Fatima Mostefasidelarbi

Biology Major

Freshman

“I’m gonna say senior year. We like trashed the school. It was a f*** you. Like ‘we’re seniors and we don’t care’. This is my best memory. We threw papers and had a water balloon fight– not in the building, in the backyard. It was just the ‘cool people’ in the class. We were a graduating class of 81 students, it was 61 of us who did it. It was a very small school so we were all very close.”

Hasan Intisari

Computor Science

Junior

“My worst first day of school memory was definitely kindergarten. I moved to the US the year before, so I was a ‘FOB’–fresh off the boat. I was not that accustomed to US traditions. I refused to go to pre-school because that meant I had to leave my mom. Kindergarten came around and I had to get on that bus and my mom was leaving me. I was not having a good time. I was crying on the bus. We got to kindergarten and it wasn’t that bad. But then they told me there was going to be a fire drill. I thought they were going to light the school on fire. I thought we had to run out for our lives and I was really really upset that I was going to lose my 64 pack of Crayola crayons. So I ran to the closet, got out all my crayons and supplies, as well as my jacket. The teacher was like, ‘Hasan, what are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I don’t wanna die and I wanna bring my crayons with me’. I’m sitting there crying and she’s like, ‘That’s not what a fire drill is’. Then she explained to me what a fire drill is and it’s definitely my worst first day of school memory.”

Ryan Yu

Freshman

IT Major 

“I think I just made one today. I played the banjo in front of everybody in Mr. Arnowitz’s humanities class. I didn’t bring it, he brought it. We were supposed to give a presentation on geese and how they fly in a V-formation. We were supposed to relate that to people because we can actually learn lessons from that V-shape formation. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he said if you’re not presenting you can play the banjo. My partner wasn’t here today and he didn’t make me present but I had to play in front of everyone. It was pretty fun. It’s a great memory that I’m going to remember.” 

Jose Antunes

Junior 

Biochemistry Major 

“The whole summer before high school I was very scared that it would be like in the movies, because I didn’t have any family that went to high school in the US. I was very scared, not of being put in a locker because I knew I couldn’t fit, but about being put in a trash can. So I spent the whole summer dreading it but when I got there, it turned out to be a really cool place. I was kinda happy and relieved and that panic just went away. And I didn’t cry that night. The first day of high school was a lot of stress going up to it and then when you get there, you realize that not everyone was the spawn of Satan. Not everyone wants to murder you. It turned out to be completely fine. It was a memory that turned out to be three months of anxiety and then everything went away in an hour.”   

Rola Shehata

Senior 

Biology Major

“My birthday usually lands on the first day of school. My worst memory was that I went to school in second grade and fell on my face in front of the entire school. I tripped on my own pants. I was getting off the bus and I fell ploob on my face. I never forgot it. But I embarrassed myself often, so I’m okay now. My best memory was when my sister got me a bird feeder when I was fifteen. I was really into birds back then. It was a cute gift.”   

Amanda Contino 

Junior

Computer Science 

“Best is probably freshman year when I walked into Calc II for the first time and I had Professor Horntrop. Immediately I knew that class was going to be awesome and I was much less worried about NJIT as a whole. So good professor memories, I’d say. I don’t have a worst memory. I usually have good first days of school because I try not to think of them negatively.”