<p>I hate the school I am at and I cannot finish out the year. I am transferring to a school closer to home. </p>
<p>My dad says this is not good for my future because more than one college transfer will look bad on my resume or my record. And that I should ride out the year. </p>
<p>Is this true? Will it really look bad? I thought jobs only cared about where you actually graduated from? Why would they care if you transferred more than once, if you actually earned the degree???? Please answer someone!!</p>
<p>In general, on your resume, it’s acceptable to only put the school where you obtained your degree, so unless, they ask for your transcripts, they would never know how many schools you went to unless you told them. If they do ask for transcripts (which is fairly rare, in the employment world), then they may only ask for transcripts from schools you attended for a year or more, or they may ask for all of them. I doubt it would matter significantly that you transferred more than once, even if they did learn of it, unless you transferred after flunking out or having some sort of disciplinary measure or something.</p>
<p>If you’re planning on transferring regardless, I don’t see much of a difference between transferring now or waiting out the year. I doubt those two situations would be viewed very differently.</p>
<p>“ride out the year” …does this mean that this is your last year of college? Or does he prefer you transfer in the fall for some reason?</p>
<p>I transferred twice. It is not uncommon and there are legitimate reasons for doing so, such as changes in financial situations, medical reasons, etc. Many people only put the degree-granting college on their resume, and unless your employer requests all transcripts they really won’t care to know where else you took classes. What matters is what you learned along the way, what you accomplished, and what you have to offer them.</p>
<p>The difficulty in transferring multiple times - if this is even relevant to you - is building recommendations and gaining research experience since you will be new and just getting to know the faculty all over again. But this might not be an issue depending on your field and what year you are in. If, however, this is your senior year then I wouldn’t go through the hassle of transferring. Some colleges will only grant a degree or honors distinctions/awards if you take a certain number of credits there, meaning you couldn’t just transfer in for one semester and graduate. Some colleges limit the number of credits you can transfer in, and if their graduation requirements are different you could end up doing an extra semester - or a whole extra year. So take some time to do the research and decide what is best.</p>
<p>What <em>does</em> look bad to employers is if you have this same pattern in employment, meaning you jump around from job to job every few months. People who do this are a risk because the company may believe they will not stay long there either, and it is expensive and time consuming to train new employees who do not intend to stay. So that might be where your father is coming from, but when it comes to college and internships this really doesn’t apply.</p>