As freshman-year excitement begins to settle and the initial bellows of anxiety reduce to a dull roar, students find themselves adjusting, conforming, and even relaxing as they welcome the familiar embrace of a new semester at the college they now call home. There enters the transfer student, cold, hungry, and afraid. As if moving into college wasn’t stressful enough, fellow students seem more experienced with their surroundings, well-versed in what goes on around campus, and overall superior to the transfer. But fear not, for these observations may merely be illusions!
Some of the most terrifying, stomach-churning, and nerve-wracking conceptions of transferring colleges can actually be the most beneficial towards you and your college experience.
1. You get to be the “new kid”
While this may be the aspect incoming transfers dread the most, it is actually one of the best. You had a second chance to re-invent yourself from your high school days once you stepped foot onto your first college campus. Now you have a third chance! On top of that, everyone is already well established with one another. Then you come along, all shiny and new. Students will be intrigued by the fact that they once knew everyone associated with this floor, club, etc. and now don’t. They’ll be curious enough to at least introduce themselves, you strike up a conversation, and there you have it.
2. You’re less likely to have “first-semester friends”
You may already know them from the semesters spent at you prior college or you might not know them at all: First semester friends. Those people you met at orientation or in class who you have little to nothing in common with but, regardless, become best friends with, mainly for the sake of not being alone. As a transfer, you will likely come across already-well-established groups of friends and people who hang out together. While this might seem like a nightmare, it’s quite the opposite. These people are not so desperate for friends that they will force a relationship that’s really nonexistent. Rather they have recognized the people they want to be around as opposed to those they don’t. This will aid you in making true friends, ones who care, and not just ones who are looking for sidekicks.
3. You don’t know where anything is
The age-old problem feared by freshman and transfers alike, “where is everything?” However, this problem isn’t as much of a problem as it seems to be. Like most aspects of college, getting acquainted with your campus is a learning experience, and an exciting one at that. Getting lost on your way to class is bound to happen at least once. You ask someone for directions, and move along. Still, there is a real excitement in not knowing where you’re going, or where you’ll wind up. You have yet to discover your favorite place to read a book, walk around at night, study, eat, relax, and just hang out. They are all there and waiting to be discovered by you.
4. You don’t know what anything is
Another common fear amongst transfers, not being able to hold a conversation due to your lack of knowledge as to what exactly everything at this school is called. It’s true, for a while you might keep confusing this building with that building and feel silly asking what this or that is, but discovering all the different aspects of your new school is one of the most exciting experiences of them all. Attending your first festival you had no idea existed a week ago, going to a party at what you now know is called “the tree house," and finding out your favorite study spot under the stairs is actually called “the cove” is all part of getting it right.
As a transfer, you might feel worrisome with all of these misconceptions clouding your thoughts, but they are just that– misconceptions. Conquering these situations, seeing them for the positive experiences they are, and finally feeling not just like a transfer student, but a student, is greater than any of that initial worrying.
