Devils back on campus

On Saturday, Yasmine Baba was settling into her new dorm room at the Arizona State University, Lake Havasu City Campus. It was move-in day for new students and for Baba, after a 1,277-mile trek from Seattle to Havasu, a new chapter in her life.

“I’m just looking for a change from the environment I was in with the warmer weather and lake life,” Baba said about what brought her to Havasu. “I’ve never been here before so it was a big risk to come in blindly. But I love it so it was a good choice.”

Along with Baba, who plans to study business at ASU Havasu, about 32 new students were expected to move into the campus dorms on Saturday.

When choosing to attend the Havasu campus, the consensus among the new students came down to three things, mostly. Change, the different climate and, of course, the lake.

All three were reasons for Taylor Buntman, who made the move from Minnesota and plans to study criminology and psychology with a goal to enter the FBI.

“I really like the environment down here. It’s way warmer than Minnesota,” Buntman said. “It’s a small community and college. It seems really tight-knit. I’m used to that from back home, where I knew most of the people in my town. I’m just ready to meet new people and start a new chapter.“

Unlike the big move Baba and Buntman made, Brittney Bennett decided to stay a little closer to home after making the move from Anthem, Arizona.

Bennett is going to study kinesiology with plans to become a pediatric physical therapist. She said her decision to attend ASU Havasu over the ASU main campus in Tempe, Arizona came down to one thing. Smaller class sizes.

“The smallness of the classes, campus and how it was like family oriented,” Bennett said about why she chose ASU Havasu. “Instead of being near downtown like at the main campus, being near the lake intrigued me.”

Attending college, especially if it’s in a completely new environment, can be intimidating. For students to enjoy themselves and a succeed there more or less needs to be a perfect storm of things to happen.

For these three students and the rest along with them, ASU Lake Havasu seems to be everything the new members of the community thought it would be. The lake is beautiful, the climate is hot and the community is tight.

Hopefully, this means Havasu will be seeing newbies with a diploma in hand in four years.