On Friday, I had my first graduation ceremony after two hard years of studying at Columbia University. I’ve met many outstanding people during my journey: peers, professors, friends, and mentors. I learned a lot, probably changed a lot, went through humbling experiences, and regained a new sense of self on the way.  

I remember on the same day seven years ago, May 15, 2013, I had to present the product of five years of studying electrical engineering to a panel of professors (similar to a thesis defense for engineering students). The irony is that both celebrations occurred on the same day as the remembrance day of the Nakbeh – the Palestinian “catastrophe” in 1948, when more than 750,000 Palestinians violently lost their homes and more than 500 villages were ethnically cleansed. More than half of the Palestinian population today still live in exile and are not able to return or even visit their homeland. Coming from Palestinian heritage, I couldn’t be prouder of these accomplishments on this sad day. As Palestinians scattered all around the world in refugee camps and foreign lands after a tragic history of colonization, we have a shared commitment to education.

Education has been one of the only self-growth opportunities Palestinians have had to challenge our difficult circumstances during our ongoing 72-year exile. Palestinians pursue education by any means possible, be it a PhD at Harvard or as a young child reading a borrowed copy of a Ghassan Kanafani novel in a refugee camp under a street light, after working 12 hours. And this is precisely why we celebrate, in many forms, accomplishments in education as some of the most important milestones in a person’s life and for our community as a whole, by dancing dabkeh, distributing sweets such as knafeh, singing, and many more rituals. 

Seven years ago, on May 15, even though it coincided with the Nakbeh, I had hundreds of friends gather to celebrate with all these rituals. I had close friends lead us in chanting; to an outsider, we probably looked more like a decently sized protest. We chanted for Palestine and Palestinian refugee camps, we chanted for education, and we chanted for freedom. We ate sweets and shared it with strangers, we danced dabkeh until our feet hurt, and we laughed and cried.

Today, I couldn’t celebrate graduating properly with all the friends whom I had shared these past two years with; we had to have a Zoom conference instead. The last two months of our Master’s journey were supposed to be bittersweet: mixed feelings of sorrow of another chapter coming to an end, many friendships that would not be able to withstand the challenge of distance, but also a sense of accomplishment, celebration, long heartwarming hugs, dancing with late nights out, and words of wisdom as well as silliness. 

Unfortunately, what we experienced was mostly bitter: online classes instead of being in the same space, frustration, demotivation, ocean-wide distances even with the friends that live next door, and missed goodbyes. Still, the call I had today with my cohort helped restore a small part of that lost sweetness. Hearing our faculty encouraging us not to give up helped. Seeing everybody’s faces made my day. Watching a recording from the cohort that graduated last year celebrating us was lovely. Texting – which felt like we were whispering – in our shared WhatsApp group during the ceremony felt natural and mischievous. Most importantly, the short, genuine words of parting from my colleagues succeeded in uplifting my spirit; in other cheesy words, this was the knafeh I desperately needed.

Thank you to everyone who was a part of this journey, thank you to my parents for their hard work without which I wouldn’t have been able to pursue this dream, and thank you to everyone who shaped me to be able to take on this challenge and succeed. 

Shokran.

Ali Nasrallah is a Jordanian and Palestinian refugee. He earned his Master of Public Administration in Development Practice (MPA-DP) from SIPA in 2020.