Moving in and moving forward

Lauren Scrima and Sara Cody contributed to this report.

In the heat of a warm September afternoon, the shadow of the Washington dormitory tower provided shade in a parking lot packed with students and their families carrying boxes brimming with essentials and memorabilia — clothing-packed Tupperware, bedding yet to be torn from its plastic packing, and Target bags full of all the necessities of collegiate feng shui. Beads of sweat dripped from the brow of Ken Moore, parent of a University of Massachusetts Amherst sophomore, as he stood proudly with his hands on his hips, smiling, taking in the scene.

For some parents, move-in day is an end, but also a beginning.

“It’s like life on training wheels,” said Moore of living on campus, “It’s a great way to transition.”

More than 4,000 first-year students will move into campus dorms this fall, facing the challenges, anxieties, and excitements of living away from home. New students must learn to assimilate into campus life while simultaneously managing their frenzied parents.

While many parents in the Southwest area offered advice on the “big picture” of the college experience, others bombarded their freshly independent students with heaping amounts of EasyMac, Ramen Noodles, and enough cases of water to survive a drought of Dust Bowl proportions.

Some students resolved to take a more “hands-off” approach to the move-in process, opting to observe and direct their families as they unloaded their belongings. Mothers and fathers schlepped box after box, probably resenting their children’s lack of organizational skills in preparing for the move-in process.

Before a backdrop of disorganized luggage, Ryan Sifferlen, a UMass first-year considered how he would change his packing approach in the future. “[I would] probably get all my stuff together earlier than I did this year, [instead of] at the last second,” said Sifferlen.

Anna Todd, a UMass first-year, sat looking at the pile of clutter around her room. Unsure of how she would proceed, Todd remained in her desk chair while her father fearlessly charged onward into the midst of the disorder.

“Next year I’d get more organized before I got to school so I knew what I was going to set up and how I was going to decorate my room, especially,” said Todd.

Despite their anxieties, students expressed ways to cope with their altered surroundings.

“Come with home stuff,” said Akusika Aye-Addo, a UMass sophomore, “like teddy bears, something that makes you feel warm, so you don’t feel scared.”

As whirls of students and parents scurried by her, testing their capacity for transporting a lifetime’s worth of belongings, Aye-Addo’s recollection of finding solace in her teddy bear proved that the “bear” necessities are truly all that any student needs.