Even though the halls are open now, there is still construction until January — preventing the living-learning experience that was advertised to students from beginning at the start of the school year.

Although the construction is a bit of a hassle, students knew the work wouldn’t be completed by the start of the semester.

Officials said they did their best to place the residential classes around the college, and freshman Andy Howes said the commute to courses could be worse.

“One of my sections that got added late is in Hubbard and getting from (the) Old Horticulture (Building) to Hubbard (Hall) in 20 minutes was a little difficult — I was 10 minutes late,” he said.

But Howes said he otherwise loves the location of the residence hall.

The college’s acting dean Stephen Esquith said what will be unveiled in January is worth the wait.

“The classroom space, practice rooms, language learning labs, commons rooms, informal learning spaces and the galleries are things that just aren’t available in other residence halls or other classroom buildings for students,” he said. “It’s going to make it possible for them to integrate their residence life experience, classroom and academic work on a level that we just haven’t seen at MSU before.”

Esquith said new curriculum is the foundation of the college.

“These are not retreads or old classes that were for other programs,” he said.

“It’s always a hard thing to do on an individual basis one course at a time, but when you are doing it for an entire college, it’s an enormous amount of work.”

The college offers students the ability to study and explore different interdisciplinary subjects such as history, art, literature and music.

“All my classes are very small and I know everybody on my floor is a part of it,” Degroote said.

“The teachers have a totally different outlook on expressing themselves and being active in the classroom.”

Eric Aronoff, assistant professor in the college, finds the beginning to be exciting along with all of its challenges.

“We get to think about the kind of culture we want to create in dialogue with the students and it’s a chance to make something new from the ground up,” Aronoff said. “Faculty and students have more of a hand in shaping it.”

The first class of students is going to be part of the founding generation of the college, Esquith said.

Being able to have an influential part in the college is what attracted Howes.

“The college is just starting and the fact that it’s a brand new thing, it really can go in any direction,” Howes said. “There’s lot of openness to it and the fact that we would be the first four-year class to go through it, we will have a lot of impact of what actually happens in the college.”