The University of Florida (UF) is known to some as Florida’s Ivy League school. With a sub-30 percent acceptance rate and a student body of nearly 60,000, it’s an impressive institution that many students aim to attend. Going through the college application process, I was entranced by UF’s prestige, and when I received my acceptance letter, I knew I had to go. But that’s the thing — I knew I had to.
I thought that it would be a huge mistake to turn down Gator Nation, so I pushed aside my doubts and packed my bags for Gainesville. Once I got there, I realized that UF wasn’t for me and that I was meant to be an FSU girl. Here are some of the reasons why I decided to transfer.
FSU makes life easier
It’s no secret that FSU is seen as a party school where nobody cares about anything, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. When I say that FSU is more chill than UF, I’m talking about their willingness to help out their students.
For example, at FSU, you have seven weeks to drop a class before it impacts your transcripts and GPA. At UF, you only get one week: the drop/add period. On top of that, it’s easier to get help at FSU. In the College of Arts and Sciences, everyone is assigned an advisor who is an expert on your major and course map. In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UF, you’re not assigned an advisor. You talk to a different person every time.
These things may seem small, but college can be overwhelming, and you never know when you’ll need help, love, and forgiveness from your school. FSU’s policies are very gracious, which makes it a comfortable place to be.
FSU has better housing
When I was deciding which college to attend, I spent a lot of time scrolling through CollegeTok, paying extra attention to the dorms. I remember stumbling upon a tour of UF’s Rawlings Hall and my first thought was, There’s no way that’s real. It looked like a serious biohazard, and I figured the video made it look much worse than it really was. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Although I didn’t live in that dorm specifically, mine was just as bad. My room — a triple — was probably half the size of a traditional double room at FSU and hadn’t seen a renovation since 2005 (and that renovation was adding air conditioning). Besides the teensy size of the room, my door wouldn’t lock correctly, the bathrooms were communal, the whole building was humid, and there was no elevator for the entire four-story building. My quads burned every single day. Now, I live in DeGraff Hall, which is like the Ritz Carlton in comparison.
FSU HAS a wider variety of majors
Knowing what you want to do with your life at the ripe age of 18 is next to impossible. When I was picking a college major, I went back and forth constantly. One day I wanted to major in journalism, the next day statistics, and the day after that neuroscience. I couldn’t seem to find a major that fit me at UF, and it honestly kept me up at night.
When I started to consider transferring, I looked through the majors at FSU and realized that the possibilities were endless. I could major in anything from cybercriminology to biomathematics. I was able to find a major at FSU that felt right for me, one that UF doesn’t offer, which reaffirmed that transferring was the right move.
To this day, people look at me funny when I tell them I left UF for a “worse” school. It simply didn’t feel right for me, and that’s okay. Putting the University of Florida on my resume was not worth four years of being unhappy. I’m loving my classes, dorm, extracurriculars, and life at FSU, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I encourage everyone to go to a school that feels like home, not one that feels like an ego boost.
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