Last week the University welcomed hundreds of new students to the Forty Acres and helped them kick off the spring semester with the 2018 Transition Week.

Transition Week followed spring orientation and allowed new Longhorns to become acclimated to the campus. Students who participated were able to bowl in the Union Underground, tour the football stadium, experience a Gregory Gym TeXercise class and attend a UT basketball game.

Desiree Alva, associate director of New Student Services, said although spring students had some welcome events, NSS noticed they didn’t have a structured welcoming like students who begin classes in the fall, so Transition Week was created about four years ago.

“The idea came from Longhorn Welcome,” Alva said. “Students in the fall have a nice week to help welcome them to campus and help with the transition.”

Transition Week directly follows spring orientation, which took place the second week of January, with seven free, on-campus events for students to attend.

“About 500 students came to this year’s spring orientation, but that doesn’t include all registered students starting this spring,” Alva said.

NSS has extended orientation events throughout the semester to continue helping with the transition process, Alva said. Although NSS targets freshmen, it also helps transfer students with registering for classes, understanding available resources, becoming familiar with Canvas and understanding how to navigate the campus.

Finance senior Cameron Maxwell transferred from UT Arlington in the fall of 2015. Although he didn’t attend Transfer Week, he said attending several other on-campus events helped the transition.

“The number one thing that made it easier was being actively involved on campus,” Maxwell said. “I knew that I would have to overcome obstacles and the path would not be easy, but I had had faith that I was making the right decision (by transferring).”

Journalism senior Simone Obasuyi said being a new student is difficult to get used to larger classes and a huge campus.

Obasuyi said she attended transfer orientation and some of the welcoming events when she transferred two years ago.

Most new students typically enroll and attend UT during the fall semesters. Roughly 10,000 students came to UT last fall, according to the UT Institutional Reporting, Research and Information Systems Department. The numbers for new students in the spring have not yet been released.