Ever wonder what it's like to walk into a classroom mid-year through and have all 20 students just stare at you as you walk in with the your parents and have the teacher say, "class, this is Erika and she is new here and will be joining us for the remainder of the year. Say welcome everyone." Yeah, that was me.

I was lucky enough to live that 5 times, except for the 4th and 5th time where my parents did not join me probably because I was old enough to face everyone on my own. I got to say that being a transfer student wasn't as bad as it used to be when you were younger. I attended 4 different elementary schools which means I transferred 3 times. Those were probably the worse times I transferred just because I was between the ages of 5-8 and during that stage of your life all the kids looked at you all weird and probably were asking themselves "where did she come from?" It was even worse during recess time, when I had no friends to play with because I was the "new girl." Being those ages was very difficult. You still didn't know who you were, not sure if you believed in cooties or not and were dressed by your parents. Let me tell you, my parents had no fashion sense. They would dress me up in a flowery dress, with orange lace socks and white shoes. I look back at my pictures when I was younger and think "what were my parents thinking?"

The 4th time that I transferred was in high school. I started off at a big very loud high school with more than 1,000 kids. Next thing you know for my sophomore year I attended a small catholic private school in the suburbs with only 300 kids. It was a big difference. But there was a big difference transferring in high school than transferring in elementary school . NO ONE CARED in high school. Yeah maybe they cared for like 30 seconds, but then they got over it and continued with their day. During lunch I was expecting the worse (ya know, everyone looking at you while you eat alone) but thankfully that wasn't the case. Luckily I had a few friends that I had known before so everything turned out alright.

Now, the last and final time that I became a transfer student was my sophomore year of college. I came from a small private school in Pennsylvania to an even smaller private school in Virginia. The difference was small and I settled in really quickly. Probably my easiest transfer and definitely my last.