4500 students move into OSU dorms
Cars line the streets around campus on Sept. 17th at OSU. Roughly 1,200 students moved in on Saturday, with 4,500 students estimated to move in over all four days.
September 19, 2022
For Oregon State University’s newest dorm residents, months of anticipation and preparation have finally reached a conclusion.
“I get to meet new people, but also, it’s meeting people in really close quarters,” said Peter Callaghan about dorm living.
Callaghan, a first year mechanical engineering student, was one of many students moving into their residence halls on Saturday, Sept. 17, the first move-in day for the upcoming fall term.
According to Brian Stroup, director of Operations and Facilities for University Housing & Dining Services, approximately 1200 students moved in on Saturday. The first check in window for the day was at 7:30 a.m. and by 9:30 a.m. the streets around the residence halls were abuzz with activity and people unloading their cars.
“We encourage a 20 minute unloading time period,” Stroup said about check-in window length. “But we’re flexible on that.”
Between Sept. 17-20 about 4500 students will move in for the fall term – more than moved in last year. This increase has meant UHDS has to reduce housing available for second year and above students in addition to turning some double rooms into triple rooms.
Stroup estimated economy triples made up about 20% of rooms in all dorms, but that the majority of rooms were still doubles.
Two first year students and now Cauthorn Hall residents, Oscar Ludwig and Shayan Shabani, were moving into their room during move-in day. The two of them are sharing a room with one more person whom they had not met yet.
“So far it’s good, because Oscar’s cool,” Shabani said about his new living arrangement, “but it is annoying just because of the space, the lack of space, more specifically.”
The small room didn’t allow him to bring everything he wanted. When asked what he had to leave behind, the first thing to come to mind was his gaming console.
However, he saw the lack of space as a potential positive, too.
“I think it’ll bring all of us closer together,” Shabani said.
One floor above on Cauthorn’s fifth floor, Boston Clark, a first year civil engineering student, was moving into a double room accompanied by his family. The larger room affords Clark a little more space, and he said he had space for most of his belongings.
At Sackett Hall, Yael Raich and Paige Clark have known each other since their freshman year of high school and knew they wanted to move in together once in college.
They were able to get the room they wanted, although not without a considerable wait, perhaps slowed down in part by the large number of students moving in.
“Everyone else I knew got their room assignment,” Clark said. “We were stuck waiting for three weeks.”
