First full class ready to graduate from University of California, Merced

From The Los Angeles Times: When students arrived as freshmen at the University of California, Merced in fall 2005, they had to create its own traditions amid adversity and attrition. When the campus opened, classroom buildings weren't ready, a former golf course surrounded by cow pastures in the San Joaquin Valley. For more than a year, classes met in the library and residence hall lounges; sometimes, because of construction, the only access was by fire escape. Now the university's first full graduating class of about 320 students -- less than half those who started as freshmen -- will graduate this week.