Students flood downtown Bellingham for WWU First Night Out

A flood of Western Washington University students descended on downtown on Wednesday in an annual tradition, doubling as an announcement to the rest of Bellingham: The kids are back in town. 

Students filled several blocks of East Maple Street at around 5 p.m. for WWU First Night Out. Many students wearing Western merchandise gathered at Red Square on campus and walked in a massive group to Depot Market Square.  

There, live music blared as students spread throughout the downtown core to take advantage of student deals at downtown businesses. Freshmen, eager to make friends, gathered in groups, talking and dancing.

Two of them, Izzy Quackenbush and Via Raghu, are both new to Bellingham. Raghu moved from Redmond, while Quackenbush came from Wyoming.  

Quackenbush gushed about the “gorgeous” campus, and the fact that she can walk 10 minutes to see a beautiful sunset over Bellingham Bay. 

The community that they’re starting to get to know in Bellingham makes them hopeful about their experience at Western, the students said. 

“[Bellingham] is very different from where I grew up,” Quackenbush said. “People are a lot more open and accepting to all sorts of different things.” 

Willow Hofstedt, a freshman, isn’t new to Bellingham. Hofstedt, who uses they/them pronouns, went to Squalicum High School and has lived in town their whole life. 

But Western is still a new adventure for them, with lots of new people to meet. Hofstedt said they’re typically a homebody, but have been out of the house more than ever before in the last few days as the school year has been gearing up. 

They plan to major in electrical engineering and said the first day of classes today went great. “I’m really happy to be learning, just doing what I enjoy,” Hofstedt said. 

Two freshmen Saul VanDeHui and Lytle McMurria spent part of the night practicing juggling on Railroad Avenue. The students said they’re excited about getting to take interesting classes. VanDeHui is from Trout Lake, Klickitat County, where high school course offerings were few, and McMurria said he’s really interested to start in Western’s industrial design program. 

Meeting people and making friends is a top priority for the new students. But the state of the country, and the world, is on these students’ minds, too. 

VanDeHui said he worries about forests and the environment. McMurria said he wonders what design jobs will look like, or if they will exist, in four years when he graduates, due to artificial intelligence and the current political environment. Hofstedt said they struggle to find hope right now, but find the most looking in their own community.

“When you look at locals and talk to the person next door, it’s not as polarized as they want you to think,” they said. “It’s pretty darn nice. It’s a nice city to live in.”