As a tour guide at my current college, I always have to introduce myself to the eager (or not so eager, depending) group of students and their parents who I will then venture out to see the campus with. Generally, my introduction goes a little something like this...

"Hey guys! My name is Dana. I'm a senior here at SUNY Oneonta studying psychology and criminal justice. I'm also a professional transfer student, meaning I've attended four different colleges throughout my career. Also, I'm from Dutchess County AND Westchester County, New York, with one parent in one and one in the other! Ready to get ready on the tour?"

Naturally, I get some pretty strange looks after mentioning the four colleges thing. I'd say 9/10 times, a parent or student on my tour will ask me what colleges I've attended in the past, asking why I transferred so many times, et cetera. After taking a deep breath, I always tell them my story – not because I think they deserve to know or anything like that, but I feel as though if I'm honest with them, they'll open up and actually interact with me on my tour (and hopefully laugh at my ridiculously corny jokes that I work so hard on). Which brings me to my transfer story, which I normally condense for the sake of the students on my tour, but will explain in a bit more depth here.

When I was about to be a senior in high school, the symptoms of my chronic illnesses started popping up. But I applied to colleges anyways because it was my dream to get a college education. Fast forward to three weeks before my freshman year of college, my dad told me that I could no longer dorm at my dream school, but instead would be commuting to and from school without a car and without a license. So for one miserable semester, I learned that my dream school was not my dream school under the circumstances I was handed, and I spent about 10 hours a day at Mount Saint Mary College on the days my health issues actually allowed me to go. Needless to say, not a great start to my college career.

Transfer #1: I ended up at Dutchess Community College, about a 5 minute drive from my house at the south campus. Because of my health and still not having the ability to drive, I opted to take two courses on campus that semester, twice a week, in my favorite subject – history. I finished up that spring semester with two A's and a great experience, so I decided to stay and try a full time semester of 4 classes in the fall. Unfortunately, one day in the middle of October, my doorbell rang with the most gut-wrenching news I had heard to date – my house, the one I had lived in for eighteen years of my life, was in foreclosure.

My family and I had two weeks to move out, pack up a lifetime of memories, and get out. Needless to say, I dropped out of school. I worked my part time job in a bakery at a supermarket, which thankfully I loved, but it was an incredibly hard point in my life. I was out of school for the first time in 13 years, and my main goal of getting a bachelors degree didn't seem like it was going to happen. To top it off, my depression spiraled and I had a suicide attempt, which I obviously did not complete... but that's another story for another article.

Transfer #2: Well, DCC didn't really want me back after I took so long to get them the tuition money I owed them, so they wouldn’t let me back for the spring semester. So nice of them, I know. Thankfully, my grandmother who is LITERALLY the most amazing person in the world, was kind enough to pay for me to take 3 courses online through Westchester Community College while I was still working about 30 hours a week at the bakery. I fell in love with online classes, did assignments during breaks from work and at night when I had time, and managed 3 more A's. Yet, I was still behind.

Transfer #3: At the end of January in 2014, I decided I wanted to finally go away to college like I always wanted to. I applied to a school which I fell in love with back in high school, SUNY Oneonta, and got accepted. Ironically enough, that was also the one and only school that my younger brother applied to – so the Marvin children were Oneonta bound in August of 2014.

Ever since, I've been at Oneonta, loving the atmosphere and freedom living on my own has finally been able to give me. With only a little more than six months until I graduate, I'm simultaneously eager to get out of here while trying to soak in my super-senior year.

Though it's taking me a lot longer than the norm to graduate, I don't care anymore. I used to hate telling people my transfer story or how I'm graduating a year late, because they almost always give me pity or make faces of shock. Yeah, they still do that, but I learned not to care. I came to this amazing realization that my college education is for myself, not all of those people judging the path that I'm taking to get there. Why should anyone care how long it took me to get my diploma, as long as I got it? It doesn't matter, and I couldn't care less about your opinion on the subject.