MACHIAS – More than 180 first-year students and transfers, some from as far away as Myanmar and Australia, were welcomed this week at the University of Maine at Machias.

New students have been immersed in orientation events since Saturday, both on- and off-campus, designed to help them meet their peers and make the transition to college.

On Wednesday, the group was formally welcomed to the campus in Washington County with an all-campus picnic.

“A good 25 percent of you have come here from outside of Maine,” President Cindy Huggins told the group earlier this week in her formal welcome. “You have chosen an unusual college in an unusual place, Down East Maine.”

The Class of 2011 features many students from Maine, but 21 other states and six countries are represented as well. Massachusetts and Connecticut provided the most out-of-state students, and others come from as far as Texas and Oregon.

International students have traveled from Canada, Colombia, France, Somalia, Myanmar and Australia to be part of the mix in Machias.

The newcomers got to experience the woods, water and people of Down East on Sunday. Professors Bill Eckart, Rick Scribner, Gayle Kraus and Shallee Page took groups to tour the coast by boat and by foot, and Six Mile Lake by canoe.

Mike Shannon, UMM’s student success coordinator, led a fourth group to Calais to see the Downeast Heritage Museum, and across the New Brunswick border to St. Stephen to tour the Ganong Chocolate Museum.