\From One College Transfer to Another

Dear Transfer,

You already have two years under your belt. You got this. Transferring to another college? It’ll be easy as pie. Will everything be brand new? Yes, but you are a junior and getting close to being top dog. Plus, you already have this whole college thing figured out.

WRONG.

First of all on the first day, you walk onto the campus and automatically start to feel like a freshmen. You’re supposed to be in the know. I mean, you are older than the freshmen and the sophomores. Then as if to make it worse, everyone on campus actually thinks you are a first year college student. You even realize that the sophomores-- the ones just one year ago from being freshmen-- know tons more than you. “Of course they do. They’ve been at this university since day uno”.

But NO FEAR, you’ll get the hang of it. I mean how long can it take you to figure out where the buildings are and who everyone is? Especially if you went to a small, private, Christian college like me...

...except you don’t know anything about anybody. You don’t know who to stay away from or who to avoid; you don’t even know what to do when there are no parking spots left. Two-year ago freshmen-you is about to scream. You don’t know what to do. Go hide? Skip class? Suck it up and act like you know what you are doing? I usually went with the last option. Asking for help though is probably the better way to go.

But let me reassure you again, it’ll all be alright. You will get the hang of it; after a few months, you’ll get your routine set. You’ll even make friends, start hanging out and staying up all night. You finally feel your age again; you'll feel like you. You are getting to know the professors, even though you might not know them as well as some of the other students who have been there a while. And that’s totally okay too.

You notice the semester is passing rather quickly. You might even start to volunteer for special events or get asked to help. Some campus workers will call you by your first name noting you are officially a part of the campus. Even still, you are feeling like you. You officially got this.

The semester passes…

and then BAM, finals week. If you went to a Community College like me, finals were a breeze. I mean, literally, sometimes I could have not even studied. Not in the way that I’m lazy and didn’t care about my grades because I do, but because the tests were pretty simple and straight forward. Twitter kept me entertained during finals all four semesters at my CC with all the stressing and mental breakdowns everyone was exaggerating about!

But they weren’t exaggerating. When you transfer to another college, a university to be exact, they ain’t playin’. I took back every judgement and laugh I had about those on Twitter. I completely understood the gratefulness of a curve and every free study session I could get with fellow classmates.

So Transfer, if I haven’t completely freaked you out yet, you are going to make it. Let me repeat that again, you are going to make it. Hang in there. Make some friends no matter what year they are in. Ask for help even for the usually common sense information around campus. If they ask if you are first year, just reply "nope". You’re a scared, new (maybe even a little lost) transfer, but you know what? Own it.

No matter what, make it the best because it might be the best two years of your life so far.

Sincerely, a surviving Transfer