Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It's move-in day for freshman students at University at Buffalo and the atmosphere is exciting as student move from their homes to the residence halls and meet their new roommates.
The beauty of this semester compared to the rest? This fall semester marks the first full semester back to a certain normalcy. Students no longer have to wear masks in classes and common areas.
"It feels great. I think a lot of our students are welcoming the return to more typical times before we were all wearing a mask. We're certainly adhering to health and safety guidelines. The University has a set of protocols, certainly to account for the fact that we may still have students who are sick or contract COVID, But in large part people feel pretty good to be back," said Brian Haggerty, Director of Residence Life at UB and Interm Director of Housing Operations.
There are still protocols in place, but other than no masks in class, there is another thing that students can do this semester that they couldn't do prior to the pandemic.
"We have lifted our restrictions on guests in the residence halls and apartments so students can host guests in their spaces as they did pre-COVID," said Haggerty.
In addition, students do not have to test to come back to school.
Haggerty also notes that there are a lot of fun events that the students can look forward to this week.
"We have a pretty robust calendar of events for students, both new students and returning, so we'll kick off the welcome weekend of events with our Focus Program tonight, hosted by Campus Living, so there'll be a parade of cultures starting in our Student Union ending right over here in the residence halls near the Ellicott Complex," Haggerty says.
New and returning students are very excited to be moving in to start the upcoming fall semester this week and socialize with their friends without the masks, thousands of freshmen are moving in this Thursday, with the returning students coming before school begins this Monday, Aug. 31st.
"With masks off, it will be a lot easier to talk to people. I like that a lot," said Brianna Murdock, a returning engineering student from Baldwinsville.
Ethan Mikeska agrees, "I started [school] during peak quarantine. So now being able to come here and not be in any mask or worry about that is really nice and honestly, like stress off my shoulders."
For incoming freshman, they had to spend a big majority of their high school years behind a mask and Jacob Koziej from Akron says it's nice to remove the barrier.
"I experienced COVID throughout high school and everything. So to kind of be able to come to college and have it be "normal," I'm very excited. I feel like it's a barrier to meeting people because you have your faces covered. So it was a lot harder to know what people looked like and to familiarize yourself with them. I think that having no masks will open up a lot more opportunity for interaction with people," said Koziej.
The moving process has been a lot easier than previous semesters. Haggerty says the staggered arrival times have really helped the flow of traffic during the move-in process.
Another unique things that University at Buffalo does for students moving in is letting student purchase supplies through their REUSE program.
"The reuse program is a joint partnership between Campus Living and UB Sustainability. It's a student-run program that's really a waste diversion initiative. So our students at the end of the academic year take all of those things that would otherwise go to a landfill dumpster, like fans and residence hall refrigerators, extra computer monitors, textbooks and they take all those things and if they require cleaning or refurbishment over the summer, the students work on that. Then they offer a sale at the beginning of the academic year during opening weekend like we have here and offer an alternative for students to having to run to target a Walmart or a local place to get this equipment," said Haggerty.
The REUSE Sale at UB. 8/5/22Max Faery, WBEN
