Laural Wagner couldn't comprehend the events of 9/11 as a fourth-grader.
"I remember it happening, but I didn't understand why," said Wagner, now a Nebraska Wesleyan University sophomore.
Ten years later, she's enrolled in Political Science 190: Terrorism. On Tuesday in Room 308 of Old Main, she and about 20 classmates told Professor Randy Bowdish which 9/11 victims they had chosen to talk about for Thursday's class.
One student chose Lisa Frost, who was on Flight 175. Another, John O'Neil, who died in the World Trade Center. And another, Gerald F. DeConto, a victim of the Pentagon attack.
"This way, we see terrorism from the point of view of the victim," Bowdish said.
Most of today's college students were in elementary school on Sept. 11, 2001, and professors say students know it happened, but they don't fully understand why.
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Professors say the events did have one small silver lining. They created a resurgence of student interest in foreign policy and international relations. Students want to understand why, and they want to understand the impact.
"You sometimes think, 'Oh, the terrorists woke up one day and decided to fly a plane into a building,'" Wagner said. "There's so much more than that. There were so many motives behind it."
Bowdish's class doesn't focus on any specific terrorist groups, but the similarities between each. While terrorist acts aren't unique to 9/11, the events of the day did bring the issues onto America's radar, Bowdish said.
"Terrorism is a phenomenon people have studied, but the events made it a much more popular topic to explore," Bowdish said.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Marco Abel makes a point to not talk about 9/11 in his class on terrorism in international cinema.
"Some students see it as unique, but it's actually quite normal in other countries," Abel said. "And some students have no idea about terrorism in other countries."
David Forsythe, who taught international relations and foreign policy at UNL for 40 years, said 9/11 woke students up to world affairs.
As students become more disconnected from it, that interest may subside, he said.
And UNL political science Professor Patrice McMahon said students definitely have become more interested in the world around them during the past 10 years.
In the past five especially, she said, students seem to get it.
"They realize America is no longer an unparalleled superpower. They realize the world is changing. They're looking outward. When I started teaching 10 years ago, they were looking inward. Now, they want to be a part of the world."
