A Safe & Welcoming Experience

UCSB Move-in 2021

Can you believe Winter Break has started?! Only just a few months ago the campus was quiet and HDAE was gearing up to move in nearly 10,000 students.

Now that the students are on a break, we can take a moment to reflect on all the astounding work our staff put in to prepare for the arrival of a small city.

It’s no surprise that move-in looked different this year. HDAE was tasked with the challenge of making move-in as touchless and self-serve as possible. Students, families, and staff members wore face coverings and maintained social distancing in order to create a safe environment.

Perhaps the most significant addition to the move-in process was that all students were required to take a COVID test at the Loma Pelona Center (LPC) prior to checking in. Their testing appointments were auto-scheduled according to the move-in time they selected. Upon arriving to campus, vehicles were directed to park in structure 22 and walk over to the LPC for their test.

A huge shout-out to the COVID Response team for the wonders they worked to refine the badge system, staff and run the testing center, and troubleshoot IT challenges. Thank you to everyone who worked hard to make the testing upon arrival process work smoothly. 

Additional notable changes were consolidated check-in stations, self-serve parking and unloading, and fewer HDAE move-in helpers.

This year, we had six check-in stations across campus. The majority of students were able to park in the lots nearest their buildings and had an unloading period of 45 minutes on average.

Of course, the exception to this was Santa Catalina and San Joaquin which saw shorter unloading times due to the limited unloading space and congestion in that respective area.

Transportation & Parking Services and Residential Operations staff did a fantastic job directing traffic flow all across campus, and especially at the entrance to parking structure 22 and along the promenades/curb at San Joaquin and Santa Catalina.

Residential & Community Living continued to utilize the QR code check-in process. The average check-in took about two minutes to complete which helped the overall move-in flow go smoothly.

A limited number of move-in carts were also available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Another huge shout-out to everyone who signed up to assist with move-in logistics. Whether you were retrieving carts, setting up check-in stations, managing the walkie-talkies, or helping in another capacity — we are so appreciative of your help. 

Our goal was to be as touchless and self-serve as possible and in many areas we were able to scale back our staffing to achieve that. We also learned that an operation as big of a scale as move-in still needs lots of hands-on deck in order to run smoothly.

We thank you for the patience and flexibility you showed to help successfully move in another cohort of future UCSB graduates.

Until next time!