Students head back to class at Oklahoma colleges and universities

Monday marked the first day of the spring semester at many colleges and universities across the state, including OU and the University of Central Oklahoma.

Mach, 22, of Oklahoma City, has an on-campus job with OU Information Technology, meaning he had to be back on campus earlier than most students.

“Parking was really easy until today,” he said Monday.

Mach, a microbiology major, has a semester left before he graduates. He's applying to medical schools, he said, including OU College of Medicine, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa and a few out of state.

Although he has definite plans, Mach said graduation still seems a world away. His time at OU has gone by more quickly than he expected, he said.

“I'm kind of on cruise control for now,” he said.

Although enrollment numbers won't be finalized for about three weeks, OU officials are projecting an enrollment increase over the spring 2012 semester.

Matt Hamilton, OU's registrar and vice president for enrollment and student financial services, said the Norman campus' enrollment stood at 21,667 on Monday, an increase of about 1 percent over the 21,504 students who were enrolled on the first day of the spring 2012 semester.