Class of ’26 | Caleb Teter

Caleb Teter | Eastover, North Carolina

His sights set on becoming an engineer in four years, Caleb Teter is ready to get his hands dirty now. That’s the big reason why he chose Campbell.

“At other schools I was looking at, they make you do a lot of classroom stuff first — a lot of math  before you ever step foot in a lab,” he explains. “Here, you’ve still gotta do the math, but you can also go straight into learning to use the equipment. You get to start now.”

The son of a Campbell alumnus, Teter — who grew up not far from Fort Liberty — wants to join the Army and become a combat engineer after graduation. The possibilities after that, he says, are limitless.

“I grew up on a farm, so I’ve always known responsibility,” he says. “I hope these next four years teach me more in-depth responsibility when it comes to the real world.”

These stories are only the beginning. For this edition of Campbell Magazine, they’re an introduction to 12 students —chosen randomly during the third of four summer orientations hosted on the main campus this year — and a documentation of expectations heading into a four-year college journey.

All 12 agreed to give us more than just the 20 minutes it took to talk and take a few photos back in June. They’re allowing us to check in over the next four years to help chronicle their Campbell experience. And they’ve all agreed to sit down with us again in May 2026 to share their updated stories (and take a few more photos). In order to tell a story of growth and maturation, it’s best to start at the very beginning.

These interviews revealed a heightened sense of hope for a group whose high school careers were defined and marred by a global pandemic. Online classes became the norm, and many of their gatherings and social events were masked or socially distanced. Proms, athletic events and milestone ceremonies were either canceled, altered or virtual.

“Man is, by nature, a social animal,” Aristotle once wrote. Second to earning a degree and starting a career, this class is eager to connect socially with their peers and become part of an “experience” and a community that they mostly missed out on in high school.

It’s our hope that all 12 of these students join us again in four years to tell us all about their Campbell experience. We’re confident that those who do will return older, wiser, more confident and ready to take on the world.

We’re excited to tell these stories. See you in 2026.