Today marks the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. Where were you when you first learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center?
-Interviews by Courtney Smith
Stefano Young
optical sciences graduate student
I was in high school in Washington, D.C., when it happened. It was a crazy time. One of my friends just bumped into me and said, “”Did you hear some planes just hit the World Trade Center?”” I was just blown away. Then we heard the plane hit the Pentagon. We could see the smoke from my school because I went to school a few blocks from the Capitol building. We could see the smoke from the Pentagon rising up and we just stopped. Classes stopped immediately and people went outside and stood there and just watched. It took like four hours to do a normal half-hour commute because they shut down all the highways around the Pentagon.
Arun Kumar
undeclared political science and sociology senior
It was a Tuesday morning. I was getting ready for school. I turned on the TV to CNN, and I saw the plane crash into the towers. You could immediately tell it was a terrorist attack after seeing three planes go down. It was just horrifying.
Arielle O’Dowd
Jornalism freshman
I was in eighth grade in my English class. I had no idea what to think of it. I remember being very upset, and that whole day I can remember very vividly. When I got home that afternoon, my sister, who was six years younger, was not phased by it and I got really upset. She was too young to understand.
Laura Stein
ecology and evioltionary biology sophmore
I was a freshman in high school, and I was in school all day. They stopped a lot of my classes and showed it on the TV. At first I didn’t believe it. Almost all of my family lived in New York City and it was really, really hard for me. I spent the whole day worrying and wondering. I didn’t know until I got home that everyone was OK. It was very hard on my family.
Philip Keller
chemistry professor
When it happened, I was swimming laps in the swimming pool. When I got back to my apartment, my future wife called me on the telephone and said, “”You better turn on the TV set and look at what’s going on.”” That is when I first saw what was happening. It was an unbelievable sight.
Tina Wang
biology graduate student
When this even happened, I wasn’t in the United States. I was in Taiwan. My dad saw the news first. He told me he was so shocked. He told me that the third world war just might occur after this. I was just shocked and felt so sorry for those people who died.
David Morris
engineering freshman
I was waiting for the school bus to go to school in the morning. I was shocked. I wanted to know what was happening. Was this happening all around the country? What is going to happen?
