By M. Yvonne Taylor
Photos by Tommy LaVergne

No matter how long ago you graduated, you’ve probably never forgotten your university years. In that heady yet daunting time, you learned to juggle a busy schedule while living on your own, you met new people and new challenges, and you discovered your strongest abilities and, perhaps, even reached some of your limits.

Times and disciplines may have changed since you were in school, but the university experience continues to be more than just an academic education. It is a chance to learn about life with peers who, as often as not, are very different in background, persuasion, and temperament. After all, some of the most exciting and important things happening on a university campus occur in the everyday interactions of the students themselves—in classroom discussions and debates, in the relationships developed in the residential colleges and across the campus, and in moments of personal revelation.

Just who are today’s Rice students and what is the Rice experience like for them? We can recite statistics, but people aren’t numbers. We want to get at the heart of the matter, and that means doing more than merely taking a snapshot of freshman angst or graduate’s joy—it means more than spotlighting moments in an academic career. To learn about people, you have to find out how they live, work, and play.

With that in mind, we’re pleased to introduce you to 10 Rice freshman students. Some hail from the Lone Star State, while the rest come from the East and West Coasts, Europe, and Africa. They represent many ethnic groups, several religions, and various political persuasions, and their majors include everything from biochemistry to political science to that seemingly ubiquitous “undecided.” Some have jumped right into the fray and are involved in almost every organization that time will allow; others are more tentatively feeling their way through their first year. In short, they reflect the spectrum of Rice’s class of 2005.

But these are just introductions. In every other issue for the next four years, we’ll follow these students as they live, learn, and grow, and in doing so, we hope you’ll gain a sense of what life is actually like for Rice undergraduates in general. Because, when you come right down to it, students are really what Rice is all about.

Now, meet our class: