Lost.

Freshmen at IU are easy to spot.\nShuffling through the Arboretum, a pack of lost students crowds around a crumpled campus map, scanning the paper for two specific letters.\nAs they continue walking, arms weighed down by their plastic IU Bookstore bags filled with books they may never open, they embark on a scavenger hunt across campus to find where their classes are.\nStarting the first year of college isn't easy for every student. All of the comforts of high school, such as attending smaller classes, having all your courses in one building and being able to come home to mom's good cooking, are gone once the student arrives the first day. \nFreshmen Rob Ruble and Tyrel Howard, who were friends at Rushville High school at Rushville, Ind., are now roommates living in McNutt Quad. \nBoth anticipated the vast number of students, but were still surprised by the swarms walking to class on the first day of school.\n"There are more people on campus than I thought their would be," Ruble said.\nLike many freshmen, he is taking introductory level courses. When he entered his afternoon criminal justice class in Woodburn Hall, he was shocked that all the seats were filled.\n"There were like 400 people in that class," he said. "That is more than half of the students in my graduating class in Rushville."\nFreshman Emily Smith said she feels the same way. She said her classes are so large she has to get to class 30 minutes early just to get a seat.\nEven though the lecture halls may be rather intimidating for new students, Howard, a political science major, said the large lectures still have advantages because they break down in smaller groups. His English course, L141: Intro Writing and Story of Literature, has more than 300 students.\n"I would like the lecture to be smaller, but there are smaller discussion groups within the course so at least I can get the personal attention there," Howard said. \nAlthough some freshmen use maps to find their classrooms, Howard and Ruble said they were confident and did not need to use one.\n"We scoped the place out so it would be more convenient for us to find classes," Howard said.\nRuble, who moved into the dorms before Aug. 27, already was familiar with campus because of his participation in the Intensive Freshman Seminar.\nUnlike Ruble or Howard, who knew the locations of their classes, freshman Michael Harris did not. \nHarris, an exploratory major from Crown Point, Ind., did not even make it to his Finite Mathematics class the first day. \n"Finite was so hard to find," he said. "The rain did not help at all. I could barely see in front of me."\nHarris has yet to find the location of the class. \n-- Contact staff writer Devon Thomas at deothoma@indiana.edu.