While many students will be spending today glued to their screens as Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, some lucky students will have a chance to watch the action firsthand in Washington D.C.

To celebrate the inauguration, members of the University's chapter of College Democrats caravanned to Washington, D.C. for the event — even though only a few of the 15 students going actually have tickets. The University's chapter of the NAACP also organized a bus to take a group of students to D.C., but most of the students who rode the bus don’t have tickets either.

When Obama is sworn in today, officials expect between one and five million people to attend, even though only 240,000 tickets were made available to the general public through members of Congress and the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Ticket holders will watch the ceremony from the steps of the Capitol Building. Those without tickets will be able to watch the event on big screens throughout the National Mall. This is the first inaugural event in which the entire National Mall will be open for the public.

Though most of students going to the Capitol don’t have tickets, students attending the inauguration said they are looking forward to being in D.C. on this historic day.

College Democrats Chair Nathaniel Eli Coats Styer said he’s just excited to be in the city when Obama is sworn in.

"I don't have tickets to the inauguration, but just going down there and being in the city is worth it," he said. "For me it was like there is no way I couldn't go down to D.C. because I put so much work into (getting Obama elected) this fall."

No matter the hassle in attending the inauguration, Styer said he believes that many students have such strong support for Obama and politics that they were willing to make the trek to D.C.

"You saw that kind of outpouring election night when everyone went to the Diag," Styer said. "On that night everyone knew they needed to go to the Diag. (Today) everyone knows they should be in DC."

But College Democrats aren’t the only ones making their way to D.C. The NAACP bus left yesterday at around 5 p.m. to take 47 students to the inauguration. The group charged $40 for members and $50 for non-members to ride the bus.

Andrea James, president of the University’s chapter of the NAACP, said the group will only be staying in D.C. for a day in order to minimize costs by not staying in a hotel.

“We will be leaving around 7 p.m. and getting back to Ann Arbor at about 5 a.m.,” she said before the group left last night. “It’s kind of turnaround trip.”

Hotel rooms in the city — if there are any left — have rates starting at about $1,000.

The 50 students who are in Washington, D.C. with Multicultural Understanding through Non-traditional Discovery Opportunities (MUNDO) understand the difficulty of finding lodging in the city. They’re staying an hour and a half outside of D.C. at the Marlu Ridge Conference Retreat and Conference Center, in Maryland.

LSA freshman Nina Idemudia, a member of the group, said that despite staying outside the city, the group is excited to take part in the atmosphere.

“It’s awesome to be in a city with so much support for Obama and where everyone is all about change and excited for the next four years to come is inspiring and awesome,” she said.

LSA senior Jason Emmendorfer said he went to D.C. with some friends on a charter bus, not as part of an organized trip. He said that to keep costs down his group won’t be staying overnight, instead it will be leaving D.C. at around 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

“This was kind of a last minute thing for us that we would be able to go,” he said. “I am so incredibly excited that we are going to be right in the heart of D.C. when all of this is going on.”

LSA senior Justine Herron, who is going to the inauguration with her family, said she was lucky enough to get tickets to the event from a U.S. senator.