The belated celebration of NYU Abu Dhabi’s 10th anniversary took place at last on Sept. 21-22. The celebrations, both in-person and virtual, were approached with creativity in order to keep in line with Covid-19 regulations. The palms by the Campus Center donned a classic NYUAD purple for the week. Students chomped on cupcakes and cookies decorated with the NYUAD logo and took polaroid pictures by the giant “10.” Most notably, the university released a series of talks that could be accessed online.

As NYUAD marks its ten years of existence, it looks back on how it came into being through The Origin Story, an oral history that documents the university’s conception and founding by former NYU president John Sexton and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. The Origin Story featured visionaries, leaders and administrators who were monumental to the university’s founding years and encapsulated the NYUAD spirit in an accompanying video.

The culmination of the 10th anniversary celebrations can be found in This is NYU Abu Dhabi, a special feature film documenting the stories of NYUAD community members through Anthony Geffen’s Emmy Award-winning eye. The documentary follows the story of Musbah Ormago, Class of 2014, one of the earliest students to join the campus, and Ana Karneza, Class of 2020, whose passion for theater propels her, among others.

If you travel to the library on campus, you can find a giant stack of clinical white cubes of various sizes stacked on top of each other. There is more to them than what meets the eye; these cubes can be opened to find objects of significance for the students that went to NYU Abu Dhabi in its first ten years of existence. It is a time capsule, as well as an art piece, in which you can find pictures, a dragon boating medal, the head of a guitar, art and Thai snacks among many other things.

The Tenth Talks also explore the themes of environmental stewardship on campus, entrepreneurship in the UAE and how we can combat climate change collectively and feature discussions with students who won the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship .

When asked to reflect on the experience of going to a young institution, Hashim Zia, Class of ‘25 said, “You get the benefits of a new university, … the campus is new, everything is new. But you also get an established network with NYU … You get the benefits of an old university and a new university.”

“Over the years, the batch numbers have been increasing consistently, so you really can’t gauge the university based on its age alone,” Zia added.

Hashim concluded that NYU Abu Dhabi “feels like a place where you can explore yourself a lot, even if you don't want to.”