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In­ter­view with Trans­fer Stu­dent Bai­ley Chiesa

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The process of trans­fer­ring schools is dif­fer­ent for every­body. Some find the process to be easy-breezy, while oth­ers find it a com­plete headache. Some must trans­fer mul­ti­ple times un­til they find the right schools. And some have the whole world locked down when they are try­ing to go through such a big tran­si­tion pe­riod in their lives. To­day, I am speak­ing with Maryville se­nior Bai­ley Chiesa, an Eng­lish ma­jor who trans­ferred to Maryville dur­ing the be­gin­ning of the COVID-19 pan­demic.

Amelia: What made you trans­fer schools? Why did you choose Maryville?

Bai­ley: My se­nior year of high school, I grad­u­ated a se­mes­ter early. I was­n’t sure where I wanted to go to school, so I de­cided to go to com­mu­nity col­lege for my first year. While I was at com­mu­nity col­lege, I de­cided to look into lo­cal uni­ver­si­ties to see what my op­tions where. I chose to go Maryville be­cause of the small class sizes. With a small class size, it’s eas­ier to build a con­nec­tion with your class­mates and your pro­fes­sors, which is some­thing I re­ally wanted.

Amelia: What are you most ex­cited about now that you’re at Maryville, or what do you like the most about Maryville?

Bai­ley:  One thing I re­ally like about Maryville is how I’m able to build re­la­tion­ships with my pro­fes­sors and class­mates since the classes are so small. I also like how small our cam­pus is. It’s not too small where you run into the same peo­ple every day, but small enough that I am able to get in be­tween classes with­out feel­ing rushed.

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

Bai­ley: The things I found easy about trans­fer­ring here was that all I had to do was turn in a copy of my tran­scripts. I did­n’t have to write an es­say or any­thing that some col­leges re­quire you to do. One of the staff mem­bers that helped me with my trans­fer­ring process was my ad­mis­sions coun­selor, Ter­rence An­drews. He helped me with any ques­tions I had about doc­u­ments I needed to turn in to make the trans­form­ing process eas­ier. He also made sure that my cred­its from the com­mu­nity col­lege trans­ferred over so I would­n’t have to take ex­tra classes.

Maryville Admissions Director, Terrence Andrews

Amelia: What did you find dif­fi­cult about trans­fer­ring to Maryville? What con­cerns/​ques­tions did you have that went un­ad­dressed?

Bai­ley: One thing I found to be dif­fi­cult about trans­fer­ring to Maryville was mak­ing new friends and get­ting in­volved. Since I am a trans­fer and a com­muter stu­dent, I found it re­ally hard to get in­volved. I also came to Maryville in Fall 2020 dur­ing COVID, which did­n’t help. When I got here, I felt like every­one al­ready had their group of friends. Now that every­thing is opened back up, I am slowly find­ing my group of peo­ple! It was just hard at first be­cause I was new.

Amelia: Did you en­joy ori­en­ta­tion? If so, what did you like? If not, what would you change?

Bai­ley: I had a dif­fer­ent ori­en­ta­tion ex­pe­ri­ence than most peo­ple. Since I trans­ferred here dur­ing the Fall 2020, every­thing was vir­tual. Ori­en­ta­tion helped me a lit­tle bit, but not much. I just kind of had to fig­ure every­thing out on my own. When I trans­ferred here, it was also my friend’s first year at Maryville. We both did­n’t know what we were do­ing, so we would help each other out when it came to fig­ur­ing out how to set up stu­dent ID, find­ing classes, etc.

Amelia: What is one thing you like about Maryville?

Bai­ley: One thing I like about Maryville is how nice every­one is. Even though I’m a se­nior, this is the first year I have been able to get in­volved in events be­cause of COVID. For ex­am­ple, I par­tic­i­pated in MRO this year for the first time. I was ner­vous be­cause I did it by my­self, and I did­n’t know any­one in my group. When I got there, every­one in my group was ex­tremely wel­com­ing and su­per nice. I’ve ex­pe­ri­enced this with many other events at Maryville too.

Amelia: How is Maryville dif­fer­ent than your pre­vi­ous school?

Bai­ley: Be­fore Maryville, I at­tended a lo­cal com­mu­nity col­lege. At the com­mu­nity col­lege, I felt like every­one was just treated as an­other stu­dent pass­ing through un­til their next jour­ney. None of the pro­fes­sors re­ally cared about their stu­dents, they just did their pre­sen­ta­tions and gave us the home­work and told us when the test was. They did­n’t take the time to gen­uinely get to know us. At Maryville, all my pro­fes­sors know my in­ter­ests, hob­bies, etc. My pro­fes­sors take the time to get to know me. They care about my ed­u­ca­tion.

Amelia: How would you de­scribe your trans­fer process over­all?

Bai­ley: Over­all I would say my trans­fer process was good. It was hard be­cause it was dur­ing COVID, so I did­n’t get the typ­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence. All of my cred­its trans­ferred, and I was able to find my classes which is what I was wor­ried about the most.

Amelia: Do you have any ad­vice for Maryville trans­fer stu­dents, or stu­dents think­ing of trans­fer­ring?

Bai­ley: One piece of ad­vice I can give to stu­dents who are think­ing about trans­fer­ring is it’s okay if you don’t know any­one. Don’t be scared to get in­volved. Some­times it can be scary to do things on your own, but every­one is so nice and wel­com­ing. I was scared of go­ing to events at Maryville on my own, but once I did, I found a group of peo­ple to hang out with. I never re­gret­ted go­ing to any of these events be­cause I al­ways had fun! So, get in­volved be­cause you won’t re­gret it!

COVID-19 is­n’t over, but thank­fully we have found ways to come to­gether as a stu­dent body de­spite the changes we’ve had to face. To learn more about how to get in­volved at Maryville, talk to your Life Coach or visit https://​maryville.cam­pus­labs.com/​en­gage/. ​If you ever have any ques­tions or con­cerns, please reach out to Maryville staff and Life Coaches for guid­ance. Thank you, Saints!

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