Grad students begin their journey

Looking out over the hundreds of graduate students gathered at the University of Delaware's Trabant University Center, it was hard to imagine they had all that much in common.

Some had arrived on campus from just down the street; others flew here from around the world. They represented nearly every inhabited continent on the planet, and each brought their own unique story: There were musicians and bodybuilders, new parents and aspiring professors, military veterans and schoolteachers.

Yet in many crucial ways, each of them now shares a common goal, and a new identity: They all are on a quest to change the world. And they are all now officially Blue Hens.

For the roughly 550 attendees at the fall semester's New Graduate Student Orientation, it was a day for taking those first tentative steps toward their new future and for feeling their way through those inevitably mystifying first weeks on campus. There were helplines to remember, extracurricular activities to explore and an entire new city to discover.

They eagerly soaked in crucial advice - how to find mental health help or even a sympathetic ear - but also were given a few insider tips - including UD President Dennis Assanis' favorite UDairy ice cream flavor, a caramel-and-chocolate mashup called "1923."

Ice cream dreams aside, the day's most emphatic advice had less to do with UD's deep resources and more to do with the students' own potential - to make those campus connections, to foster collaborations, to join as a community and work together for the good of all.