Today is an exciting day on campus, as roughly 3,300 students and their parents arrive to campus for first-year move in. These students, assisted by Miami University staff and current student volunteers, will move their personal belongings including personal computers, iPods, and Blackberry’s. Today’s move-in (unfortunately accompanied by intermittent rain!) looks very different from Miami’s first move-in, which occurred on November 1, 1824. At least one student arrived with a milking cow, and most carried knives and guns.
Students of this time participated in duels, were susceptible to disease, and spent many hours gambling with one another. It took many months to travel to campus on horses, canal boats, and lumbering stage coaches. The journey itself could take days or even weeks, depending on the conditions of the paths and the farmland harvest.
So, parents, despite the labor associated with carrying cases of snack foods and water bottles, bins and bins of clothes, and heavy books, we here at Miami University hope that you find conditions more favorable than those that our first matriculating class faced in 1824! Even after learning the most surprising fact of all: tuition, room and board, and other expenses totaled $84.
Good luck with your move, and WELCOME CLASS OF 2013!
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