As Welcome Week wraps up here at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette students have come out to celebrate at the school’s annual block party. They say this has been a great week.

Nicholas Lewis is a student at the university and says, “It feels great to be a Ragin Cajun.”

36 vendors were at the university giving away everything from free t-shirts and cupcakes to decals and UL Lafayette license plates.

Chris Welty, Multi-Media Coordinator for the university says the block party gets bigger and bigger every year. Its purpose, he says is to make students feel right at home. “We want to get everyone involved, we want our students out here engaging with the community not only here on campus but all of Acadiana. We do our best to make our students feel at home. That’s why we have these different activities to get them.”

Welty says 18,000 students are registered at the school with 3,000 of them being freshman.

AJ McGee a junior public relations major says things went pretty smoothly, especially with such a large number of students. “I was afraid because I thought my freshman class was big and that was three years ago but I haven’t seen any congestion issues so I’ve been really happy so far.”

Welty says the university has been proactive to ensure a smooth transition for all of its students. “We have five brand new buses running on routes, so the wait time at Cajun Field has been cut down for students. We also added a second bus stop at the student union.”