Why we publish these
Every fall the admissions office hears the same question from prospective students and their families, in some form: who actually goes there? The quick facts answer part of it — 8,412 students this fall, 91% undergraduates, a 17:1 student-to-faculty ratio — but a headcount does not tell a 17-year-old in a town of 1,900 whether anyone at Porter started where they are starting.
So we ask. Each year University Marketing & Communications interviews a group of current students chosen to reflect who is really on campus, not who looks best on a banner. This year's group includes a first-generation engineer, a transfer from a two-year technical college, a 39-year-old nursing student with two kids, an Army veteran, a commuter who drives 31 miles each way, an international design student, two varsity athletes, a returning student who stopped out for three years, a graduate student who used to teach seventh grade, and a trumpet player who grew up six blocks from campus.
About 28 percent of each entering class is first-generation, and transfer students, commuters, veterans and adult learners together make up a large share of everyone else. The exact counts are in the institutional research reports. These pages are the people inside them.
How the stories are made
Each profile starts as a recorded conversation of about an hour with a writer from University Marketing & Communications, usually in the student's own territory — a lab bench, the commuter lounge, the bleachers after practice. We edit for length and order, not for message.
- Students read and approve their profile before it is posted, and can ask for any line to come out.
- We do not pay for stories or tie them to scholarships. Students get a Porter Falls Magazine tote and our thanks.
- We keep the hard parts in. Every profile has a section on a semester that went badly. Nobody's college career is a straight line, and pretending otherwise helps no one.
- No portraits on these pages. We show the places students talk about instead, or nothing at all.
Profiles stay up for two academic years and are then moved to the archive; if a student graduates in the meantime, we add a line saying where they landed.
The 2026–27 stories, by college
| College | Student | In a line |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering & Technology | Marisa Dombeck, Mechanical Engineering, junior | “Nobody in my family had heard the word ‘tolerance’ used about a part. Now I say it at dinner.” |
| Computing & Information Sciences | Desmond Varga, Cybersecurity, senior (transfer) | “Every credit from my two-year school counted. The confidence took longer to transfer.” |
| Business | Rosalie Dahlke, Supply Chain Management, junior (commuter) | “I drive 62 miles a day. Of course I ended up studying logistics.” |
| Health Sciences | Bernadette Szymanski, Nursing, junior (adult learner) | “Fourteen years as a CNA taught me the patient. Porter is teaching me the why.” |
| Education | Kari Osmundson, Elementary Education, junior (cross country) | “A 6K and a room full of second-graders want the same thing: pace yourself.” |
| Education (graduate) | Naomi Feldkamp, M.S. School Counseling, second year | “I left a classroom I loved to work on the part of school that happens in the hallway.” |
| Arts, Design & Communication | Inés Valderrama, Industrial Design, senior (international) | “I came for the shop. I stayed through my first January, which I am told counts for something.” |
| Arts, Design & Communication | Eli Marchand, Music, sophomore (Porter Falls native) | “I grew up hearing the pep band from my bedroom window. Now I'm the one keeping people awake.” |
| Applied & Technical Studies | Dana Kowalewski, Packaging Technology, sophomore (veteran) | “I spent six years watching boxes fail in the field. Now I get to find out why.” |
| Applied & Technical Studies | Marcus Bellweather, Hospitality Management, senior (football) | “Linebacker and banquet captain are the same job: read the room before it moves.” |
| Science & Mathematics | Gabriel Hensrud, Biology, senior (returning student) | “I left in 2022 owing a library fine and a lot of doubt. I came back for both.” |
Find the students most like you
The offices below run the programs these students mention. Most have a drop-in hour and a peer mentor who has been where you are.
- First in your family? The First-Generation Center and the First-Generation Student Network.
- Transferring in? Transfer students and the transfer credit preview tool.
- Coming back as an adult? Adult learner support and readmission.
- Veteran or military-connected? The Veteran Resource Center, Founders Union 110.
- Commuting? Commuter students and the commuter lounge.
- Coming from abroad? International students.
- Playing a sport? Athletics at a Division III polytechnic.
- Thinking about graduate school? The Graduate School.
Tell us yours
We take nominations year-round, including self-nominations. Send two or three sentences about the student and why their path is worth telling to stories@uwporterfalls.edu. Faculty, staff, coaches and roommates all nominate; the best nominations so far have come from roommates.
Graduates get their own series: see alumni spotlights and Porter Falls Magazine.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every student on this page and in the profiles it links to is invented, as are their quotations, majors, hometowns and the enrollment shares cited; no real person was interviewed and there is no stories inbox to write to.