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Dear Natalie: Questions on Transitioning to a New College

May 15
Natalie Bricker Jumbo Talk

 

Welcome back to the “Dear Natalie” segment of my blog, where I answer your questions! To write in your questions about anything transfer student or Tufts-related, send an email to: natalie.bricker@tufts.edu. Thank you to everyone who’s been sending in questions, I’m hoping to get around to answering all your emails as soon as I can! 


For this blog, I’ll be answering some questions about regretting your college decision, my experience at Tufts, and what it’s like to transition to a new school. I hope this helps any of you who have similar questions!


Dear Natalie, 


I’m a current sophomore and I applied to transfer to Tufts this past application round. I wanted to reach out to you to ask some general questions about your experience! First, I applied to both the school I’m currently at and Tufts (the first time around) and was stuck between them for a while. I ended up choosing my current school, obviously, but there are a lot of things (that would have changed my decision) I couldn’t have known before coming to campus for at least a couple semesters — have you had any similar experiences either at Tufts or at your previous college? 

 

I also want to know: How has your experience been generally? And how was transitioning in terms of credits transferring over, reestablishing yourself in a new school, etc.? I still am a little nervous when I think about the prospect of having to do that in the fall, but mostly because I feel so ingrained in campus life at my current school — I even work in the Admissions department as a tour guide and as an intern. Has your transition been more or less difficult than you anticipated? 


Thanks so much for your time, I appreciate it! :)

Best,

Prospective transfer student

_____


Dear prospective transfer student,

Thank you so much for reaching out! I'm happy to answer your questions and have also answered some of your other questions in depth in previous blogs, which I’ll link where they’re relevant in this post.


1. In regards to the first part of your email: there are a lot of things I couldn’t have known before coming to my current campus for at least a couple semesters — have you had any similar experiences either at Tufts or at your previous college? 


My answer: Absolutely! You can do all the research in the world and ask as many people who attend a college as possible and you still will have no way of knowing what it’s actually like to be a student at a school until you experience it yourself. That’s part of the fun (and sometimes nerve-wracking) part of being a new student! I’m not sure I share in your feelings that you wouldn’t have attended your first college given some of the things you know now, because I’m a strong believer in the (admittedly super cliché) idea that “everything happens for a reason.” Even given what I know now about some of the more negative sides of my time at my first university, I still would choose the same path over again because I learned so much about myself in my college decision and transfer process and am really thankful I ended up where I am now. 

While it may be easy to feel regrets about your original college decision right now, I’m pretty confident that you’ll look back and understand why your college journey happened the way it did. There is so much to learn from every experience and choosing to transfer schools is a huge testament to knowing yourself and making a brave decision! Sure, it’s tempting to dwell on the regrets that may pop up but try to focus on the positives in this experience, if you can! You’re listening to your gut telling you to change the situation you’re in right now and that’s really cool and important. My decision process to transfer schools taught me so much about myself and I’m sure it did for you, too. 

2. For the second part of your email: How has your experience been generally? And how was transitioning in terms of credits transferring over, reestablishing yourself in a new school, etc.? I still am a little nervous when I think about the prospect of having to do that in the fall, but mostly because I feel so ingrained in campus life at my current school — I even work in the Admissions department as a tour guide and as an intern. Has your transition been more or less difficult than you anticipated? 


My answer: My experience at Tufts has been absolutely amazing. I truly feel that this was the best school for me in so many ways and find new things I love about Tufts and Boston every day. I’ve met some of my favorite people EVER and I’ve really honed into my writing in classes and at the Daily. 


The credit transfer process was a little tedious but overall quite easy for me and I got every class transferred over. I’ve written more about this process and other logistical parts of the transfer process in this previous blog.


Reestablishing yourself at a new school is hard in some ways and freeing in others — you get to find new opportunities, communities, and people! I’d totally recommend checking out the kinds of organizations you’ve enjoyed and been a part of at your current school. It sounds like working in admissions and finding a similar internship/job/club opportunity to the one you’re in right now would be great! My transition overall was both easier and harder than I’d anticipated in different ways. Making friends was way easier than I thought but it was a little harder for me to get used to being so far from home (I’m from California so the 6 hour flight away from my family feels quite far sometimes). Over my time at Tufts, I’ve found several communities that feel supportive and fun to be around and I don’t regret my decision to transfer to Tufts one bit. 


I’m so glad you wrote in and I hope some of this was helpful! I have many other blogs that go into specifics about:

I look forward to answering more emails from you all! TTYL,

Natalie