The thought of transferring can be frightening. It’s easy to get discouraged and second guess yourself when thinking about changing colleges. For some reason, transferring seems to bring along with it a negative connotation for some people. I can understand why, but there’s no reason to be discouraged. It’s a great way to start fresh and really figure out what you want from your college experience. I’m here to share with you a process and guidelines to help make your time transferring a lot easier and stress free!

• What Do You Dislike?

            Your current school may not be how you pictured it to be. However, you’ve learned what you want out of college and that is the perfect place to start. The brainstorming process to decide what you want will be a lot easier than the first time around. For starters, develop a list of things that you disliked at your current school. Whether it’s the classroom size, social life, or even the environment of your campus. You don’t really know what you’ll dislike until you’ve had firsthand experience. So, look on the bright side, now you have a good basis on what you don’t want.

• What Do You Like?

This is where you get to have fun. You’ve narrowed down your dislikes, it’s time to figure out what you truly want out of a college. If you want to join a club sport, you can look for a school that offers them. If you want to study abroad in Australia, you can look for a school that offers it. If you want a specific major to study, you can look for a school that offers it. It’s similar to how you went about brainstorming for colleges when you were a senior in high school, however, this time you know the specifics of what you want.

• Become Familiar

Once you’ve narrowed down the best colleges for you, it’s time for the transferring process to begin. Start by visiting the campuses you’re interested in. This firsthand experience is crucial. Feel the environment. Familiarize yourself with admissions. Find out what they look for in transfer students, both in academics and personally. Admissions needs to get a sense of who you are as a person. So, make sure what you share brings along a good sense of who you are.

• Don’t Procrastinate

Applying can be stressful, so my main piece of advice for you is to not procrastinate. Knowing you’ve started to chip away at bettering your college experience when you wake up each morning is good for your mind. This is coming from me, a person who has waited till 9 at night to start a 7-page paper due at 8 am the next morning. Don’t make this application process be a nightmare. Make sure you have everything you need to apply in advance. The last thing you want is to be scrambling last minute to get your transcript or finish your essay right before the deadline.

Once all of this is complete, breath. Be patient. Transferring colleges can be a long process but don’t be stressed about it. This is supposed to be a fun time in your life. Filled with new beginnings. So, relax. Make sure to maintain focus on your current school work as it can still be a factor in your acceptance, scholarships and credit transfers. Just think, this whole process will be over soon enough and you’ll finally be able to have the college experience you always dreamed about.