On March 26, on my senior year of high school, if you asked me what the next four years of my life would look like, it would be totally different from my answer on March 27 (the infamous Ivy Decision Day). Prior to hearing from Cornell, which I had assumed was too much of a reach to consider a plausible option; I was torn between Fordham and UConn. I would pick one by May 1 and have the “best four years of my life” in the same college for all four years because transferring was never on my radar. Ivy Decision Day rolled around; I was driving back from Husky for a Day at UConn and loving every minute of it, and I opened up the Cornell application portal to see a transfer offer. A guaranteed transfer?
So, I had lived 18 years figuring I would never transfer because it wasn’t my style and here I am getting a golden ticket to my dream school so long as I do exactly the thing I never thought I’d do. Needless to say, I expressed my interest in the transfer offer, set down a deposit at Fordham and ultimately transferred my sophomore year. Let me tell you, it was a weird experience going through freshman year twice, and especially weird for the first year. Going into freshman year of college, a lot of students expect they’re going to invest the next 1,460 days at their institution of choice; however, I knew I’d be spending a measly 365. After having the transfer conversation with some of the closest friends I’d thought I would ever make, I started doubting if transferring was the right call.
People transfer for all sorts of reasons – they didn’t like the first school, they were homesick, it was not financially feasible, they had a transfer offer in place, or what have you. Transferring shmansferring, right? It’s no biggie; some people leave, some people stay, but it’s never something worth stressing over. FALSE. Transferring is scary. It’s making the big move to being on your own for the first time, round two. It’s leaving all your newfound friends to surround yourself with strangers. It’s having the scared doe-eyed face of a freshie again. It’s the stress of transfer credits. Yes, it’s scary, it’s new, it’s intimidating, but it’s also one of the best decisions I made.
Transferring brought me to my ultimate dream school – Fordham was an excellent pit stop, and I wouldn’t trade by my freshman year there for a fourth year at Cornell. Fordham taught me so many things and let me make so many rookie mistakes and then have a fresh start. So while yes, it is freshman year 2.0, it’s freshman year with a twist. I had already been to college while the physical location and the environment were going to be an adjustment; a lot of freshman concerns were alleviated. Yeah, I had the confused big-eyed look of a freshman for a semester but so did thousands of other kids.
Needless to say, transferring isn’t to be taken lightly – it’s a huge move, it’s hard, and it’s overwhelming at times. But it is also an amazing opportunity to start fresh and have a do-over of your first year of college. If transferring ends up being your best bet, embrace it, make the best of what you’ve got, and try your best to maintain your roots in your freshman year experience because it’s one of the best years of college.
