware, coffee and actually helpful stackoverflow threads, the IM Lab could only develop a limited number of simulations. Fortunately, they invested wisely — recreating only the most essential fall break travel experiences.

“We’ve got all the classics,” explained Zleapiz Fordaweek, Class of 2022. “Realizing your flight departs from Al-Maktoum only after you try to check in at DXB, getting food poisoning on the second night after downing an entire cart’s worth of street food and my personal favorite: missing your bus, panicking, then waiting for the mom of the group to come up with a plan while you cry into a bag of funyuns.”

“We even found time between our beat-saber tournaments to replicate the experience of local vendors ripping you off,” added Fordaweek. “Just put on our headset, and go to BlueMart!”

Thanks to the IM students, not even a pandemic prevents their peers from appreciating the finer joys of haphazard globe trotting. In an unplanned externality, the project also promises to make once exclusive experiences accessible to all who want them.

“I send every dirham back to my family,” remarked Manimor Lykmee, Class of 2021. “I never got to visit Petra or Zanzibar, Istanbul or Tbilisi. But now, I finally have the chance to feel superior to tour groups of obnoxious 60 year olds simply because I got this opportunity decades earlier in life and therefore require fewer support structures. It’s everything I dreamed of and more.“

“I’m so glad no one else has to experience the horror I’ve been living for the past two years,” said Fiska Lirisponsepal, Class of 2022. “Forced to stay in Abu Dhabi for the whole semester? Catered meals, an immaculately maintained outdoor green space, cuddly kittens literally everywhere — it’s amazing any of us peasants even survived such torturous conditions. It warms my heart to know we will finally have respite from this affront to human rights.”

Some students, however, lack such positivity.

“I can’t flaunt my unsustainable lifestyle on my Insta story?! What’s the point?” complained Rong Pry-Oritiz, Class of 2023. “If I don’t get some real travel soon, I won’t even get enough stamps to fill my passport before it expires. My entire NYUAD education will have been for nothing.”

“Looking at more screens is the last thing I want to do right now,” lamented Bernt Owtolredi, Class of 2022. “I might only have three days between my last exam and my first class, but I’m gonna make it count. I’m napping in the middle of the highline like a campus cat and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me.”

Indeed, in these stressful times, many students may actually find it more useful to slow down their lives for a few days rather than frantically try and speed them up. Even so, the forcefully reopened IM Lab expects to be at full capacity all week. The student body is nothing if not stubborn. It will take a lot more than the greatest global cataclysm in living memory for them to adjust their standards.