Farah Mohmad

Not all NYU Abu Dhabi students come to Saadiyat from distant countries.

Many, like Farah Mohmad, lived in Abu Dhabi before beginning their undergraduate studies. Despite being in a familiar country, Farah had to adapt to a dramatically new environment at NYUAD.

“There was such a difference in the way that students were able to express their opinion,” she reflects. “I didn’t have the opportunity to express myself freely during high school.” 

During her first year, she says, “I had one class where I would always sit in the back, since I was scared and I wasn’t doing very well.” Noticing her hesitation, the professor asked Farah to sit in the front of the class and encouraged her to ask any questions she may have. “I did that and it changed so many things, gave me a lot of confidence and made me more comfortable, even with saying the wrong thing.”

“I learned that I always had it in me.”

Farah values that confidence and uses it every day in her profession as a social worker at the Center for Court Innovation in New York. She works with individuals who have received misdemeanor charges, taking a holistic and individualized approach for each client to create recommendations that are alternatives to incarceration. 

She says that NYUAD helped her think more critically about the issues around her, challenging her to look past preconceptions or simple conclusions. 

“It opened up my eyes to what is going on around the world and gave me [an] environment to be very critical about the way I pursue my life and decisions I make. NYUAD made me look at the world from a more critical perspective, which motivated me to make better decisions...We were pushed to do more, think more, and innovate more, which served me well, especially at work. I always try to be more careful, more creative and it is something that stays with me.”