This post was written by Hatchet staff writer Margaret Kahn, who will chronicle her summer experiences in Istanbul in a series of posts.

Rising Kenyon College junior Andrew Pochter left his home in Alexandria, Egypt on June 28 and began his day of teaching English to 8-year-old children. But Pochter didn’t go home that night, or to work the next morning.

Instead, he was fatally stabbed that night in a protest.

I didn’t know Pochter personally, but he was a friend of two of my close friends, and someone I had conversed with briefly on Facebook. When my friend at Kenyon College messaged me that night with the news that Pochter had been murdered, the risk we take in dangerous situations abroad suddenly hit close to home.

The dangers have also become more clear as the University canceled study abroad in Egypt for the fall on Monday and called home a half-dozen GW students from the country this summer.

I’ve spent the last month in Istanbul, another Middle Eastern metropolis currently gripped by anti-government protests and unrest. I have had many chances to protest in Gezi Park, but I haven’t gone. At the risk of sounding like a timid American tourist, making a decision that guarantees my safety is more important to me than being able to hang a tear gas-soaked bandana in my dorm room.

One GW student abroad in Egypt, Anum Malik, instead went about her abroad experience with carefree flippancy when she described the protests she attended as “haflas [Egyptian for ‘party’]” — the same kind of protests that took Pochter’s life.

Students like me, Pochter, Malik and others who choose to study in the Middle East are curious, trusting and want to break stereotypes at home and abroad. But sometimes, our naivety can do us in if we don’t balance it with a healthy sense of fear.

Of course, witnessing an historic world event makes for an amazing story.  But we must also have a somber reminder about the risks.