By Addison Burke, Staff Writer

Transferring sucks. The whole process is worse than  originally applying for college because there is much less guidance, and it is all in your hands to know if you are making the right decision or not. 

I came to Xavier last fall at the start of my sophomore year, having gone through the transfer process over the summer. I never imagined myself transferring until I realized that at the end of my first year I was absolutely miserable at my previous university and needed to be somewhere else. 

I don’t mean to say that transferring sucks because I regret being at Xavier. That is completely wrong. I have grown to greatly love this school and the people it has brought into my life. What I hated about transferring was the process. 

When I began the transfer process, I  toured Xavier about a month after my sister’s graduation ceremony in the spring of 2022. It is strange to say that a graduation ceremony is what sparked me wanting to come here, but it is the truth. 

After I had toured here, I knew this was where I wanted to be. It was the only school I visited when I was going through the transfer process, which says a great deal about the school. Once I got home from my tour, I filled out the application. 

I was accepted into the school quickly, but the next part of the process moved very slowly. While my admission counselor was great at communicating with me and answering my absurd number of questions, there was still so much waiting during the process. It took more than a month and a half to know which of my class credits would transfer over. 

Once I knew which credits transferred to Xavier, there were so many other credits that didn’t transfer over. I still don’t understand to this day why those credits didn’t count for anything. 

Surprisingly, registering for housing and classes was fairly easy, even though I expected those to be difficult. But once the beginning of the school year rolled around, a whole new level of the transfer process began: making friends. 

When you come into Xavier as a first-year, you experience Manresa — where you have the chance to meet so many people and make lifelong friends. As a transfer, I had a five-hour orientation session the day before classes started where they threw information about college at me that I already knew, making it a rather pointless orientation. Compared to the almost half-a-week freshman are given to become adapted to campus, I had all of a day and a half, which included move-in and the transfer orientation. 

While the transfer orientation was a good chance to get to know other transfers, I only talked to one other person who went through that five-hour orientation. Having no real chance to meet people before classes started was just about the worst part of this whole process. 

As someone who is quieter and more reserved, for the first few weeks of the school year, I was regretting transferring. I had left behind friendships I had made at my previous university and thought I would never gain more friendships like the ones I had. I quickly realized that I would have to open up in order to make up for the first-year experiences I had missed out on here. 

As things got better socially, I then had to figure out things academically because I felt so out of my league in the classroom. 

During my first year of college, I didn’t develop any good study habits which quickly put me behind as a new student at a new school. I contacted my success coach, and they were not a great help with my situation. 

I think so many faculty and staff members do not have much experience with transfer students, and I believe it is something that should be greatly improved upon so that all students have the best experience possible, both socially and academically. 

There is so much work that needs to be done to make the transfer process smoother for students who wish to switch universities at any point in their college time. 

While Xavier has made advances since the time I transferred, including hiring a transfer-specific recruitment counselor, transfers need more support beyond just the admission process. 

I am proud to be a Musketeer, despite all the difficulties of getting to this day. Transferring is my story, and no matter how stressful it may have been, it paid off in the end because I am so much happier than I was during my first year at a different university. If I had to go back in time and do it again, I would just go back to when I applied to college and apply to Xavier rather than being a stubborn little sister who didn’t want to go to the same school as her sister.