When Gail Sherron arrived on Kansas University campus as a graduate student in 1994, she was a bit intimidated.

“When I first came here as a student, I thought, ‘This place is huge,'” said Sherron, now KU’s associate director of admissions and scholarships.

“Until I got a campus map and started walking it. Then I realized it wasn’t. Except for the hill. Everybody complains about the hill. If this were a flat campus, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Thousands of KU students arrive on campus every fall, most a little confused at first about how to get around. But that doesn’t last long.

Most students visit campus long before they arrive to take classes, taking tours with admissions counselors.

There’s additional instruction during new student orientation. Orientation assistants take a student’s class schedule and help them determine where they need to be.

“They’ll say, ‘Let’s go walk it,'” Sherron said.

And when they arrive to stay, they spend “Hawk Week” getting familiar with campus.

“It’s a great time to learn where things are, and their resident assistants are great resources,” Sherron said.

KU students have transportation options besides their car to get around campus and town.

KU on Wheels operates from 7 a.m. to midnight Monday through Friday when KU classes are in session, providing rides mainly from heavily student-populated areas of town to and from campus.

The system runs more than 25 buses a day on 15 routes. The system is funded in part by the campus transportation fee, a $16-per-semester fee paid by all students.

Service is also provided three days before the beginning of the fall and spring semesters, but not during the weekends or during breaks from school.

Passengers must show a bus pass or pay $1 to ride.

In the Park & Ride program, a student gets a pass to park his car at the Lied Center and ride a bus to campus. Park & Ride is primarily targeted toward the student commuter population. Nonstudents and students living in university housing may not purchase the passes.

The program was started in 1998 to relieve parking and traffic problems on campus. For more parking information, contact the KU parking department at 864-7275 (PARK) or visit its Web site at www.ku.edu/~parking.

SafeRide is a free taxi service for KU students that operates from 11 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. seven days a week when school is in session.

KU Student Senate also operates this program, which started in 1986 as a way to decrease drunken driving among students. It carries about 20,000 passengers a year. Approximately $3 of a student’s transportation fee goes to support this program.

LiftVan is a “paratransit” program that offers door-to-door transportation service for students with disabilities. The hours are the same as KU on Wheels, which operates the service in coordination with Services for Students with Disabilities.

The T, the city’s bus system, provides trips to parts of town that KU on Wheels doesn’t cover for the most part.

“It’s the trips to Target or something like that,” said Karin Rexroad, the city’s transit administrator.

Students are allowed to ride already, but they can’t use their campus bus passes. They must pay the 50-cent fare instead.

Sherron said she was not worried about students being lost for long.

“It’s easy,” she said. “They’ll get the hang of it quickly.”