College is supposed to be the best time of your life. So what happens if it isn’t? What if one eight-letter word looms over your head: transfer.
At times, I feel like transferring has a bad connotation attached to it. People automatically think of you differently because you changed your mind about what you wanted. Although I have never transferred, I know many people who have and through their processes, I myself have come to realize there is nothing wrong with transferring. You come out on the other side a much happier person.
One of my best friends from home, Jess Pinto, went through the process herself around our freshman year of college in the 2010-2011 school year. Jess first attended Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island and really seemed to be enjoying herself. She was getting a great freshman experience and had been meeting a lot of interesting people. But then, things didn’t seem so right anymore.
As the school year went on and Jess got to know her teachers and peers around her, she realized that there was no connection between her and them, “I began to start feeling really unhappy with the way the school ran. And I could no longer relate to the other people that attended. A lot of the students didn’t care about JWU and on the other side, the teachers seemed to not really care about their jobs or even their students.”
I met Jess in the fifth grade, and so about nine years later, I knew what she needed to get out of her college experience. Jess cares about her schooling and especially needs to feel comfortable where she is, “Not only did I no longer feel comfortable in that environment, but I knew that if I stayed there, I wouldn’t go anywhere in my life. I am a person who cares and pride myself with doing well in school, so if my teachers weren’t even going to try, why would I?”
After doing a little research, Jess came across a school that was familiar to her. The University of Central Florida was one of the schools that Jess had originally applied to in our senior year of high school and she knew right away that it was the right school for her. To make sure that her experience would be the right one this time, Jess had to do a lot of research. She wanted to make sure that her teachers would be there for her, “I knew UCF was the school for me because the teachers that taught in my major were still working in the industry. They were so interested in their students and really wanted to help us get to where we wanted to be with our future careers. As soon as I saw the campus in person for the first time, I knew it was the place for me.”
What I hope people understand is that transferring isn’t as scary as it appears to be. Having my best friend go through the whole experience really helped me to understand it more thoroughly. I, myself, realized that there is nothing wrong with transferring and there should be no bad connotation attached to it. As Jess simply put it, “Transferring for me was one of the biggest accomplishments. I picked my grades up from high school and finally got into the school I really wanted to attend.”
New York Times writer Jacques Steinberg said, “Lost in the shuffle of university admission and graduation rates is a reality that those statistics often mask: about 1 in 3 students who enroll in either a four-year or two-year college will probably transfer at some point.” Any statistics that you will find will show that more students transfer than most think. Most of the time, transferring universities is only a little about yourself, but mostly about the environment. So, if you’re thinking about transferring, in the process of transferring, or already have transferred, share your story with others and hopefully they will get more insight into the whole process and what it actually means.
Source (Quote):
Steinberg, Jacques. “College Studentsâ ™ Transfer Rate Is About 1 in 3.” The Choice Blog. The New York Times, 27 Apr. 2010. Web. 26 Sept. 2012. <http://www.athleticscholarships.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Coaches-P…
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