Hi everyone! This coming fall, I am going to be transferring to Vanderbilt as a Sophomore… and I’m totally terrified. Are there any current students (transferred or otherwise) who can speak about any insight they might have to the transfer experience? Do you have friends who transferred who found it particularly difficult? Did you transfer and have a really smooth transition?
I know that transferring is naturally a stressful process and it won’t be easy right away–I’m expecting some initial struggle and a few (many) rough patches as I try to find my footing. I don’t expect to have my hand held or anything. I have finished a full year of college that was already harder than I could have imagined, so I know the ropes of finding new friends and everything, but I also know that some schools are better than others about giving their transfer students the support necessary to start over in a new environment where your peers have already been around for a year. I’m just trying to get a feel for what I’m really in for.
Long story short: What’s it like to be a transfer student at Vandy? What’s it like to be a student at Vandy? What’s it like at Vandy?
Not a transfer, but was friends with kids who did. Really make an effort to socialize and make friends. Vanderbilt has some orientation type things for transfers, but then your only friends will be other transfers. You can’t make friends through your classes. You need to join a club that meets regularly with a significant social element (like one of the papers/model UN, or a club/intramural sport like rowing/rugby/ultimate frisbee, etc. not an uninvolved club like VSVS), and also probably rush, especially if you are a guy. Even if you don’t like drinking that much, it’s a good way to meet other people (unless you are the type of person who doesn’t drink and is really into christian youth group type things; then you should rush BYX or something.) Of the transfers I know, the ones that made a good transition were the ones who got involved in greek life/a sport. Some of them took a year to do so (meaning transferred as a sophomore, but didn’t join things till junior year) and there was a huge difference in their general demeanor and outlook on life once they did.
Also, be conservative with your class schedule first semester, especially if you are coming from a less rigorous school. A lot of transfers come in from easier places, load up their schedules, and are so stressed out their first semester that they miss out on making friends and having fun. Some of them even end up transferring back to where they came from. Just use ratemyprof to avoid hard professors, and don’t take too many hours, definitely not above 15-16.
That advice in the second paragraph is interesting. Most of the transfers I knew from less rigorous institutions looked forward to the change. Many of them embraced it and performed well with very tough schedules, some sucked it and got through like everyone else. But of course I went to a different school and I guess it depends on the motivations for transfer. Like those transferring for social or prestige (no one likes really admitting this one, but it happens and many people who do it kind of have the academic change that comes with the prestige as an afterthought when applying) reasons may be more likely to struggle with or be annoyed by more challenging academics (as the academics are a “side-effect” of transferring lol) than someone transferring for more academic reasons (like a strong program or access to some faculty).
A lot of it may also have to do with how good instructors are as well. If you hit a hard one that isn’t better at teaching than faculty at the original school, that can leave a bad taste as well (I actually hear this is somewhat common among those coming for strong community college or 2 year systems to research universities. I had a friend who went to Georgia Tech and she said that Tech had much more rigor, but the teaching wasn’t nowhere near as good). That on top of environmental changes can make or break a transition.
Interestingly, a decent amount of transfers I knew did join Greek life, but many of this fraction (often non-white. Many more white transfer friends tended to join Greek life.) admit that they integrated well enough into social life to not have to but chose to do so anyway. Other folks were so academic, that it didn’t matter as much whether they “fit” or not. A clique of friends and a good connection to their major was enough to satisfy this bunch.
It could just be that I’m biased by the fact that a majority of transfers I knew were pre-med science majors, because of the classes I was in. So they might have been extra GPA sensitive, and upset that their perfect 4.0s were getting messed up by a C or two.
Other less GPA based career pathways might not have been as sensitive to it. They were still getting lower grades, but they just cared less.
Thanks for your response! I am already part of a sorority, and I look forward to having that influence in my first semester as I bum around trying to make friends. I’m taking 17 hours but 4 of them are in an easy throw-away class that I can drop if need be. I’m transferring from a school with a pretty rigorous science curriculum, so I’m not super worried but definitely ready to work my butt off.
I’m definitely nervous about what you mentioned where people don’t really find their groove until well into Junior year. I’m really hoping to find something that sticks early on. I transferred for a better social environment and more of a traditional college experience, but also don’t want to give up the academic rigor I was used to at my old establishment.
Yeah, most of the ones I knew were like that (pre-health or STEM), but most did fine or really well. But again, I think they were there for those academics so took it seriously and often even purposely chose harder classes and still did well. However, this was like only half of them I admit. Many, especially those coming from places (like large, but reputable state schools) and were in say, honors programs, enjoyed the teaching and level of the courses to some extent, but said that it was very different in terms of GPA expectation in the larger pre-med core classes. For example, they said that when they did take non-honors versions of pre-health cores, there was little competition, because generally people did not study anywhere near as intensely as they did. When they got to the new school, there was much more competition on top of the course just being at a higher level of theory and exams being much more unpredictable (the teachers they took were generally harder than their honors courses, but were more like the regular course in size and grade distribution. As in, often honors courses at state schools, or almost anywhere, have much more “fluff” and aren’t as exam heavy so it is generally easier to make a higher grade). So in medium/high difficulty STEM courses, they became more or less average vs. the new students they competed with. One girl I tutored had very mixed feelings about it obviously. She praised most of her instructors but noted her frustration with putting in lots of effort and getting much less return on it (with spring semester, rush certainly interfered. Each semester, she just so happened to have either of the hardest ochem instructors and had the harder physics instructor her first semester, because there was only 1 section of the course…needless to say, she is likely switching majors from chemistry to biology). As in the process of earning the grade became more stressful. A girl who transferred from GSU (who was actually in my tutorial class that I taught when over there) really had a hard time adjusting (she was a high achieving student not in the honors program at GSU) because she had never taken courses where teachers make exams purposely difficult to challenge already good students. I remember her cruising quite nicely at GSU actually, but she was indeed hit with some C’s and quite a bit of B grades last year. The social transition for her was rougher than she expected as well so that made it a little worse.
You’re right in that transfers in other disciplines generally had much more success from what I’ve observed. Many of them actually pushed themselves to perform as well or better than the previous school. One acquaintance of mine was actually a transfer who graduated last year and had apparently been noted by some instructors in the religion department as one of the best scholars/students they’ve seen in over a decade! It was a pleasure to meet that person. And there are, as I said, a surprising amount of STEM transfers from “lower” schools who pushed themselves that far. Maybe I’m just lucky to have met any of them.
I think transfers coming to elites from less rigorous schools shouldn’t be stereotyped or underestimated based on what I’ve seen. Many of them are actually at the school for different reasons than those who started as freshman at the schools. And while their credentials back in HS may likely have been below par for the school, many likely developed a lot before transferring and had a complete change in attitude toward academics and scholarship. They also often benefit from not being so jaded by the academics like many who started as freshman are. By time we hit sophomore or junior year, a lot of us were over it or were in GPA management mode whereas a transfer may more likely say: “I’m in a cool new place with cool new faculty, so there is not as much to lose if I work hard”. Many of us take some of the things they came for, for granted and begin to under-appreciate or under-utilize some resources despite how well-prepped and motivated we were upon entry.