Photo by Sannia Farrukh/The Gazelle

So, what’s the meaning of Life? Have you figured it out yet? Are you going to find out what this life is all about? Questions like this pestered me for the majority of the time before, after and during January Term, having taken the J-term class in Abu Dhabi called Meaning of Life.

In October, when signing up for J-term classes, I only signed up for classes from the Core Curriculum in Abu Dhabi, thinking it was best to get these out of the way as soon as possible and to make Abu Dhabi my home before going anywhere else. I don’t even remember what I signed up for or in what order. So when people got their classes and were going to fly to Sydney, Shanghai and New York to study some of the most interesting topics, I was a little bit bitter. I would be staying here, debating about how and why my life had meaning or didn’t.

For most of the fall semester, I avoided thinking about coming back in January to an empty campus and a class that didn’t sound too exciting. The only thing that didn’t make me accidently miss my flight back to Abu Dhabi was the fact that I knew a lot of my friends would also be in Abu Dhabi for J-term. Together we could try to make the three weeks not as bad as we were expecting them to be, while exploring and discovering new parts of Abu Dhabi.

Throughout fall semester, every time somebody asked me where I would be heading off for J-term, I always sadly answered that I would be in Abu Dhabi. The typical response was, “At least you will be able to travel for J-term in the next years,” and not anything along the lines of “Oh, it’ll be fun.” With these consistent reactions, I knew I hadn’t made the best choice and I was cursed with a J-term in Abu Dhabi.

When January eventually came around, I was surprised. Even though the campus was nearly empty and every day you basically had breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same people, it wasn’t that bad. Nonetheless, there was a small but good group of people on campus. You grew close. Sometimes a little too close.

The best part of J-Term was my class. Expecting the absolute worst, I was amazed by how much I learned, grew and developed in this class. We discussed what it meant to live with a theological belief or in secularity, what it meant to die and what suicide really meant. Debating on questions about the suffering of life or the absurdity of it was not necessarily easy but through everybody's different perspectives, we were able to create our own meanings and opinions. All of these debates occurred while learning about some of the most famous philosophers. At times, the class felt just like any other university philosophy class; but on most days, we were discussing highly philosophical thoughts, opinions and beliefs about life and the meaning it had on an individual level as well as within the grand scheme of things.

One of the highlights of the class, and one of the things that shocked people the most, was one of our class trips. As part of our discussions on death, we were able to visit one of Abu Dhabi’s morgues. Meeting all of the forensic doctors and the workers was interesting; for me, it personally made the concept of death not that abominable anymore.

Before completing my J-term in Abu Dhabi, I thought it would be the worst thing. I thought that I would have a terrible time and I would be constantly bored. The amount of work we had during J-term was so much that boredom was not really an option. In hindsight, I would say that spending my first J-term in Abu Dhabi was one of the better choices I’ve made. It has made me appreciate the city, the campus and the university to a greater extent.

Seeing posts from the Top of the Rock, the Great Wall and in front of the Harbour Bridge wasn’t exactly motivating. I know that, rationally speaking, I got a Structures of Thought and Society core class out of the way in three weeks and for the next two or three years, I’ll be able to travel the world for my J-term classes and I’ll be sure to blow up my social media feed with it.