So I've decided I want to transfer, now what?

You’re not alone! There are a number of students that have come before you and that will definitely come after you that have been exactly where you are right now. Whether you decided to leave your school by choice or because you had no choice, you are not alone.

No need to beat yourself up about it.

“Change is good for everybody” *French Montana voice* (kudos to you if you know what song this line is from🙂)

Change is required in order to elevate in life; it’s never easy but with time it becomes easier to deal with.

Back in 2015 I was in your shoes, just graduated high school and was off to Drexel University. I was extremely excited to be attending college in a new state and city. I was ready for all that Philly had to offer me and so much more. My time was cut short when I realized that the money I was initially offered to attend was not enough to cover up to half of the yearly tuition costs, it was only enough for one quarter (quarter system and semester system are different).

I had no choice but to leave Philly and come back home to attend Nassau Community College in my neighborhood. The thought of it made me cringe. I was not ready to give up my life in the city for my life in the suburbs. Before attending Nassau Community College, I knew absolutely nothing about navigating the transfer process. Prayerfully, I survived my process and thrived if I do say so myself😌.

Here are some tips that I learned along the way that I WISH someone would've told me beforehand.

Tip #1: Do your research on the school you want to transfer to.

🖤 This is an extremely important tip because these schools will FINESSE you and take your money if you allow them to.

In my case, they were trying to have me repeat my first semester of college because I was coming from a school that had a quarter system and transferred to a school on a semester catalog. Needless to say that didn’t fly😭.

🖤 Make sure you know the exact requirements for the program you want to enter into, how many of your credits from your other school(s) will be applied to your degree.

🖤 FIGHT FOR THE CREDITS YOU CURRENTLY HAVE! A lot of schools will try and tell you that they won’t accept certain classes on your transcript because

a.) you’re transferring from a private school to a public school.

b.) they don’t think community college courses measure up to 4-year university rigor (when we all know that’s cap, respectfully)

c.) the course name on your transcript does not match the course name in their course catalog (this is when you will go get the description of the course from your previous school, the professor you had for that course or the head of the department to write you a letter depicting the kind of work that was done in that class to show your new school)

Tip #2: Visit the school if you can.

I never visited schools that I transferred to before hand but I do think it is important to do especially so if you plan on going far. You don’t want to be stuck in an environment you hate because it will then reflect in your school work. It takes time and money, but it's worth it.

Tip #3: Make sure you are transferring for the right reasons.

I know many of us have no choice but to change school whether those reasons be financial, personal, etc. BUT the idea of leaving one school because it’s not “littt” enough for another “more litttt” school is a waste of time in my opinion. Is that reason worth the application process, the move, the cost of attendance, the possibility of repeating years, or delaying graduation? Don't think so. On paper, school B can look more academically appealing than school A but school A may seem more fun because of what you see on social media. I get it we all want the fun/cool college experience but not at the cost of you wasting you or your parent’s money for it.

College is what you make it and that starts from within!

#collegestudent #thetransferguide #whatsnext #blogger