On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Sadé Council (junior-communications, arts and sciences) was daydreaming like usual, staring out the window of a seventh-floor classroom of a small performing arts school on 19th and Broadway, when she saw a low-flying plane dipping and swerving over the buildings across the street.

"What is that?" Council said aloud to the class, but since she was known as the class clown she was quickly silenced by her peers.

Minutes later, the principal of Manhattan's Ballet Tech announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

"Oh my God, that's the plane I just saw," exclaimed Council, as her classmates stared blankly in her direction.

Meanwhile that morning, Tariq Assad (senior-biology) was sitting in a car driven by his uncle on the way to school.

As they merged onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Tariq noticed a plane flying low over the city from the passenger side window.

"We didn't think it was gonna hit," he said.

As he watched the first plane strike the North Tower on that fateful morning, Tariq remembers traffic on the expressway stopping immediately.

"We just got out of the car," he said. "We were just amazed. We didn't know what the heck happened."

Five years removed from the horrific events of that day, the attacks on Sept. 11 are forever etched in the minds of Council and Assad -- real-life moments that they will never forget.

With cell phone reception down and the school refusing to let its students leave without an escort, Council returned home later that afternoon to a tension-filled household in Queens, her four brothers huddled around the television and wondering about her whereabouts.

"When I walked out of school that day everything was engulfed in smoke," said Council. "It was surreal."

Assad ended up stuck on the Brooklyn-Queens expressway until noon that day, enduring what he called "three hours of utter panic."

That afternoon he and his uncle arrived back at his house, located two minutes from the World Trade Center, to find the block covered in soot. A few days later, Assad would take on the task of sweeping off his family's roof.

Though the stories of Council and Assad have more personal involvement in what happened that day than that of the average Penn State student, each Penn State student has his or her own perceptions about 9/11 that shape its impact on the community and the world.

Brett Gottlieb (junior-accounting) was in his gym class at an East Brunswick, N.J., high school when an announcement over the school's loudspeaker informed the students in his school of the news.

He remembers a friend "freaking out" because her father worked in the building.

For Gottlieb, looking back on the events today is something that is now clouded by post-9/11 politics.

"I have different views about it now because of politics and stuff, but it's just as horrifying," he said. "I first thought 'We have to do something about this, war is the answer,' but in retrospect I see that more violence just creates more violence."

Francisco Sanchez (junior-finance) is from the Dominican Republic and was in biology class at an international school when a television was brought in, displaying the images of the attacks.

Sanchez said the class, which had several American students in it, initially believed what they were watching was a movie of some sort.

The principal of the school then clarified over the intercom that, "This is not a movie. This is happening for real in New York City."

The memory of the attacks is still fresh in Sanchez' mind.

"It doesn't seem like it was five years ago," he said.

Pramod Vemulapalli (graduate student-mechanical engineering) remembers rumors of the attacks circulating in his 5:30 a.m. exam preparation class in India. The class ended at 8:30.

"That's when I went out to get the paper," he said.

With the 12-hour time difference from the United States to India, the news of the attacks was declared on the morning's front page.

Pennsylvanian Josh Fleming (junior-secondary education) reflected on the shift in views on the events in the past five years, recalling a shop teacher telling the males in class that day to "get ready to be drafted."

"It's more somber now because there's not the 'git-r-done' patriotism anymore," Fleming said. "Before it was anger, now it's mostly sadness."

Staff writer Kevin Horan contributed to this report.