The thought of starting college alone is enough to make anyone feel nervous. In most scenarios, you're fresh out of high and now all of a sudden you're on this big campus with unfamiliar buildings, unfamiliar faces, classrooms that seem impossible to find, and limited spaces to park.

As if that wasn't intimidating enough, BOOM! You're now a transfer student and now you have to figure these things out all over again. Students transfer for a variety of different purposes ranging from financial reasons to wanting to be closer to home. In my situation, it was because I wanted to go further away from home.

For those of you who don't know, I started my college journey at The University of Toledo and it was a blast. I made tons of friends, joined a service fraternity, and did well academically. UT was my safety school because it was in my hometown and I felt comfortable there.

However, after my freshman year, something didn't feel right. No disrespect to my hometown, but after 20 years of living there, it was my time to leave. I didn't belong here anymore and it was time for me to move on.

Flash forward a year and I'm happy to say that Eastern Michigan University is my home away from home. Now, the process of transferring was easier said than done. If you want a more in-depth reason behind why I transferred, I wrote an article on it a couple months ago and you can check it out here.

Being a transfer student can be rough at times, but it also puts you in a unique position. You now can use this as your fun fact for the icebreakers that are bound to happen on the first day of class.

It's almost as if people go out of their way to get to know the transfer students, but that's mainly because they're about to bombard you with a million and one questions about the process. You'll want to shamelessly plug the fact that you're a transfer student as much as you during the first few weeks of the semester because, after a while, it seems as though everyone is a transfer student as well.

Now that I've been up here for almost a whole semester, I decided I needed to share my advice on the things I did to help me make the most out of my home away from home.

1. Get involved.

This is pretty obvious, but getting involved is one of the best things you can do for yourself in college. You get to experience many things and you'll eventually do a lot of networking that'll help you in the long run. Most if not all schools have a student organization fair at the beginning of the semester, so I highly recommend that you attend that to see if there's anything that catches your interest.

These people in the organizations you chose to will be among some of the first you meet and even become sort of like a second family to you. As far as what I did, I was an active brother of Alpha Phi Omega at UT so I was able to easily transfer to the chapter here at EMU with open arms. I also started writing for The Odyssey which is why you're able to read this piece right now.

I'm not going to sit here to tell to go rush or start writing, but I will say that these two organizations really eased the nerves of being an hour away from home in a new city, at a new school with thousands of people I don't know.

2. If you don't know something, ask.

College campuses are a lot like snowflakes in the sense that no two campuses are the same. It's okay to not know where buildings are or where certain rooms within in these buildings are. I'm a shy person so I tend to just try to figure most things out on my own, but that'll only work for so long.

Being that this is a hilly campus, it can sometimes get confusing when you're either on the first or second floor of building depending on what door you come in. Luckily for me, I've learned that most of the people on campus are very nice and willing to help in any way that they can.

3. Be open to everyone who approaches you.

Like I said earlier, being a transfer student almost makes you a people magnet. Yes, the people in your classes will likely ask you many questions about the transfer process, but at the same time, these people will become a valuable resource to you.

You now have people who could help show you around, tell you where the good food is, where the bad food is, who the great professors are, and who the not-so-great professors are. With that being said, take the extra time to talk to those who start conversations with you and even try to talk to someone who you normally wouldn't. Who knows, maybe a life-long friend or the love of your life is somewhere in that lecture hall of 80 other people.

4. Make the best the of it.

As pleased as I am to be attending this school, it's not always sunshine and rainbows. Some days are definitely better than others. There was a time a couple weeks into the semester where I felt completely lost and had the question if I made the right decisions.

However, I pulled myself out of that rut and I can 100% say that this is where I need to be. Say yes to new friendships, yes to new experiences, and yes to things that are outside of your comfort zone.

While it is true that we're in college to prepare for our future careers, it's not all completely about the academics. We're going through a lot of growth and development while we're here. With that being said, now is the experience new things and find out what we like and don't like.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: everything happens for a reason. So while Eastern is the school I wanted to be at a long, I felt like those two years at UT was much needed. I consider myself very lucky and blessed to of been able to attend two different universities.