From the desk of the transfer student

Hello, my name is Bethanne, and I am the awkward transfer student.

Honestly there nothing more strangely bizarre than showing up at college with the rest of the freshmen, but trying to explain how your not really a freshmen. Upperclassmen may give you the look and you can see the self control they exhibit as they hold back the eye roll.

"Oh really I think freshmen are so cool" said no upperclassman ever. Been there done that. 

Strangely its the freshmen who are asking you questions, because in their minds you look like a older student. You know the thoughts of the upperclassmen and what they think. Quite possibly because I had the very same thoughts myself about the silly funny freshmen. Maybe people think I'm a freshmen, but I don't think myself a freshmen.

 I remember the lovely insecure, crazy feeling of being a freshman and the 2nd time around most defiantly lacks those awful attacks of nervousness about little things like what is the proper amount time to arrive before first hour without being too early. 

Professors with concerned looks wonder how you are handling the homework load. The expected answer is that you are filled with dread and panic, but no you calmly answer everything is really just fine. Homework lost its awe striking terror factor a long time ago.

Oddly you are the one consoling new students and assuring them homework always gets done. Really and truly every single semester every last page is read and every word gets written on those papers. Research papers of 10 pages that seem eternally long to the novice paper writer. Try writing 20 pages on biblical food and see how much perseverance that teaches you.

Encouraging people not to procrastinate feels pretty hypocritical when you yourself are looking for the accelerating feeling of motivation. Taking a year sabbatical from school really should make you filled with goosebumps of excitement at the very thought of writing a paper. Unfortunately no quite the opposite feeling settles over you and nothing gets done.

Being a freshman, but not a freshman is not entirely all terrible.  I am reminded why I never want to forget the year I was freshmen. Never want to forget how insecure I felt. Never want to forget how awkward it feels to be the new person. Never want to forget how I held back my personality and in the end robbed myself. When the freshmen year is over you are stripped down and suddenly you realize its time to live life with abandon. Let the craziness ensue and let the realness replace the mask.


To be terribly blunt its the most amazing thing to start school again and have a chance to do things a little differently than before. Yes, its awkward and yes its strange, but yes its also a extraordinary adventure I wouldn't miss for the world.

Here is to the transfer students. You know who you are and only you know what its like to be new kid on the block in  a sea of seasoned vets and only you will know what is like to be a freshmen and the upperclassmen all in the same year.

And pretty much it doesn't matter how much years you have been to college...there is still heaps more to learn about how not to be awkward. Maybe I speak from personal experience maybe I don't :)