It’s official – the students are back.
Move-in day at USC got off to a muggy, humid start Saturday as traffic snaked in and around residence halls and students lugged in everything from clothes to TVs to new computers still in the box. Outside of the Russell House University Union, school officials were trying to keep students and parents cool by serving up free snow cones.
Rock Hill freshman, Lexie Player, who had been moving in all morning, was excited and a little nervous to be making the transition from home to school. Player is one of more than 4,500 freshman who will be moving onto campus today.
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“The rooms looked a little bit bigger in the picture, but overall it’s gorgeous,” she said of her dorm – the newly renovated Patterson Hall. A $38.5 million project, the residence hall opened to students today after being shut down for the past 15 months for extensive renovations.
“But yeah, I’m excited,” Player said as she watched her father whisk by to go get yet more stuff from the family car. “I think we may have brought too much.”
In the next few weeks, Player and her fellow classmates will be trying to maneuver through their first year away from home as they find their way to class, meet new people and settle into college life. The university campus is expected to swell to an estimated 30,000 students.
A look at the numbers:
7,281 – the number of undergraduates who will live on campus this year in residence halls and Greek Village houses
97 – the percentage of freshmen who will live on campus, an important number, as USC officials say research shows new students who live on campus are more involved in campus life
5 – the top five states (in order) from which out-of-state freshmen hail are North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia and New Jersey
97 – the estimated percentage of South Carolina freshmen who will enter the university with a HOPE, LIFE or Palmetto Fellows scholarship
98,800 – the number of Chick-fil-A sandwiches sold in Gamecock Park, the student union, last year
71,000 – the number of pizzas eaten each year at the Pizza Hut and Pandini’s restaurants on campus
46,600 – the pounds of chicken fingers consumed on campus by students last year
55,000 – the number of packages delivered at the student mail center during the course of the year
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