Students at colleges in New Orleans finally feel at home after being displaced in late August.

After hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, 70 displaced students were accepted at Marquette and spent their first semester in Milwaukee before returning to school in New Orleans for the spring semester.

Most of the students who attended Marquette last semester are now settled back at their universities in New Orleans but say the city is still recovering.

Rachel Wenzel, a freshman at Tulane University, said the campus fared well after the storm, suffering only a few minor damages.

"There was a lot of little stuff like brown grass or no grass and there were a lot of workers but basically all the buildings were fine," Wenzel said.

Erin Dempsey, a freshman at Loyola University New Orleans, said her campus also looked good upon return.

"The campus looks good, everything on campus looked exactly the same as it did when we left," she said.

Although the college campuses did not incur much physical damage, the students say the city of New Orleans looked very different than it did pre-hurricane.

"You could look down one street and it was fine and you could look down another and it was demolished," Dempsey said.

Michela Bonadonna, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences at Marquette, traveled from Marquette to New Orleans during spring break to visit her friends at Loyola and Tulane whom she met while they were attending Marquette.

Bonadonna said although both campuses appeared in good shape after the hurricane, the damage to New Orleans was evident as she flew into the city.

"Coming in to New Orleans, it was weird to see all the houses with blue tarps on the roofs," Bonadonna said. "There were so many businesses that weren't open or had signs up that said they had just opened."

The students in New Orleans have watched the changes to the city over the semester, especially the change in the number of volunteers coming to the city from across the country.

"When we first came back the schools made an effort to get volunteers to help," Dempsey said. "I've seen the amount of volunteers diminish since I've been here."

Despite the damage to New Orleans, students were excited to return to campus after winter break.

"It was really exciting because I got to have freshman orientation and I got to meet all sorts of people who had the same experiences," Wenzel said. "Everyone has a lot of spirit."

Dempsey said the same was true of Loyola University.

"When we first got back there was a vibe of excitement on campus, everyone was really excited for the first two weeks," she said.

Overall, the students appear to be glad to be settled into their universities and say everyone involved (in their transition) helped to make the process of switching schools easier.

"Everyone was so nice at Marquette," Wenzel said. "I couldn't have asked for a better place to go."

Both Marquette and the New Orleans schools put a lot of effort in to getting the logistics figured out, but the students said the transition went well and the schools were accommodating.

"They made a lot of exceptions," Wenzel said. "I took a three-credit English class at Marquette but it satisfied my four-credit requirement at Tulane."

Dempsey said Loyola's transition process was similar.

"The money situation worked out fine," Dempsey said. "The grades didn't transfer, only credit hours, so no one had a GPA. They found a way to make all your classes count for something."

Looking back on the entire experience, the students were grateful that everything turned out so well.

"I think overall it made me grow up real fast," Dempsey said. "Everyone has to grow up their first year away. It made me be more responsible very fast. Now I know that if anything happens I can adjust and I know there's always another option."

Wenzel had similar feelings.

"Obviously I went through some difficult emotions, but in the end it worked out," Wenzel said.