Chinese students attending a memorial at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel were shaken by the loss.

“I feel sad that a girl from the same place I come from died,” said freshman Jiani Jiang, 19.

"We all feel kind of homesick now. We want to go home. We feel unsafe."

Joy Liu, a 23-year-old studying journalism, had planned to put her skills to the test after the bombing.

"I wanted to do a story on her. But we were both grad students, both from the same country, and it got too personal," said Liu, who is from Beijing.