I’m a transfer student, and anyone who knows me knows that. Everyone knows it because it’s painfully obvious every time I talk about my freshman year at an all women’s college. Except I didn’t transfer under normal circumstances, I transferred because I had to. I’ve written about this before, but last March my college almost closed. If you didn’t know that could happen, it’s a thing. It’s a very scary thing. I had to relocate and so didn’t 400 of my sisters. Of course, my college was saved because of the efforts put forth by tremendously devoted alumni. But there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my freshman year at Sweet Briar College. Don’t get me wrong, I love where I go to school now. But every time someone asks me if I miss Sweet Briar, or wish I had stayed, I struggle to answer the question a little bit. Of course I don’t wish I had stayed because my life is awesome now, but of course, I wish I had stayed because my life was awesome then, too.
So, to every transfer student who is wondering if transferring was really the right choice, I’m right there with you.
You put so much pressure on your new school to be literally everything your old school wasn’t. Yes it might be bigger, and yes it might be closer to home, and yes it might be all of the things your old school wasn’t, but ultimately, if you don’t make the most out of being there, then it won’t be any better than your last college. I’m always apprehensive about going to things alone. For example, I won’t go join a club unless I can get a friend to go with me because, in some ways, I’m nervous about putting myself out there. I’m not shy, and I’m certainly not an introvert. But I do worry about what people think. And I can blame that on my college all I want, and say that it’s the people at the school who are judgmental. But really, I have to find the confidence within myself to be able to put myself out there. I wasn’t sure I had made the right choice in colleges because people were as accepting at my new school as they were at my old school, but the more I get out and do what I need to do to be happy, the more I’m realizing that it’s not the college, it’s me.
I think it’s like this for most things. I’m finding flaws in the college that don’t belong to the college, but rather flaws that belong to me. There are mornings where I wake up and realize that I haven’t met a new person in weeks and I feel terrible about it, and I’m too ready to blame it on my school. I think “no one says anything to me, they know I’m an outsider,” or some lame excuse like that. But then I think, “why didn’t I say hi to anyone this week?” I put the pressure on people to do something I’m too scared to do, and obviously, I’m going to wonder if I’ve made the right choice.
I may not have the same sisterhood that I used to have, and I may have to work a little harder at making friends because I didn’t get a freshman orientation, but the fact that I wonder if I’ve made the right choice isn’t really my college’s fault. If I’m going to be happy, I’m going to be happy wherever I am, or wherever I am not.
