Class of 2030 Arrives Ready to Explore
When Jasper Andreani Pandeff ’30 first toured campus it was raining outside, but he was still captivated by it. His mother told him it was a good sign to like a campus in the rain.
While the grounds sold him on Wes, the campus community, open curriculum, and research conducted at Wes was what first drew him in while researching schools. He wanted a liberal arts school that offered room to explore his variety of academic interests, spanning economics, history, and environmental studies, while being part of a diverse community where he could expand his horizons. “I would love to learn from different perspectives,” said Andreani Pandeff, who is from New York City. “Also, a part of Wesleyan that I really liked was the liberal arts, because I have a lot of interests. I don't really know what I want to major in yet, so I want to take a bunch of classes and then by the end of my sophomore year, once I've tried a bunch of stuff, I can see what sticks.”
On Arrival Day on Sept. 2, he was one of hundreds of students in the Class of 2030 to travel to Wesleyan with packed bags, ready to move into his dorm and start the next phase of his life. First year students and their families were welcomed to campus by energetic staff from the Office of Residential Life, Orientation Leaders, and student-athletes, who helped them find their rooms and guide them through the start of college.
Alex Merkle ’30, of Reading, Massachusetts, said he enjoyed the environment at Wesleyan, especially on the baseball team where he will play. “It just seemed like a very welcoming, inclusive environment. It looked like a lot of fun,” Merkle said of the team culture. “I thought I could get a very diverse education and not really just focus on one specific thing. Then use that to hopefully get a good job and gain real-world knowledge in a very wide aspect of things.”
Merkle is also excited to take classes that were previously unavailable to him. “I looked on WesMaps and there are a lot of cool classes that I have never seen before,” he said. “There was a Venice Renaissance class and things like that, which I wouldn't normally take, that I found interesting.”
The latitude that the open curriculum allows students was key for Laell Asefa ’30, of Cincinnati, Ohio, as well. Asefa is most interested in studying computer science, with an eye on Wesleyan’s dual degree program that provides a pathway for students to earn two degrees in five years. She is also considering studying mathematics or psychology, too. “I think I just have to explore my options and see what's out there, and I think Wesleyan’s a great place to do that,” she said.
Zarouhi Kuhn ’30 said the proximity to her home in New York City was an important factor in her college decision, as was the ability to find what field she wants to pursue most. She is considering several academic areas, including psychology, theater, film studies, and English. “I liked it because not knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life seemed very okay here,” Kuhn said. “It seemed encouraged that you were allowed to explore things that you might not even use later in life.”
As students started to unpack and meet other members of their class, parents gathered in Memorial Chapel for a workshop on student life at Wesleyan, followed by welcoming remarks from President Michael S. Roth ’78. During his address, he told the story of his own college move-in day and how the new environment helped him grow as a student.
“We want your students to be empowered to work at something they find meaningful and that they've gotten really good at it,” Roth said in his address to parents on Arrival Day. “When that happens, I think they'll be happier, be better able to contribute to our democracy, and they will have, as I have, loyalty to this institution, which cares about us and cares about launching us into meaningful work and deep friendships.”
After moving in on Wednesday, first-year students joined together as a class on Friday for the 19th annual Common Moment, a joyous introduction to the importance of embodied and collective learning, of connection, and of being present and curious. Over the course of 90 minutes, students learned the eclectic and diverse world dance traditions taught at Wesleyan from six Dance Department faculty members and then performed those energetic dances for their peers.
During her welcome to the event, Khalilah Brown-Dean, executive director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life and Rob Rosenthal Distinguished Professor of Civic Engagement and Professor in Liberal Studies, connected the community-building, creation, and discovery of the Common Moment to Wesleyan's Democracy 250 and Renewing Democracy's Promise efforts to prepare students to shape democracy and our shared fates beyond elections: the possibility of moving together though differences. “All of that requires civic imagination, or the capacity to imagine possibilities that do not exist now,” Brown-Dean said. “Joy is what happens when participation is not just another obligation, but a reminder that we belong to something larger than ourselves.”
Class of 2030
The class of 2030 is 833 students representing 39 states and 35 countries. First-year students speak 44 languages, and nearly a third of the class speaks, reads, or writes a language other than English. This class comes from as far as Armenia, Bangladesh, Cyprus, and Mongolia; 56 nationalities are represented within the class. Within the class, 45 percent of students self-identify as students of color and 35 percent are domestic students of color. Seventeen percent are the first in their families to attend college. Joining the first-year class are 23 transfer students, including one military veteran.
“This is without question a local, global, and cross-culturally competent class that is poised to make meaningful contributions to our community and beyond,” said Amin Abdul-Malik Gonzalez ’96, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid.
For Ivis Souza Ribeiro ’30, an international student from Feira de Santana, Brazil, coming to Wesleyan was about finding a community of people who dreamed as big as he does, he said. He is passionate about visual storytelling, so he intends to study film, but he is excited to explore other fields, like education studies. “I'm such an interdisciplinary kid, and I was looking for a place I could explore a bunch of things that interested me the most.”
Leslie Virostek and Andrew Chatfield contributed to this story.
