In­ter­view with a STLCC Trans­fer Stu­dent

Maryville Uni­ver­sity is a go-to school for many trans­fer stu­dents, re­sult­ing in a di­verse stu­dent body. Trans­fer­ring schools can be a big deal to some, and a pass­ing thought to other. To­day, I am speak­ing with a third year Maryville trans­fer stu­dent who wishes to re­main anony­mous about their ex­pe­ri­ence. This is their first se­mes­ter at Maryville, and an Eng­lish ma­jor.

Amelia: What made you switch from STLCC? When you were look­ing at other schools, why did you choose Maryville?

Anony­mous: I went to STLCC for my gen eds and be­cause I was in the A+ Pro­gram in high school, so I got free tu­ition. I wanted to spend money on classes re­lated to my field of study rather than gen­eral ed­u­ca­tion classes. I was also very over­whelmed dur­ing the col­lege process in high school and did­n’t know what I wanted to ma­jor in, so com­mu­nity col­lege helped me nar­row down what I wanted to study.

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

Anony­mous: I am so ex­cited to be tak­ing classes re­lated to my field. Tak­ing gen­eral ed­u­ca­tion classes meant I would take math, sci­ence, Eng­lish, all dif­fer­ent sub­jects which I wanted to get away from. Now I can fo­cus on classes I am ex­cited and pas­sion­ate about.

Amelia: What did you find easy or com­fort­ing in the process of trans­fer­ring to Maryville? Were there any ad­vi­sors or staff at Maryville who made the tran­si­tion eas­ier?

Anony­mous: Al­most every adult I went to with ques­tions was very will­ing to help me, which made things eas­ier. I can’t think of any staff off the top of my head specif­i­cally, though.

Amelia: What did you find dif­fi­cult/​con­fus­ing about trans­fer­ring to Maryville? Did you have any ques­tions/​frus­tra­tions that were left unan­swered or that weren’t clear at the start?

Anony­mous: In the be­gin­ning me and my fam­ily were re­ally con­fused on the specifics of things. Like, we knew when to pay tu­ition and how much to pay, but we did­n’t know where to pay. We knew I needed to reg­is­ter for classes, but did I go on­line or set up an ap­point­ment? There were just lit­tle de­tails that made the process con­fus­ing and un­nec­es­sar­ily stress­ful.

Amelia: Did you en­joy ori­en­ta­tion? What would you change about it, or keep the same?

Anony­mous: I thought ori­en­ta­tion was okay. Again, it was re­ally dif­fi­cult when some of the lit­tle de­tails weren’t gone over. Like, I did­n’t know I was sup­posed to or­der my books from Red Shelf. It was­n’t un­til the first day of classes and my phone did­n’t work that I was told I could get a phys­i­cal school ID. It sounds like lit­tle house­keep­ing things, but it made things very con­fus­ing, and I wish it had been gone over. I also felt it was kind of ju­ve­nile. Some­times Ice Break­ers are help­ful, but when you’re a trans­fer stu­dent you’ve been through that tran­si­tion from high school so it feels re­ally un­nec­es­sary.

Amelia: What is your fa­vorite thing about Maryville?

Anony­mous: I love my pro­fes­sors so far, they are all su­per en­gaged in what they’re teach­ing us and very ex­cited to help me learn. They lis­ten to my ideas and dis­cuss them with me. It’s re­ally awe­some and makes me ex­cited to come to class.

Amelia: What is some­thing you like about Maryville that is dif­fer­ent from St Louis Com­mu­nity Col­lege?

Anony­mous: Hon­estly, I love the size of Maryville. STLCC was very small and kind of felt suf­fo­cat­ing, a like a big­ger cam­pus size.

Amelia: Do you have any ad­vice for cur­rent/​fu­ture Maryville trans­fer stu­dents?

Anony­mous: Get with your pro­fes­sors and talk to them, they have re­ally awe­some ad­vice. Also find oth­ers in your ma­jor who you can bounce ideas off of and study with, it goes a long way.

Amelia: Awe­some! Thank you for your in­sight!

Anony­mous: Of course!

You are not alone in your ex­pe­ri­ences here at Maryville. If you ever have any ques­tions or con­cerns, please reach out to Maryville staff and Life Coaches for guid­ance. Thank you, Saints!