It’s something we all joke about. Flippant, we sling around phrases like “Sama Bubble” and “sleep deprivation.” We bemoan essays, readings, the fluorescent flush of ever-present Facebook on our computer screens. We compare the week’s latest quota of all-nighters — “Oh yeah? Well, I heard the 5am Call to Prayer three times” — and we laugh and we sympathize. It’s not a big deal. Is it?

It’s no secret that NYUAD has a certain work ethic. Walk into the fifth floor study rooms and see it for yourself: the papers sprawled across tables, the hunched shoulders, the light of dawn trickling in through the window. Students at NYUAD study very, very hard. Perhaps harder than usual.

I used to think the rampant work ethic was a good thing. At the beginning of my first semester, I would marvel at the fact that I hadn’t watched TV in an entire month. A reformed Netflix addict, I felt like I had just displayed the kind of self-restraint akin to swearing a Vow of Silence. I figured that, if studying during my free time saved me from the intellectual drain of another Gossip Girl-a-thon, then I must be doing something right.

But I realized that I also hadn’t read a book in a month. I hadn’t Skyped with friends and family in a month. With the exception of DTC and midnight Al Safa runs — for study snacks, of course — I hadn’t visited anywhere in Abu Dhabi for a month.

Looking back, I realized that all I’d really done was study. For a month.

Of course, a statement like this gives way to several questions, the primary being: what is wrong with you? Followed by: did you really have that much work? Aren’t you exaggerating a little? Why and how did this happen?

The answer to all of the above is that I’m not really sure. But I do have the suspicion that I’m not the only one who has experienced something like this, who has been stuck in a Sama Bubble that, sometimes, feels more like a Sama Forcefield.

There is a certain emphasis on work at this school. It has become a huge topic of conversation. When you bump into a friend in the elevator and ask how they are doing, most likely the answer will be, “Good, a lot of work, though,” accompanied by the customary smile and tired shrug. During exam week, students regale each other with tales of their latest essay-writing endeavors or science exams. While work is not everything we think about, it certainly carves for itself a large chunk in our collective mindset.

Freshmen are told their grades don’t count, yet they still work and fret endlessly about any possible threats to their GPA's. Good friends that we made during Marhaba Week disappear among a whirlwind of homework, tests and papers, and we rarely speak to them again. Whenever we leave the building, we are often trailed by the guilt of also leaving behind books and blank Word documents at home.

And so we stay inside. We open our laptops, we log onto Facebook, we finish that essay. And while there is no doubt that working hard is a good thing and that it will get us far someday, it also leads to a sense of monotony and isolation. If we focus too much on what’s on top of our desks, we forget about what exists behind them: the window, the outside world, Abu Dhabi. Inside this glass-and-concrete tribute to neurosis that is Sama Tower, one feels a strange mixture of restlessness, frustration and comfort.

But how did this work culture come about?

Maybe it’s because the school is so new, and so we want to make sure all the risk pays off. Maybe it’s because, having been constantly reminded of our potential throughout high school, we feel like we now have something to prove. Or maybe it’s the sheer convenience of Sama Tower. The need to leave the building just does not feel urgent when food, friends and sleep are all an elevator ride away.

How did this work culture come about? We could hypothesize, toss around guesses and explanations and maybe get close to finding an answer. But at the end of the day it wouldn’t matter, because then we wouldn’t be asking ourselves the right question.

Which is: why are we here?

Students here work very hard, and we will reap the benefits of this dedication in the future. But the thing about studying too much is that it places a lot of emphasis on the future: the next test, the next internship, the next grade. And when we focus too much on “the next,” our surroundings slip away. We forget that we are living in a building that represents over sixty nationalities. We forget we are living in the Middle East. We forget, and we may pay for it later on when we look back and realize that those four hours spent writing an essay could have been put to better use somewhere else besides our desks.

I came to Abu Dhabi because I wanted something different, and that is certainly what I got. The city is full of idiosyncrasies and foreign details — the grids of hot traffic, the tiny juice shops, the spiraling mosque minarets that, yellow and perfect, look as if they have been carved out of butter. I don’t want to watch these details crawl by while I stand next to a window, shivering in Sama’s air conditioning. I would rather experience them firsthand in the sun, sweaty as that prospect may be.

The city is waiting for us, so it’s time we stop focusing on “the next.” It’s time we start thinking about the present. It’s time we step outside.