For all of those NSR prospects that are at 2 year colleges and/or wishing to leave their current institution into a new one, transferring becomes the inevitable. New campus, new classes, new team, all can sound kind of daunting, doesn’t it? But when you think about it, is transferring to another school a hassle or can it be seen as an advantage? I’m here to share my transferring experience and hopefully take the stigma out of relocating your college experience.
When I first stepped foot onto campus as a freshman at High Point University in North Carolina, I thought this was going to be my home for the next 4 years. I loved the school, my professors, my friends, even the cafeteria food surprisingly! Everything was picture perfect at HPU, but as I finished off my second year, something was missing and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. What I find is that many students don’t know what they actually want out of their postsecondary education until they actually get there. So I asked myself, was this the school for me or was there another school out there that was potentially a better fit? I had to find out.
Fast forward a minute later and you could find me at the Registrar’s office filling out forms to release my transcript to two schools: Clemson University and the University of South Carolina. Because I had already gone through the admissions process with HPU, filling out the applications for Clemson and USC was a piece of cake! Then it became a waiting game.
The day I received my acceptance letters to both schools was the day I was already planning my campus tours to both universities. And after a successful trip to both, Clemson was the hands down winner.
Whilst many people would think applying, packing everything and adjusting to a new campus is the difficult part, try saying goodbye to all of your friends. If you are at or planning on attending a 2 year school, this is the unavoidable reality, but guess what – you’re not alone. Everyone is in the same boat and will be dispersing to other institutions around the country, but the good news is, we’ve all got Facebook to keep us all connected.
I won’t lie to you – adjusting to a new school can be a bit scary at first. But you all already have a leg up on me– you get to join a team that will instantly become your family and you’ll get to make even more friends and broaden your personal map of the US. You’ll get more opportunities to travel to different places and experience different things, which is one of the major reasons why you elected for this whole experience isn’t it?
Transferring schools, in my opinion, is not something we should associate with a bad reputation. Instead, we should embrace it and take it as just another opportunity and learning curve in our lives. Besides, who said you can only have a great college experience at one school?
So to answer the question – is transferring schools a hassle or advantageous? I challenge you all to rethink this one as transferring can actually be quite valuable to your college career and experience. It certainly was for mine!