Katie Norman sat at a small table in the lobby of Minton Hall on Sunday, ready to check-in new students. Norman is a sophomore from Union and a resident assistant participating in MASTER Plan.

MASTER Plan, a five day orientation for first-year students, began on with Sunday. MASTER Plan is an acronym for Making Academic and Social Transitions Educationally Rewarding. The 21-year-old program aims to acclimate freshmen to campus life, from learning the location of various facilities to building social networks.

“I met my best friends from MASTER Plan,” Norman said.

Despite the off-and-on rain, hundreds of students moved into their residence halls Sunday with the help of friends and relatives.

Oak Grove freshman Nathan Cartwright hoped MASTER Plan would give him a head start to college life.

“I figured it’d give me a chance to meet new people,” he said. 

After the enormous rush of students moving in subsided, the Class of 2018 filed into Diddle Arena around 8 p.m. donning grey MASTER Plan shirts. The first day of MASTER Plan was coming to an end.

The upcoming students were introduced to numerous prominent WKU individuals, including President Gary Ransdell, head football coach Jeff Brohm and John All, an associate professor of Geography who survived a fall down a 70-foot crevasse on Mount Himlung in the Himalayas in May.

All, whose right arm was resting in a black sling, encouraged students to remain steadfast in their pursuing their passions.

“I’ve already died once and I don’t want to do it again until I’ve done everything in life and lived all of my dreams,” he said. “I hope you guys are going to feel the same way as you enter Western.”

Louisville freshman Morgan Moore has her own aspirations. Moore is a dance major who dreams of teaching kids.

“I want to own a studio someday,” she said.

Administrators and faculty were not the only people the Class of 2018 met. Members of the WKU dance, cheerleading and football teams led their fellow students in several cheers to pump up their school spirit.

Before turning around and taking a selfie with the freshmen, Ransdell emphasized the spectrum of experiences college can bring.

“All kinds of emotions are going to be going through you this year and going forward,” Ransdell said. “But college is that sort of upheaval that makes you reconsider how you think and how you act.”