For Cale Ryan, coming to UW-Madison was a complete change from the life he left behind in Kemmling, Colo., a small town of 1,100. He only had 130 people in his high school and 28 in his grade. With no cliques and everybody being friends, you might think Ryan finds Madison an alarming transition. After all, not only is it several times the size of Kremmling, but there are other obvious differences. The mountains that so vividly define the scenery of his home have disappeared and made way for flat land and lakes.
Still, the Madison atmosphere does not seem too bizarre.
\There's a lot of people, but it still has a small-town mentality,"" he said.
Back home, Ryan used to work for the family logging company, mostly peeling bark off the logs to make them smooth. He also worked as a pizza chef, on a ranch and volunteered. Therefore coming to college has actually slowed things down for him.
""I was always doing something for my parents or for a job or volunteering, so now I'm here and if I start sitting for an hour I feel guilty that I'm not doing anything,"" he said. That's when he gets up and takes a tour of the campus or tries to do something productive on the computer.
Even though he's slowly learning where things are around campus and settling into his new lifestyle, Ryan still has a few things to learn about classes. The first week of classes he was surprisingly impressed with the student ethic at lectures.
""They all bust out their notebooks and they're all there on time and ready to go,"" he said.
For some students, it's not the lessons in the classroom but those outside of lectures that are teaching the valuable lessons.
A freshman who wished only to be known as Nadja is spending most of her free-time getting ready for next week's cheerleading tryouts. She runs, bikes, lifts weights and of course, practices stunting, a term that refers to throwing a cheerleader into the air.
For a while Nadja wanted to go to UW-Oshkosh, a school whose cheerleaders compete instead of just cheer competitively.
""Here it's more about supporting athletics,"" she said. ""That's also rooted with that there's a lot of traditions at Madison and that's one of them.""
While preparing for tryouts, Nadja is also slowly adjusting to a characteristic of campus life some people take for granted'being constantly surrounded by people. She not only comes from a small school in Deerfield, Wis., with a graduating class of 46, but also is an only child and has never had to share a room.
""Just seeing all the people walking around between classes is mind-boggling to me,"" she said.
Although some students, like Nadja, are taking time getting used to the different lifestyle in Madison, there are others who have UW-Madison in their blood, literally. Both of Maja Middleton's parents went to school here when she was only an infant, and they lived in Eagle Heights until she was eight and then moved to New Berlin, Wis.
As she experiences college life in a place she used to call home, certain buildings bring back memories, like that of a little girl sitting in a car with her dad waiting at Educational Sciences Building for her mom to finish class.
Being so emotionally close to the university, Middleton always knew she wanted to study here.
""It's the only school I applied to, so it was either this or bust, I wasn't going to school then,"" she said half-jokingly.
Middleton wants to go to medical school, and calls herself an ""intended biomedical enginnering major"" since she hasn't quite decided.
And while some students are still adjusting to the newfound independence that so clearly defines the life of a freshman, Middleton never had that issue.
""That was never really a problem with my parents,"" she said.
Then what exactly does Middleton miss about home?
""I miss my bed since I fell out of my loft a few weeks ago,"" she said.
This is the third part in a series that follows the life of several UW-Madison freshmen. It will appear periodically throughout the 2002-'03 school year.
