Health and Wellness is pleased to announce that this week marks the end of the Candidate Weekend Syndrome epidemic on campus. For those unaware, CWS is a psychological condition resulting in substantial changes in personality and demeanor. The yearly CWS season lasts from early December to early March. With the only known vaccine distributed during Harvard’s Early Decision 1 response period, NYUAD must weather individual outbreaks as they come.

In order to contract CWS, you must receive an invitation to one of NYU Abu Dhabi’s four candidate weekends – which many epidemiologists believe is the transmission vector of the disease. The best way to avoid CWS is to never even apply to the university. Even the most resistant individuals may experience symptoms if invited.

Exaggerated symptoms are likely the result of desperation. Intense desire to graduate debt free, to escape your family or home culture and to appease your disappointed parents after you got rejected from their top choice may contribute to more acute CWS symptoms.

It is important to note that the intensity of symptoms generally decreases with each successive candidate weekend. Early Decisions 1 and 2 present more severely, while those in Regular Decision 1 and 2 are often more mild. If you already have Early Decision or Regular Decision admission to your top choice school but are waiting to withdraw your NYU application until after the free trip, your symptoms will be mostly mitigated.

We believe CWS is a specialized virus designed by NYUAD admissions. If every candidate is infected and properly fueled with sleep deprivation and Abu Dhabi National Hotel catering, the result is a mass psychosis of enchanting experiences. This raises yields, draws applications and makes great word of mouth.

While it is certainly possible to produce positive candidate experiences without these extreme measures, NYUAD is taking no chances. Why present the beautiful but imperfect, when you have access to the surreal and fantastic?

CWS manifests in social behavior. Standard symptoms include, but are not limited to:

Striking up intellectual conversations with random strangers even if you’re a social recluse or couldn’t care less about multiculturalism.

Obedience toward Peer Ambassadors despite normal rejection of any and all authority.

Volunteering for simple or menial tasks even if you’re more apathetic to the plights of others than a Foundations of Science professor is to the work-life balance of their students.

Saying, “I just love traveling and meeting new people” in response to literally any question.

Enthusiastically joining the dance circle in the middle of the desert for no other reason than needing to look like you found your people.

Asking a question whenever someone ends their talk with, “Any questions?”

Befriending people who are totally incompatible with you but believing these relationships to be unbreakable lifelong bonds.

Complaining that you feel out of place back home around the close-minded peasants who don’t care about the orientalism.

Over the past decade, hundreds of students have been successfully treated. The best regiments include:

Enrolling at NYUAD. Through exposure to the right antibodies in the classroom, at parties and in campus-cat scratch wounds the victims will eventually develop immunity.

If symptoms persist into Marhaba, ditching your lanyard is the most effective way to combat CWS.

Make complaining about the university your go-to small talk. Any trust in others or idealism about the world will quickly be eroded by focusing on how the Dining Hall whitewashed – got rid of all flavor and spices from – your culture’s food and how your professor’s accent is incomprehensible.

You risk subverting the above step if you approach Student Government about actually solving these problems. Proper treatment requires that you seethe in silent resentment.

Only talk to people from your culture. There’s no better way to get those pesky cosmopolitan thoughts out of your head than by recreating your home environment here and never leaving it.

Find any and every excuse to be bitter and spiteful. Don’t expend any energy on kindness. Remember that university is about the piece of paper at the end, not the growth or relationships along the way.

If you see signs of CWS in yourself or someone you know, please call – say it with me – 02 628 5555.