The grand experiment that USD Magazine launched last fall — to follow five students through their college careers — is well under way. In this second installment of our annual check-in on their lives, we’ve learned that no two 19-year-olds are created equal. One of them goes non-stop all day and considers it a luxury to have two free hours to watch a movie. One is already resigned to never having a 4.0 GPA. One is working to overcome dyslexia and test anxiety. One still asks permission from parents to socialize and goes home every other weekend. One needs to work out every day or risk insomnia.

If there’s a constant thus far, it’s that the five of them — Brianne Butler, Carmen Gonzalez, Kendra Hoffman-Curry, Marco Martinez and Matt Rutz — are as confident as they are insecure.

In a word, they’re sophomores.

Their commonalities will be familiar to any college alum: friendships made and broken; good times sought, found and occasionally regretted; early morning classes, late-night heart-to-hearts and challenges that rise up with the regularity of pop quizzes. How they react to the latter should prove instructive to anyone who’s ever grumped about “these kids today”: The shared traits of these five students — boundless energy, unquenchable optimism and wholehearted sincerity — are downright inspiring.

So take a moment to reintroduce yourself to these members of the Class of 2008. While it may be hard to believe an entire year has passed since we first met them, for our quintet of second-years, the time has zoomed by in a dizzying blur.