Nada Elfeituri completed her architecture degree at the University of Benghazi while the city was under active military assault (EP 16).
By 2014, Benghazi had become what Nada described as a ghost town. Armed groups controlled different sectors. The university campus sat near or on frontlines. Students who remained did so knowing the risks. Many left. Nada stayed.
Her final project was an architecture thesis: designing a building on a site that was, at the time, being bombed. The irony was not lost on her — designing construction in a city defined by destruction. The thesis defence took place while the city was under fire.
The project was not theoretical. It was a direct response to what was happening outside the university walls. She was designing for a Benghazi that did not yet exist — one that had moved past the war. The building was intended for a bombed-out plot, a site that had already been destroyed once.
Graduating during the 2014 war was not a personal achievement story. It was a statement about what remains possible under collapse. The university continued to function — barely, imperfectly — because people like Nada showed up. The institution's survival depended on individual stubbornness.
The experience also contributed to her later PTSD, which she sought treatment for in the UK against her mother's wishes. See: PTSD and Collective Trauma.