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In­ter­view with a Maryville Trans­fer Stu­dent


Be­ing a trans­fer stu­dent can be ex­cit­ing, but it can also be daunt­ing. Be­tween chang­ing lo­ca­tions, ar­eas of study, friends and rou­tines, switch­ing schools can be hec­tic and dif­fi­cult. So, why do stu­dents trans­fer? To­day, I am talk­ing with Valen­tine about his ex­pe­ri­ence. Valen­tine is a third year at Maryville and trans­ferred from St. Charles Com­mu­nity Col­lege.

A: What drove you to trans­fer from your old school, and why did you choose Maryville?

V: I went to the com­mu­nity col­lege to get my gen out of the way. I chose to come to Maryville be­cause I had dreams about it. I can’t re­mem­ber the specifics of the dreams, but in both, I was in­volved in Maryville’s cam­pus. That was all I needed to make a fi­nal de­ci­sion.

A: What are you most ex­cited for now that you’re here?

V: Def­i­nitely work­ing with oth­ers in ma­jor and meet­ing peo­ple with sim­i­lar goals. In com­mu­nity col­lege every­one is work­ing to­wards get­ting through their re­quired classes, but here I can find peo­ple who have sim­i­lar am­bi­tions in the classes they take. I love work­ing to­wards my de­gree through de­gree fo­cused classes rather than gen eds.

A: What is some­thing you were con­fused on about your trans­fer ex­pe­ri­ence?

V: Be­fore classes be­gan, I had been given a list of all the schol­ar­ships I was ac­cepted for, and I se­lected all of them when in re­al­ity I wanted to se­lect a few. I could­n’t go back and change this, and So­lu­tion Squad never con­firmed the drop­ping of the cor­rect schol­ar­ships with me. I’m not sure what hap­pened with those.

A: What did you like about ori­en­ta­tion, or was there some­thing about it you would change?

V: I did­n’t re­ally like ori­en­ta­tion; I had al­ready been through col­lege so I felt a bit too ma­ture for it. I al­most wish there had been an en­tirely sep­a­rate ori­en­ta­tion ex­pe­ri­ence for trans­fer stu­dents.

A: Do you have any ad­vice you would give in­com­ing trans­fer stu­dents?

V: Get your as­so­ci­ates at com­mu­nity col­lege first, then move on to a higher uni­ver­sity. Tt gets your gen eds out of the way and it’s less ex­pen­sive.

A: Thank you for talk­ing with me to­day, Valen­tine, I ap­pre­ci­ate your time.

V: Thank you for hav­ing me!

Trans­fer­ring schools can be chaotic, but there are dozens and dozens of trans­fer stu­dents on the Maryville cam­pus. We are all in this to­gether and will help those who need it. Maryville stu­dents and staff are open re­sources for any ques­tions and con­cerns. For more in­for­ma­tion, please check out the link be­low.

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