Benefits of being a transfer
By Chris Stamas
While perusing my old university's website, I came across a picture that was quite surreal. It was senior night for the Illinois Wesleyan men's basketball team, and standing shoulder to shoulder were six of my former teammates. I had arrived at college with all of them three and a half years earlier and it was hard not to think about how my decision to transfer schools was the reason I wasn't standing among them.
After dedicating much of my time and effort to basketball in high school, I was rewarded when I was offered the chance to play at the college level. I was ecstatic; I knew about Illinois Wesleyan's impressive basketball history as well as their high academic standing. But things went downhill quickly once I arrived on campus. As an athlete at a very small college, I felt trapped by the forced camaraderie of the team. Every waking hour was spent with teammates, who I had a hard time getting along with. Coupled with multiple ankle sprains that left me sidelined for months, I began flirting with the idea of transferring.
In a decision that was impossible to base on anything other than sentiment, I decided to end my organized basketball career and come to Santa Clara. So for the second year in a row, I arrived on a new campus without knowing anyone. In fact, my only knowledge of Santa Clara came from word of mouth and the school's website; I felt like visiting was overrated (it was in California, how bad could it be?).
Shockingly, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, "about one in three students who enroll in a four-year or two-year college will probably transfer at some point." In hindsight, while it wasn't out of the ordinary to transfer, the experience forced me into a new situation where I had to meet new people and live in a new environment. I have come to realize that the more experience I have starting with a blank slate and without any crutches such as old friends or family to turn to, the better off I will be in each new endeavor.
Learning to meet new people and make new friends is a skill. It requires you to leave the comfort zone provided by old friends, where being yourself is second nature. It is hard, and often times uncomfortable, jumping from group to group trying to find your fit.
Thankfully, my experiences arriving as a freshman at college and then transferring to a new school, along with my most recent experience studying abroad, have taught me how to be comfortable in my own skin when thrust into a new situation. Now, moving somewhere new is far from a daunting task. When I think about it, I relish the idea of meeting new people and learning about a new place.
My life is drastically different because of my decision to transfer. A simple activity like writing this newspaper article would have been impossible because I was spending most of my time in the gym. Although I only had three years at Santa Clara, I'm happy to call myself a transfer student.
Chris Stamas is a senior political science major.