Our Next Transfer Advisement Day is Tuesday, June 20. Will You Be There?
Welcome to UAlbany!
As you are preparing to begin the next leg of your academic journey here, we want to share some useful and fun information to help you transition to your new educational home.
Every Tuesday, we will share one or two personal stories from our transfer students, along with information from advisors that we think would be helpful.
It is always a great day to be a Great Dane!
The Advisement Services Center Team
Make sure to check out the Welcome Page. The Welcome Page has information about housing, registration, health forms, billing and more. Please MAKE SURE to submit all of your health information before August 1.
Meet Jeniva Austin
Jeniva volunteered for Project MyStory in Spring 2017 and she is currently a Transfer Transition Leader. This is Part I of her story:
When I got accepted to the University at Albany, I knew things would be different. Transferring from a community college where everyone knew each other, even if they were not friends; having no lecture halls, more one-on-one time with professors, and a smaller environment, were all things things that I knew would change with my big step into university life. But there were some things I had not realized would happen.
When I first arrived at UAlbany, I was nervous, but I did not want my mom to know. She’s the ‘okay pack your things up, you can just go to school back home’ kind of parent. But I wanted to step out of my comfort zone, and I was not going to let a little anxiety change that. So when it came time to go to class, I made sure to sit somewhere in-between the first three rows. Second row… third seat to be exact. It was my birth date, 2/3, so I never forgot my unassigned, “assigned” seat. I decided that no matter how hard I thought a class was, I would do everything in my power to pass. I was not going to let the title “university” scare me into thinking that I did not have what it took to succeed. But you see, when I got accepted to the university, the week before classes began, I was placed on a sophomore quad. So that ultimately left me out of the loop when it came to transfer events, which lead to me not attended any transfer events… not even our orientation. While most transfers were gathering to hear all about the resources and cool things the university has for them, I was making my schedule.
Are YOU Coming to one of our Transfer Advising Days?
June 20 | August 1 | August 22 | August 24
If not, you may miss out on the
August 25 Transfer Orientation!
This does not apply if you have already
connected with your academic advisor
and have made your schedule.
Meeting Rachel Moody, my academic advisor, goes down as one of the coolest days here at UAlbany. She was upbeat, honest, and very passionate about helping me figure everything out. That quickly changed to the worst day I had at the university, the moment she pulled out my degree audit and told me that I was not graduating in two years, like I had planned to. She started asking me questions like, why did I come to UAlbany? Why did I want to study psychology? What was the rush on graduating? And what other fields could I see myself in? These were all questions I thought I knew the answers to, up until I was sitting in front of her. After my meeting with her I was done before I had even started and wanted nothing more than to figure out how I would get the credits I needed to graduate in May 2018. I told myself that I was going take the regular 15 credits my first semester, and start to add extra classes to my schedule every semester after that… Boy did I lie to myself.
Somehow I managed to make it through the fall semester with a few ups and downs in my classes, maybe only four weekends spent here in Albany… and oh, I became a resident assistant. So there I was, in the spring semester: a new RA and only taking twelve credits. So, not only did I not take the extra classes I said I would when I first got here, but I was taking less. My mom was so excited that I got the RA position, she ignored the fact that I was now another three credits behind.
I know a lot of you are probably wondering how this story ties back to me being a transfer student… but it does. The moment I decided to schedule my classes at Transfer Orientation, the Friday before classes began, was the moment, I unknowingly missed everything Orientation had to offer. It was the day I slipped into the group of many transfer students who know nothing about anything the university has to offer us. I was not connected on the UAlbany Transfers Facebook Page to let me know what I was missing. That page was not even created until last Spring. I had slipped through the cracks and I was lost. Coming into the university as a second, semester sophomore instead of a junior, is the day that I became a story that many other transfer students are able to resonate with. Now, I am in a position to help incoming transfer students, just like me. I am working hard to reach the goals I set for myself the first day I stepped onto this campus, because being a transfer did not break me as a student but made me a stronger one.
Click Here for the 2017
Transfer Orientation Guidebook
Next week, Jeniva will share the second part of her story. She will talk about housing, getting connected and more. Stay tuned!
UAlbany Project MyStory 
0 comments on “Transfer Tuesdays IV”