Packing up, moving out

It's that time of year again.\nParents are packing up the U-hauls, and students are scurrying to jam everything they can into minivans and the trunks of their cars.\nWhile most new students are moving in for fall classes today, those who experienced Intensive Freshman Seminars are already settled in.\nThe students of IU's IFS program moved from their temporary quarters in Foster Quad to their new dorms across campus last weekend.\nThe 12-year-old program is intended to better accustom the 300 participants to IU three weeks prior to the start of fall semester on Monday. Having been featured in Time magazine, IFS is a three-week long program where students take one three-credit hour course each and learn about IU and other students. The program ended Friday and students moved out Saturday.\nAmong the chaos on the first floor of Foster-Jenkinson, Mark Pallman sat on his now bare bed. While his IFS roommate scurried in and out of the room with boxes, Pallman sat relaxed on the bare mattress filling out some paperwork.\nThe Park Tudor High School graduate said IFS prepped him for the year ahead of him. He enrolled in a three-credit course entitled "The History of the Future," and said his experience, not only in the classroom but outside where he learned about the campus and his fellow incoming freshmen, set him ahead of the rest.\n"I got to know the campus before 40,000 people got here," said Pallman, a video production and history major from Indianapolis. "I feel like I'm a step ahead now."\nPallman, who will reside in Read-Beck this year, said he does have some qualms about being away from home, but he's optimistic.\n"I've got a roommate," he said. "I just don't want things to get lonely. I've never been away from home before. I'm excited about moving into my new room. I mean, I felt like IFS was summer camp, and now I feel like I'm actually starting school."\nDown the hall, freshman Andrew Hey had mixed feelings about his move across campus to Read.\n"I'm excited about moving, but not about the process," said the pre-audio technology major from Palos Verdes, Calif. "You get all of your stuff moved in and then once you get settled, it's like you get thrown out."\nAside from getting to know their IFS roommates, students had the chance to meet others as well and see the many sites of Bloomington and the IU campus. Participants are encouraged to explore such places as the Brown County Playhouse, visit Bryan Park, try out the wide variety of restaurants in town and check out the recreational facilities on campus. Program directors feel this will help students, like Erica Warren, who are a bit nervous about coming to IU, adjust.\nOne floor up from Pallman and Hey, the hustle and bustle continued as students shuffled down the halls with pillows, clothes and boxes full of knick-knacks. Warren and her family were pulling together a team effort to move her to her new home in Eigenmann Hall.\nHer father, Larry, said the adjustment will swing both ways as he and his wife are still dealing with their daughter's absence from home.\n"She's adjusted real well to this, and we're adjusting too," he said. "IFS has panned out just like we thought it would. It's like these kids have a leg up. They don't have that lost feeling anymore"