About 3,100 freshmen merged into the University community this year - the largest freshman class yet, President Louis Caldera said Monday.
The Daily Lobo singled out three who talked about their first day on campus.
Jacob Smelcer said he does not fear anything this semester - at least nothing he would say at first.
"I expected everything I got," he said. "I'm really excited about it, and I'm ready for it."
He found all of his classes on time because he participated in the Pepsi Class Crawl on Sunday, and said it wasn't a problem to wake up at 7 a.m. and get to campus at 8:15 a.m.
The Rio Rancho High graduate is taking 15 credit hours this semester. He said most of his classes weren't a big deal until he walked into an introductory religion class.
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"They are pretty intimidating with that many people," he said, adding political science also sounded tough.
Smelcer said he is worried about maintaining a 2.5 GPA to keep the lottery scholarship.
"You only get one chance," he said.
Because college differs from high school in that students can make their own schedules, Smelcer said he's going to have to manage his time.
"If too many things start going on, it'll be tough," he said.
Alicia Guzman came to UNM from Espa§ola.
"It went pretty good, except I live in Redondo and my class is way across the earth," she said.
She said Lobo Orientation, a session all freshmen have to participate in, helped out with all the organizational things, but she was still on campus 45 minutes before her class started to locate the buildings.
"On my part, I probably could have paid more attention," she said.
Although she lives in the dorms, she said she didn't sign up to be with any of her friends so she could meet new people.
"It's a really nice campus," she said. "It's really big. I just need to get my bearings. I'll be carrying around a map for a while."
Kenda Deputy looked at six different universities before choosing UNM.
She said she just ended up here without any real plan.
Deputy is taking 16 credit hours. The first class on her schedule is jogging.
"I was almost late for my first class," she said.
Deputy lives in the Hokona residence hall.
On Wednesday she said she will do things different.
"I'll wake up the first time my alarm goes off," she said.
The only differences she said she sees in Albuquerque compared with her hometown of El Paso is the drivers.
That and she said she imagined the classes would have more people at UNM.
She said she didn't experience any intimidating speeches in any of her classes and without Lobo Orientation, she wouldn't have known too many things about campus.
