The parking lots are terrible, the traffic around school is terrible, and everyone already seems to know each other. This may not be surprising to you, but it is to me.
No, I’m not antisocial. I’m just a transfer student.
Now, I come from a small private college tucked away in the mountains of Southern Connecticut, so I’m pretty used to the small college deal. I was not expecting a state school feel at all and in fact I was expecting Monmouth to be slightly similar.
There are so many things that I should know about this school that all other juniors seem to know. Yet, I feel like more of a freshman than I did when I actually was one two years ago.
For one, everyone already knows each other. They have found some type of niche where they fit in and have formed a group of people that they call friends. They recognize faces on campus and are comfortable in their surroundings. People have joined their sorority, fraternity, or some other organization.
Where do I fit in? I left my old sorority and don’t want to join another one out of respect and while I’ve made attempts to get involved, after a semester I can only count my friends on one hand. People are not as welcoming as I had hoped.
I was never anticipating anyone to roll out the welcome wagon or have a welcoming committee sing me to class. At this point, the “unwelcomeness” has actually formed another “clique.” For those who have not yet noticed, most of the transfer students seem to flock together—we are going through the same transition after all.
You may say to me—“you sound like a freshman”—but that even furthers my point. Even the freshmen have a different, welcoming aspect to them. They’re interested in making friends because they are similar to me. They also (most of the time) come here not knowing anybody, but there is enough of them that they all want to make friends and people have seemed to be more accepting if they mess up or don’t know something.
Being that I’m almost three quarters done with my college career, I should know a lot about this school and the people and the professors but I feel like I’m missing out.
Is there a way to fix this dilemma? Just because we get a “transfer student orientation” does not mean we know all we need to know about Monmouth U.
Teach us where people go out on the weekends.
Teach us what buildings are “haunted” and which are not.
Tell us what time to get to the parking lots so we are not late for class when we have trouble with the cluttered parking lots.
Tell us how facilities deal with snow.
Teach us about MUPD and what the consequences are for underage drinking.
Tell us what is good to eat in the student center or the dining hall and what is not.
Teach us what teachers are great professors and professors whose classes may be more difficult—our classmates have the advantage being that they have been here for a while.
I could go on for longer but I only have 700 words. Those are just a few examples of how the transfer student orientation program could better inform us.
While registering for classes and giving us a tour of the school is great, we need more. We really are a neglected population on campus and we need more of a light shone on us.
We need to know about Monmouth’s social scene and about tricks of the trade to help us maneuver on campus.
It is sort of nerve-wracking coming here not knowing anyone or where anything is on top of worrying about having all your classes, when meanwhile, you stand there shaking in your boots because you didn’t realize that you were going to sit in traffic on Cedar Ave. in the middle of the day.
There are just so many more things that you non-transfers can teach us transfers so that we don’t feel like a small child lost in a mall.
