I’m currently a student at Tulane University. I love Tulane, I love my professors, I love the faculty, and I love the city of New Orleans. However, the student body seems to be filled with people that I just don’t fit in with. I’m not a party person, and Tulane is a big party school. In addition, people here tend to be fairly entitled and elitist. You have to fit in socially or you just won’t fit in. I always thought that this was the case at any university. You know “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side” kind of thing. Well over spring break I went to visit my boyfriend and my old high school friends and my cousin at Texas Tech. Everyone there was so nice, even the people that I had never met before. People were just so much more accepting. It made me realize that I’m not exactly happy here. I’m strongly considering transferring. However, I’m just not sure. Tulane was my dream school. I’ve tried so hard all freshman year to make friends and I’m involved in so many organizations and I just can’t seem to click with anyone no matter how hard I try. When I was at Tech, I met so many new people on my own and felt like I could be amazing friends with any of these people. However, I know that Tulane has its name behind it and Tech is not known for their academics (at least not as much as they are known for football). I’m just concerned now that if I do transfer, that I won’t be able to get my dream job of working on a design and creative team with Disney because I didn’t go to some amazing academic school. Any advice? Should I go where I’m happy, or suck it up for another 3 years and count down the days until I graduate?
If you are interested in Texas Tech in particular, explore their website specifically for the major(s) you are interested
in. Then find out where the Tech grads get hired in that major. That should help you decide from the academic side if Tech is a good fit for you. Overall Tech is a solid and rising school academically. For example, Tech has a Phi Beta Kappa chapter (excellence in liberal arts) which is tough to get. Among Texas state universities, only UT Austin and A&M have Phi Beta Kappa chapters. Also, Tech was recently designated a Tier One research institution (also tough to get). Anyway, my son graduated from Tech and you are so right that folks at Tech overall are warm and friendly. And Lubbock as a city of 230,000 has every city convenience you could expect (plus a nice airport to fly into via Southwest Airlines especially). Anyway, drill down and check out your majors at Tech and then decide if Tech is worth a look as a transfer student.
Are you a freshman or later? Sometimes it takes a while to find your niche.
I’m a freshman. However, I got involved in a lot during my freshman year so I could make friends. I understand that it takes a while to find a niche, but I don’t want to look back on my college experience and wish I had a solid group all through college that I know love me and will support me no matter what. I just don’t have that here at Tulane where if I even am able to find that, it might take me a while to find. I’m glad though that I did try to branch out of my comfort zone for a year. It helped me understand myself a lot more than if I had just followed my friends to Tech immediately out of college
Also, I really miss Texas like a lot more than I thought I would haha