To many international students of NYU Abu Dhabi, Fall 2025 has turned out to be drastically different from previous semesters. The diverse campus, home to students from over 120 different countries, witnessed them being each other’s storytellers of the global instability taking place in their home countries. To each of those whose homes are affected: there is a story, and there is a scar.

This July, Kenyan streets witnessed one of the first youth-led protests of the Global South this year. Then, in September, protests of young people broke out in Indonesia, Nepal, Morocco, Madagascar, along with other countries. On the other hand, students coming from post-protest countries such as Bangladesh, war-affected countries like Ethiopia (specifically the Tigray area), or post-conflict countries such as India and Pakistan, are still moving forward from past uncertainties.

I reached out to some of the students coming from the impacted areas to learn more about how they have been processing the plethora of emotions as instability back home unfolded. By all accounts, the students are navigating their own paths out of the collective limbo they have found themselves in.

For many NYUAD international students, signs of turbulence particularly manifested through social media. Many would recount their moment of realization from the influx of news on their feeds, where their home situation became both overwhelming and inescapable. Some reacted with fear, some with disbelief, some with initial calm before anxiety over escalations of events.

For Ahmad, from Indonesia, despite being aware of news of the upcoming protests through social media prior to returning to NYUAD – and accordingly warning his family to stockpile food – the final scope and scale of them still surprised him.

“I was in class, and I was scrolling through social media and some of my friends were posting their stories on the spot. And I was like, “Oh, everything's happening all around Indonesia.” And I was like, “Wow, this is actually big. It is a… national thing!”, Ahmad spoke of his shock. The subsequent escalation of events, particularly the death of a delivery driver, also left him speechless.

Rayan, from Pakistan, initially perceived news of the situation between his home country and India to be some form of social media satire, before entirely shifting his perspective upon knowing that it was real. “And then when I kind of realized what was happening, of course, the mood shifted in quite a dramatic way,” he said. Subsequent news of turbulence near his home made him anxious and led him to instantly call his parents. The news came during the week of final exams, which placed even more pressure on him.

For all of them, the call back home had never been so urgent and frequent. Daily calls remained a means of checking up and staying calm during times of uncertainty. To know that close ones are still safe relieved much pressure for those trying to navigate the ever-evolving situation from afar.

However, when family updates were disconnected, much concern ensued. Ahmad told me about his frustration when messages and news of his family were delayed by a few hours due to unstable internet connection. “It was concerning when I started to see, “Oh, my God, the internet was jammed.” I was like, “How can I contact my family?” Ahmad said. “The next day, they told me, “Oh, we are fine. I was very relieved once I heard them”.

For many of the students, the following days became a constant quest to balance catching up with the news, deciphering between biased and authentic sources, and keeping up with daily routine.

When asked about how much she updated herself with the news, Hafsa, from Morocco, exclaimed, “If not all the time? I would say, anytime outside of class, every time I am on my phone, and mostly 90% I am on Instagram, all my friends are posting about it. Everyone is posting…lots of stories about it and the news.” Rayan also saw himself checking the news hourly to ensure all new updates were on his radar.

For Taib, from Morocco, reading the news usually happens in the evening, after he finishes with work, and is ready to dive deeply into the news cycle to formulate his own perspective of the situation. In times of divergent perspectives, friends back home became a valuable source of information. “I did talk with a lot of my friends. So apart from the news, I also called my friend so many times, and he was like, not responding. I'm like, 'You need to talk to me, so just check, like, this perspective,' ” said Taib when he talked about contacting friends at universities back home who were of similar age.

Sometimes, keeping up with the news also entails keeping oneself from subscribing to biased views.

For Abdul, from Pakistan, keeping up with the news also entails having a critical perspective to identify extremist narratives that promote violence and harm between groups of people. “The sort of thing that… sort of remained in my mind, the impression that, “Oh, someone can go to that length to justify the death of anyone?” remarked Abdul.

Furthermore, being a part of the diverse community at NYUAD often means one has to be open to share information to fellow students, which can be a mentally-draining task.

Hafsa talked about her uneasiness when presenting an unfavorable image of her home to fellow international students. “So when you start talking, 'Oh, I am Moroccan, and this is what is going on in Morocco,' [you] kinda feel the sadness that this is…the image I'm giving because this is my country, [and] I cannot lie about it,” she said.

Against judgements from those outside her home country – for instance, how people would tell her, “Oh, you just copied what Nepal did,” – Hafsa would either try to escape the conversation, or try to explain the situation if people are open to hear about it. “You can't blame internationals for not knowing your country, because the media is not… always authentic,” she remarked.

Being onlookers from afar has also carried emotional burdens for the international students, particularly a hesitance to openly talk about their concerns with those back home, or feelings of helplessness because they can only make limited contributions from abroad.

Rayan talked about his helplessness trying to care of those back home through his only means of calling and talking to them. “When you are in a different country, in no position to help those you love, you are friends with, but you know they are in danger, but you cannot really do anything to change that, apart from just asking them if they are fine,” he said. He also did not want to express much of his worry to his family, in fear of causing an extra concern for them. “Even when I went to sleep at night, there were moments that lasted sometimes, like 30 to 40 minutes, where I would just be… like, I could not sleep because of the anxiety,” told Rayan.

There is also hesitation to act upon the same level of concern among international students compared to those back home. “You try to help them [Moroccans back home], by posting, by talking, by calling, but between us [Moroccans on campus], because we're not affected. So we kind of feel that it is unfair for us to act as affected while they are the ones being [affected directly],” explained Hafsa.

Despite their anxiety, fear, anger, or concern, the lives of these students continued nonetheless, while all of them hoped for the adverse situation back home to de-escalate or end.