Campus & Community

Nik Chatzikonstanti is among the nearly 1,400 master’s and doctoral students in Arts, Sciences & Engineering, whose studies range from philosophy to physics and who come from more than 67 counties. Meet some of graduate students who have found a home at the University.

Now in its third year, the Community Engagement Challenge encourages student organizations to propose a charitable outreach program that benefits the greater Rochester community.

After graduating from high school, Olivia Alger ’22 decided college could wait. She worked in a hotel, taught refugee children in France, and wrote for a literary magazine. Now she joins the Class of 2022.

Lucy Farnham ’22 took her first Spanish class in seventh grade, and it was love at first syllable. The Rochester native joins the Class of 2022 as a Spanish major, is thinking of adding Japanese, and is considering a career in the US Foreign Service.

They set up school classrooms, played with children, cleaned senior living centers, served meals, and performed yardwork at more than 80 organizations around Rochester as part of the annual day of service for first-year students.

More than 1,300 incoming students will fan out to about 90 Rochester schools, libraries, senior centers, neighborhood associations, and more to paint, stack bookshelves, rake, pull weeds, and begin to get involved in their new community.

Befikadu Mekonnen ’22 is 7,000 miles from home and hasn’t seen his family in two years. But the Ethiopia native and cancer survivor feels at peace at the University of Rochester, where he’ll begin classes next week as a biomedical engineering major.

At 11 weeks premature, Matthew, Nicole, and Robert Gelb weighed a combined 6.3 pounds and spent three months at Strong’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This month, 19 years later, they will enroll at the University of Rochester as part of the Class of 2022—literally across the street from where they were born.

More than 475 students from more than 75 countries moved in to their new homes on the River Campus and the Eastman School of Music on Monday, many beginning a new chapter in their lives thousands of miles from home as members of the incoming Class of 2022.

After graduating from high school in Nepal in 2017, Prajita Shrestha ’22 knew she needed a break. After a gap year spent writing, teaching and volunteering in the public health sector, she quickly decided Rochester was the place for her.

We’re excited to welcome the Class of 2022 to our community this fall! We can’t wait for you to discover and enjoy all that this University has to offer.

Seventy-five students have enrolled at the University of Rochester after completing this two-year program designed to develop and foster Africa's future leaders, scientists, artists, and organizers.