Kaitlyn Hughes | editor-in-chief

As summer vacation neared its end, a once quiet campus turned into organized chaos Tuesday morning as first-year students moved into their college dorms.

Cars from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Florida lined Academic Walk where the incoming Dukes will soon take steps to their first college classes.

Students in red t-shirts guided gray carts packed with clothes, bedding and furniture into the Duquesne Towers and St. Ann Hall. Parents sported Duquesne merch as they helped their college-aged kids unload their vehicles.

Mariska Neff waited outside the residence halls amid all the hustle and bustle. A mix of emotions flooded her mind as she stood at the precipice of her future.

She left Chambersburg, a borough of about 23,000 people three hours west, to study nursing in Pittsburgh — a city of about 307,000, according to the United States Census Bureau.

Neff knew no one coming to Duquesne from her hometown. All she knew was she had a passion for nursing after spending some time working as a certified nursing assistant.

“I’m going in blind,” Neff said. “I think it will make it more fun.”

Neff’s mother, Shanna, was “nervcited” about her move-in day — Neff is her first child to go to college.

“She will do really well. This is what we pretty much raised them to do: be independent,” Shanna Neff said. “She’s been ready for college since she started high school.”

Neff is just one of about 1,500 students in the class of 2030. According to a university news release, the new students arrived in the midst of a record-setting interest in Duquesne. First-year applications exceeded 15,000. There are about 220 transfer and second-degree students who started this fall.

The average GPA of this cohort was 3.8 in high school, with about 31% of the students ranking in the top 10% of their high school graduating class and 67% ranking in the top 25%.

Students came from 49 states, 71 countries and five U.S. territories.

Duquesne President David Dausey told The Duke, in the thick of the influx of new students on Tuesday, that Duquesne is gaining more traction.

“There is a palpable momentum right now behind Duquesne,” Dausey said. “Not only because we have really created new programs and the excitement around those new programs, but because I think what we offer here is so distinct.”

As the new students will be entering their first year of college, Dausey will be entering his first academic year as president. He knew what it felt like to have the excitement of a new experience.

“The most important thing is to live one day at a time, and to make sure that they’re taking care of themselves, but also to fully immerse yourself in the experience,” Dausey said, giving advice to new students. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Although incoming students were moving in from all around the country — and the world — Addison Then was from about 30 minutes away in Plum. Despite not being too far from home, she was nervous for the years to come.

Despite Then’s apprehension, she said she was excited to join the bowling team and begin her degree in speech language pathology.

“I see that she’s nervous, so I’m nervous,” said her mother, Amanda. “But I’m excited for her.”

Amanda Then, who went to Slippery Rock University, joked that she was jealous of the help her daughter got from Duquesne while moving in.

“I had to move in by myself every year,” she said, looking at the orientation members lifting furniture and the Duquesne police officers directing the hundreds of cars rolling onto campus.

Riley Adams, a team leader for orientation, was excited to see people moving into dorms and to be a part of the process.

“I thought it was going to be a lot more chaotic than it is,” she said, noting that the parents were remaining calm, and the new students were smiling.

As someone who felt lost in high school, Adams said the theme of this year’s orientation — new beginnings create endless possibilities — resonated with her. She said she hopes the first-year students can find the same meaning in this next chapter as they navigate the next four years.

“It’s so heart-warming and surreal standing in this position, helping these students with this new beginning,” Adams said.

Kaitlyn Hughes can be reached at hughesk10@duq.edu