Early Friday morning, 15 students woke up on the Diag to the sounds of birds chirping.
They weren't lying there because they were locked out of their dorm rooms or apartments - they spent the night there to support Homeless Awareness Week.
"It's just really cold right now," said Nursing first-year student Claire Coughlan, who camped from 2 a.m. until about 7 a.m. Friday morning. "It's a good experience."
"It makes you think about what other people are going to do every night," Coughlan said. "You just did one night but you just felt awful."
While the "sleepout" was designed to raise community awareness about homelessness around Ann Arbor, participants said it increased their own understanding of the suffering of homeless people.
"On my way back to my friend's house, I saw someone who was sleeping on the side of the street," said RC junior Akari Rokumoto. "This person just went through the same night that we couldn't stand or we couldn't go through. It makes me look at him in a different way."
The sleepout was organized by Project Serve's hunger, homelessness and poverty committee, which aims to expose students to the problem of homelessness. According to federal government estimates, about 7 million people in the United States are homeless.
Volunteers visited different shelters and housing around Ann Arbor before they returned to the Diag in a candlelight march to hear speeches given by representatives from Avalon House and Ozone House.
Avalon House provides housing for the homeless, mentally ill and those with minimum-wage jobs or fixed incomes. Ozone House offers free social services to runaway and homeless kids and their families.