First-time Aggies and returning students living on campus made their way back to Texas A&M on Sunday, the busiest move-in day of the year.
“Lots of parents work and can’t get off during the week,” said Krueger Hall resident adviser Jennifer Romaszewski. “So the weekend is busier.”
Many students opted to move in Sunday rather than the weekend before school starts so they can get settled, buy books and make some new friends, Romaszewski said. Move-in officially began Sunday morning and will run through the weekend, she said.
Cars lined Bizzell Street near the Southside dorms where bike lanes have been designated as temporary parking for unloading. Traffic directors helped control some of the chaos as students and their friends and families struggled to get their belongings into their rooms.
“It took a lot longer than I expected,” said freshman education major Susana Seidel. “I think I brought too much stuff.”
Seidel and her roommate, Candace Mokwa, both from Katy, Texas, said they encountered a few frustrations throughout the day.Mokwa, a freshman engineering major, said she thought she knew where to park, but ended up navigating her family to the MSC.
After arriving at 8 a.m., it took until noon to assemble the loft her father had built. Later, the girls’ computers blew out their surge protector. The two families didn’t break for lunch until well into the afternoon.Still, both girls said they were excited to be moving in for their first year at A&M.
Seidel attended Muster after her grandfather, Kurt Seidel, Class of 1936, died last year. She said the experience made her decide to be an Aggie. Mokwa said she had planned on attending The University of Texas at Austin but decided on A&M after an orientation visit.
“I didn’t want to go to UT after coming here,” she said. “We didn’t even stay at the whole UT orientation.”
Her mother, Marilyn, agreed. “As soon as we set foot on campus, we were sold,” she said.
In Dunn Hall, freshman architecture major Gus Starkey and his parents said they weren’t too overwhelmed by the difficulties of moving in.
“We came organized; we brought our own dolly and everything,” said Gus’ mother, Monica. “We looked at the room before and did whatever the Container Store said to do.”
Despite having many friends at A&M from their hometown of Kerrville, Texas, Gus and his friend Michael Cordova both decided to go potluck to find their roommates.
“I decided to go potluck because it’s a good way to meet new people,” said Cordova, a freshman mechanical engineering major.
Starkey said going potluck seemed to turn out well after he met his roommate, Drew Peebles, a freshman nuclear engineering major. “And I was the first one here, so I got the good side,” Starkey said.
Drew’s mother, Lori, said she had been crying for the past two days at the thought of her son going off to college, but she doubted he was as sentimental.
“Drew can’t get us gone fast enough,” she said.
Candace Mokwa and Susana Seidel’s parents said they had been preparing all year for their daughters to leave.
“She’s not sad to go, and we’re not sad either,” said Mercedes Seidel. “She’s ready.”