I transferred from a small private liberal arts college five hours away to a decently sized public university only forty-five minutes away. It was a drastic difference that I noticed right away. I thrived at my old school academically, because the classes were honestly a little bit too easy for me. Then I came to Millersville and right away I was so excited. My roommate and I actually became friends! I joined a real club that I am currently writing for as you are currently reading this. I actually ate in the dining halls. Millersville was 10 times better than my previous school.
During move in weekend I quickly realized that I was a freshman again. I pulled out my campus map and went to go locate my classes. My suitemate, who is a freshman, told my roommate (another transfer) and I all about her O-Group and all the things they did together. My roommate and I are transfers and we were ticked. The one day of “orientation” we got was useless. We were thrown into the deep end and expected to float because we “had been to college before.” Say it with me now, NOT ALL COLLEGES ARE CREATED EQUAL! I cannot stress that enough. My little college took me 2 minutes to walk to all my classes, and now I have to walk 20 minutes to get to my car because our parking situation is awful!
Campus parking is the worst thing in the world, but that is a seperate story.
Transfer students are essentially freshman and they should have an orientation no matter how many credits they haul in. I came in with 45 credits, so they suggested I didn’t do the New Student Orientation. I was like “sounds good to me.” Wrong. It was not good to me. I did not know how my dining meal plan worked, if I could get in my friend’s halls, where anything was on campus. Even though I was familiar with the broad scope of campus, the details were entirely new to me.
I will say it again just to get the point across, transfer students are basically freshmen! I would’ve loved some guidance from any person. A transfer orientation group would’ve been nice to have. I could’ve made friends in that group. I could have more than 2 friends right now. Hopefully through sophomore year things get easier now that I feel better about where I actually am.
Transfer students should be included in NSO’s.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
HCXO, Cecilia
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