Chaos. Confusion. Mildly stubbed toes. Move-in week has intensified the frustration and anxiety of on and off-campus students.

The brochures promised us a perfect early 2000s coming-of-age rom-com fantasy, yet now we’re living in an alien invasion that will annihilate us if we make noise.

Students are utterly disoriented. Does the university really expect students to navigate all our classes on our own? We can barely make it from the parking lot to our living space without getting squashed by cars and buses. 

Add the constant construction to the mix, and we aren’t getting out of bed. 

As for the move-in process itself, grocery carts surround the campus containing everything but groceries. But the dorms can provide all the carts they want – they’re no competition for the will of a freshman student with no spatial skills.

I know young women who started planning what their dorm room would look like a year before move-in day, and I still see the same thing today. Somehow, they have packed 3 cars worth of dorm “essentials” into one car. 

They’re convinced posters, mirrors, picture frames, lights and interchangeable holiday decorations will all fit on their rooms’ walls.

Turns out they are not crying because they must leave their family.

Oh no.

They are crying because they have no idea how their stuff will fit back in when they have to move out.

And when guys are preparing to move away to college, they pick out a whole color they want their sheets to be and spend a month figuring out exactly what kind of TV to bring.

Wild.

The expectation from us before we are allowed to legally drink is insane. It’s barely been a week, and I have already seen more students crying after getting out of their first chemistry lab than saying goodbye to their dogs.

Their anguish is only rivaled by the agony of students living off campus and their struggles with getting a parking pass.

It makes total sense to have the students living on-campus have their cars right next to their classes, yet have students living off-campus park their cars a minimum of two miles from the campus itself.

And then there’s the magical K-Week. Just like move-in week, K-Week is more enchanting on paper than in practice. I have a vivid memory of traipsing through Rupp Arena after being told I would get a month’s worth of free clothes.

Yet, all I got was a lanyard and COVID-19.

The real heroes through all of this are the students who became K-Week leaders. I have to assume they took the gig because the university covered their tuition and housing or provided job security after college. Otherwise, no sane and sentient human would put themselves through such torment.

Though with classes starting and students becoming acclimatized to their new surroundings, the novelty will soon wear off and be replaced with something new; routine. 

And I won’t lie, as a freshly minted senior about to transition into the next phase of my life, senioritis, I cannot wait for enthusiastic freshmen to become jaded like me, so we can all celebrate our exhaustion, ennui and constant anxiety for no reason in tandem.

Have an awesome semester, UK! Go Cats!