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Transfer Students: The University's Middle Child

Marisa Zocco |
September 12, 2014 | 9:22 p.m. PDT

Contributor

 

“Welcome to the Trojan Family.”

My heart raced in excitement and triumph as I read the gold text on the cardinal red envelope. At the age of 28, I had been admitted to the sole university I had applied to as a transfer student—USC.

And yet, after one year and four weeks of education at USC, I feel an undeniable void due to my status as a non-traditional student. I feel relatively alone—as if I am one of only a few non-traditional or transfer students out there. And yet I know that this is not the case. 

We transfer students are a not-so-small group representing just over a third of the 2013 undergraduate admits; a group lost between the big kid graduates and the youngest additions to the Trojan Family—traditional freshmen. 

We are the middle children and we are neglected, with too few events celebrating our individual experiences as undergraduate students conquering unique sets of struggles.

Just over a year ago, a Welcome Week event called Light Up The Coliseum, welcomed all newly admitted 2013 students, myself included, onto the Trojan field. There, we participated in social games and eventually got into place on the field, using flashlights to brightly sparkle in a giant USC formation for our 2017 class picture. 

The issue? As a transfer student, the class of 2017 wasn’t my class. As a non-traditional 28-year-old undergrad, there was also a glaring 10-year age gap that reared its head from time to time during the games geared toward unifying a diverse group of young students.

New Student Convocation, University of Southern California (@USC, Twitter)
New Student Convocation, University of Southern California (@USC, Twitter)
Being on the field that I had excitedly stared at with a grin plastered on my face during my first Trojans game—the very day that I fell in love with SC and its familial spirit—made it difficult not to feel like a Trojan. However, I felt more like a welcome observer of someone else’s clan than an actual part of the group. The idea of what the event was supposed to do and the souvenir t-shirt that read “courageous” tied me more to the Trojan woman identity than did the group or event itself. Something was missing.

According to a 2005 article in “The Peabody Journal of Education,” social cohesion is a term that describes the connectedness that we feel toward a social network based on the values of reciprocity and trustworthiness. In looking specifically at the value of social cohesion in higher education, culture plays a large role in creating that sense of community—namely through creating diversified environments, and establishing tight networks. Hosting events to encourage students to interact with those of different social backgrounds and establishing residence halls are examples of elements that can help to facilitate social cohesion.

READ MORE: Sorority Rows: The Search For House Diversity Is Often Futile

The idea is that balanced connectedness with a large group like USC Trojans will eventually spread into the outside world when a graduating class enters the workforce. If Trojans are given a sense of how to connect with such a large group, performance in global and local economies increases, individuals have and promote a higher quality of living and those individuals help to produce a society that is itself encouraging of connectedness.

Individuals feeling like part of a group and relating to that group helps economies on a number of levels. USC has its own economy and it benefits greatly from those who have left the school feeling that they were truly a part of something big—that Trojan Family. If a portion of the transfer students, a third of undergraduate population, is not feelin’ it, then that’s however much money that might not come back to the school. And at a school like USC, those who receive and those who award financial aid packages know that every little bit is deeply valued.

So, while transfer students—particularly the non-traditional ones—have the diversified environment portion of social cohesion mastered, what we lack and thirst for is that part of social cohesion which closely knits us together. 

It’s like we’re the red-head in the brunette family. We know we’re related because we share the same last name and have been assured we weren’t adopted. But if there’s not a deep and meaningful connection, we don’t fully feel a part of the family. 

As transfers, the only event during Welcome Week that directly addresses us as a unit is the Transfer and Veteran Luau during the first week of classes, and there are few additional events throughout the year.

Although the Transfer Success Program & Veteran Student Program (TVSP) website lists events such as Fall and Spring semester Welcome Luaus, mixers and a Fall TVSP Friends & Family Tailgate as events, click on the calendar to see when these mixers are or on which date the Tailgate will take place, and the pages are blank. 

If events like last year’s TVSP Friends & Family Tailgate were a little small, it isn’t necessarily a lack of interest that makes them so. A fellow non-traditional transfer student—one of less than a handful that I have met in person—acknowledged his lack of attendance to events but claimed that there isn’t someone reaching out and announcing that there are these events and resources available to use to facilitate connection.

The truth is that there is a significant lack of regular communication from TVSP. 

Last semester when I received an e-mail offer to join a transfer student honors society called Tau Sigma, I was elated to be welcomed into such a group and was looking forward to a possible connection to those with similar values. I filled out a form after paying lifetime membership dues, voicing that I may be interested in taking a leadership role in establishing a student organization or creating societal meetings, and never heard back regarding any development.

For the record I am not miffed. I’m actually really, really rah-rah about this school that I have the privilege of calling home. What I am is legitimately concerned about the disconnect that some transfer students feel from USC.

The lack of a tight network, for some, is large enough to merit saying that they felt a much stronger affinity for and connection to their community colleges than they do to this amazing university. Others had previously been excited to spend their first year living near USC so that they could be more involved, only to decide over the summer that they would prefer the commute and the company of hometown friends to living near campus and the higher cost of living in the USC area, their priority being just to "get it over with." That says something.

The fast-paced life of a transfer student, and the wide range of interests and obligations among them, provides a challenge in terms of event planning, but just because it is difficult to manage does not mean that we do not crave the connection that could be provided if we were given the opportunity to unite more frequently and to establish a more regular line of communication with one another. 

By the end of my newly-extended stay at USC I’d like to see a strong and tight-knit community of non-traditional, transfer and veteran students leaving the school feeling every bit a part of the whole of the Trojan family as we hoped to feel when we entered. We can start to facilitate this with increased communication and events programming. 

Who’s with me? After all, "We" are SC.

 

Contact Contributor Marisa Zocco here; or follow her on Twitter here.



 

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