Rumor has it that college is supposed to be the best four years of your life. Well, I’m not too sure how I feel about that, I mean goodness, gracious there are so many years ahead of me that I cringe to think it’s all down hill after year 22. With that being said I am a firm believer that college should be a time of happy memories, self-growth, and life long friends. When I hear stories about people who are so unhappy with their campus or the social scene or their major or just their college experience in general, transfer, is all I can say.
I was once that girl who spent her days going through the motions, having no bond to my campus or the people around me. I would end every day with a scroll through Facebook as I witnessed all of my friends and high school classmates having the time of their lives; figuring out what this whole “no parents” thing is about, meeting friends who will become family, and calling home to parts of the country that were once so foreign. I wasn’t feeling any of this. I was so unhappy. I would cry day after day at the thought of how much time I was wasting in a place that was fine for some, but so wrong for me.
I must say, I gave it a go. I joined a sports team, I befriended people on my hall, I participated in a club or two. I put myself out there, dotted my i’s, crossed my t’s, and couldn’t feel more misplaced. Nothing was clicking, nothing was going to click. It was time to make a change. As Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.”
When it comes to a point where you have given your school a fair go, don’t wait, don’t have these crazy expectations that everything is going to turn around. The city school you're at is not miraculously going to change into your southern, small town dream school. It won’t, I promise. If you feel lost and disconnected in your 50,000 student body, state school, are you aware of how many smaller options are awaiting your arrival? Go out and find your dream, find your fit, find your happy.
January of my Freshman year came and so did round two of the college search process. I was ready, there was nothing that was going to stop me. I was done with the tears, finished feeling sorry for my sad Friday night’s spent on my parents couch, I was on a mission. My college career was going to be a success and that was final.
Now, starting off at a school that isn’t the one is not all negative by any means. Looking back on that time, that wake up call, or however it is that you want to define it, that makes you realize that you're ready for the next chapter in your life. You will learn so much about yourself and life by pushing through it and coming out on top.
The reason that so many people stay in the very place that makes them so unhappy is because they imagine all of these roadblocks being impossible to overcome. Well, let me tell you, been there, done that, best decision of my life. When the “transfer” word was first being thrown around I was down right petrified. I was convinced everyone had their friends, no room for me. I declared I am not going South, it isn’t for me. I am not going to another small school; it will be the same thing. I felt that I would forever be the behind, lost, transfer girl. I was just so dead wrong about all of these fears.
With a lot of patience and determination my parents slowly but surely showed me how important it was to have an open mind when transferring. They convinced me to visit any and every school that sounded half interesting, you just never know, until you step foot on campus, when that overwhelmingly happy feeling of home will hit you square in the face.
I very quickly lost my transfer girl label and was just another college sophomore eager for a college experience I will tell my kid’s about. I learned instantly that being a transfer gives you a perspective that the traditional student attending the same school for four years will never have and for that I wouldn’t change anything about my once bumpy, currently perfect college career.
