‘We’re so happy to have you here’

First-year students and their families criss-cross the Yard on move-in day.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Campus & Community
‘We’re so happy to have you here’

Eileen O'Grady

Harvard Staff Writer

August 26, 2025 5 min read

Yard brims with voices and motion, excitement and nerves, sweat and tears on move-in day

Ryan Zhou was busy moving items into his Weld Hall dorm room on Tuesday with the help of his parents and his new suitemates, Kelvin Cheung and Ronan Pell, when there was a knock on the door.

“Hi, Ryan, my name’s Hopi,” said Hopi Hoekstra, the Edgerley Family Dean of the FAS, coming into the room with some bags she had helped Zhou’s brother carry up from the car downstairs. “Welcome, we’re so happy to have you here.”

“I’m excited,” said Zhou, as he stood in the suite’s common area piled high with duffels, boxes, and bedding. “I’m excited to get started with meeting new people, making new friends, excited for all the professors and the classes.”

Harvard Yard came alive Tuesday morning as first-year students and their families unloaded cars and carried bags and boxes to the dorms in preparation for the start of their time at Harvard.

Dean Hopi Hoekstra chats with first-years Ronan Pell (left) and Kelvin Cheung as they settle in their new home in Weld Hall.

Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer

Zhou and his family drove up from their home in Ellicott City, Maryland, a few days beforehand. His father, Ning Zhou, said he’s feeling positive about the road ahead.

“I am just extremely proud of him and his years of effort,” he said. “This is his dream school. A lot of Harvard graduates told him the experience was transformative for them, so I hope that he will have a similar experience.”

“I just feel happy for him,” Zhou’s mother, Jun Gui, added. “He found the place he wants to go. I haven’t shed a tear yet.”

Welcoming the new students were President Alan Garber (second from left), joined by his wife, Anne Yahanda (far left); Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi Hoekstra; and Dean of Harvard College David Deming.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

First-year Cate Frerichs with her mother, Desiree Luccio.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

First-year Jose Garcia helps hoist a box up a Hollis Hall stairway.

Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer

Senior Lexi Triantis takes a bubble break.

Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer

Boxes collect in a staging area outside the Science Center.

Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer

A T-shirt decorated with emblems of Harvard’s first-year Houses.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

By Johnston Gate, a group of upper-level students from the Crimson Key Society, holding a “Welcome to Harvard” sign, sang and danced along to Nicki Minaj and Bruno Mars songs, waving to the cars that pulled in. Outside each dorm, upper-level Peer Advising Fellows, dressed in red T-shirts, greeted new students and helped show them to their rooms

“What makes move-in day so special?” Hoekstra said. “Three things: Experiencing the energy that our returning students bring to welcoming new first-years to the Harvard community. Meeting proud, and sometimes nervous, parents who have traveled from around the globe. Watching new friendships form among roommates meeting for the first time — ones that often not only last for four years at Harvard but across lifetimes.”

“A lot of Harvard graduates told him the experience was transformative for them, so I hope that he will have a similar experience.”
Ning Zhou, about son Ryan

Leila Holland and her parents, Keisha and Jaime Holland, from Long Beach, California, took it all in as they paused outside the key distribution tent in the center of the green. Leila, who had just picked up her ID and register book, said she was looking forward to seeing her Hollis Hall room.

“I’m a little nervous, but I’m really excited to be part of a new community,” she said.

Jaime Holland said he knows this will be a time of changes.

“Just the discovery process, as she figures out what she wants to do and the kind of person she wants to be,” he said. “This is a great place to do it.”

Veasey Conway/Harvard Staff Photographer

David Deming, Danoff Dean of Harvard College, made his way between the parked cars, cheerfully accepting a black rolling suitcase and a pink wall sign from a family’s car, and leading the way to Weld.

“Move-in day is one of my very favorite days of the year at Harvard,” Deming said. “There is so much positive energy and excitement and anticipation. I feel that, too, in my first year as dean. It’s great to be able to help new students move in and feel the positive energy with them.”

Outside Grays Hall, Harvard President Alan Garber and his wife, Anne Yahanda, chatted with parents, swapping stories and recalling what it felt like to drop their own children at college.

“For everyone here, all the hard work, everything they’ve done — it’s just such an accomplishment and dream.”
Desiree Luccio

For most parents, move-in day prompts complicated emotions.

Desiree Luccio couldn’t help tearing up as she spoke about moving her daughter, Cate Frerichs, into Wigglesworth Hall. The two wore matching red Harvard sweatshirts.

“I didn’t cry at graduation, but now it’s hitting me,” Luccio said. “For everyone here, all the hard work, everything they’ve done — it’s just such an accomplishment and dream.”

For her part, Frerichs was particularly looking forward to being a student athlete — she will be a coxswain on the men’s heavyweight rowing team.

“I guess I’m nervous and excited,” Frerichs said. “I’ve met my roommates, and I’m excited to start living with them and to meet everyone.”