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Finding Community as a Transfer Student

It can be very daunting, as a transfer student, to feel like you’re coming into a community that already has formed its friend groups and bonds. I transferred in the spring of 2020, and worried particularly that I was going to be coming in the middle of something already happening. I’m happy to report that that was not my experience as a Scripps Transfer, nor was it my friends’ experience. 

I will admit, there’s not a great formal orientation process for transfers. Coming in the spring, we just had a lunch with all the previous transfers from earlier years. Surprisingly though, I met all my best friends at that lunch. I think there’s a really nice connection that transfer student share, in the experience of realizing you’re not in the place you want to be and taking the risk of making a change. It’s been really wonderful to meet the new transfers that have come in the years after mine, as well. One of the best things about the transfer community is that everyone has had some kind of different interesting experience. None of us have had the traditional college path, and that leads to a group of people from all over who’ve lived very different lives but share this common thread. While the administration is not really driving the transfer community, I think we make a point to make it for ourselves, and I hope that will always continue. 

In terms of integrating into the Scripps community and the 5C community, I think there’s lots of opportunities. Between classes, clubs, and your residence hall, there’s just as many opportunities for transfers to find their people as there are for first year. It can be lonely, at first, as any transition to a new place can be. But Scripps has such a warm, welcoming community that it never takes too long to settle in. 

-Chanah ’23

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