When members of NYU Abu Dhabi’s Class of 2018 began sharing the news that they would be graduating in May, some of their announcements were met with reactions of surprise and confusion from their friends and family back home.

“Frankly, I didn’t think Sadi had been studying at all for the past few years,” shared one of the high school classmates of Sadi Awei, Class of 2018. “With all the airports she’d been checking into on social media, I thought she had dropped out and become a flight attendant.”

As for Sander Dune, Class of 2018, the pictures he posted from his freshman desert trip and subsequent Astronomy Club stargazing desert trips had confused his ex-girlfriend.

“I mean, I knew Sandy was at some university in Saudi,” she said. “Oh, not Saudi? Whatever. Anyway, he’s at some university in the Middle East. And with all the desert pictures he posted during his first semester, I thought the university was actually in the middle of a desert. And that you had classes in tents. And had to ride camels everywhere.”

Others thought Dune’s selfies with President Emeritus John Sexton were actually pictures of him with the millionaire grandfather with whom he had been reunited and now lived.

“John... I think that is Sandy’s granddad’s name. He has a great beard. And I think he plays the piano?” said one of Dune’s neighbors.

Meanwhile, Daria Romanova, Class of 2018, was rumored by the locals of her hometown to have married a sheikh.

“I mean, she posted a picture of herself in one of those black robes,” said one of her cousins. “Right, an abaya. In front of some fancy-looking building. And she kept writing hashtags in Arabic. So we all just assumed that’s what happened.”

Others thought Romanova’s husband had since mysteriously died and that she had become a spy.

“The black widow,” further explained one of her aunts.

Other students were rumored to have become professional camel riders, fitness instructors, yacht owners, volunteers at cat shelters, freelance photographers, circus performers and social media influencers.

On the other hand, most of the acquaintances of Jack D. Major, Class of 2018, were led by his parents to believe that he was double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Arab Crossroads with concentrations in Music and Theatre. They were all confused when he shared that he would actually be graduating with a degree in Social Research and Public Policy. It turns out he switched to SRPP after failing Foundations of Science 1 and 2, dropping Arabic during his freshman fall semester, performing a mediocre flute piece once at an Open Mic event and only taking part in one film student’s homework that got a C. Major will also only officially be graduating in June after finishing a summer physical education class that he forgot to take.

Family members of last year’s graduating class have also expressed surprise, but mostly at the fact that their fully fledged Global Leaders™ had moved back home, crushed by the concepts of rent and paying for food.