"The best thing about leaving Dartmouth was definitely the cold weather," he said.
Kiel was one of 32 undergraduate students who spent Fall term at Dartmouth after their own university suspended operations due to Hurricane Katrina. The College offered temporary enrollment to all qualified students as long they paid tuition to their home institutions.
The students spent ten weeks trying to absorb Dartmouth culture while waiting in limbo to return to their own school.
"I liked Dartmouth, everyone was nice and the family I stayed with was really helpful, but I kind of felt out of place," Kiel said. "I feel much more at home at Tulane now."
Although he lauded Dartmouth's generosity and the time he spent here, Kiel said that it was difficult to incorporate himself into a community that was only temporary. Many students, including Kiel, lived with families off-campus and had to spend much of their time preparing for their return to Tulane, two factors that prevented them from becoming close with the Dartmouth community.
Tulane held a freshman orientation at the beginning of the spring semester this January to unify the new freshmen class. It worked, according to Kiel.
"At Tulane we all went through the same experience. The Tulane community is really together, and New Orleans is still alive," he said. "Tulane is also really involved in the rebuilding of the city, and last weekend most of the students went out and did community service. The students all have a really big connection after going through this experience."
Trying to succeed academically, master BlitzMail and make friends while juggling the jarring and sudden transplant to Hanover made freshman fall chaotic for Damion Mathis, another Tulane freshman.
"The worst thing about leaving Dartmouth was having to restart down here at Tulane all fresh again," Mathis said.
Adjusting to an entirely new academic system also proved difficult, said Mathis, when all that he knew was the Dartmouth way of academia.
"I have classes everyday now, and more of them, and the teaching style is very different," he said.
While Kiel and Mathis both said the friendships they made at Dartmouth were the best part of the experience, Kiel praised Tulane's exuberant social scene after spending a term navigating through Dartmouth's Greek system.
Both students appreciated the warmth of the Dartmouth community, though they did not seem to be in any rush to return.
"It was good to see how generous everyone was when we needed it," Kiel said. "Also, just to experience going to an Ivy League school and living in the Northeast was great."
Neither student thought of applying to transfer.
"I might consider coming back, but I probably wouldn't," Mathis said. "I probably wouldn't want to stay, especially when the weather down here is 70 degrees."