Universities have put a lot of their focus on ethnic diverse groups. While this is important, the transfer student population brings its own diverse group of people in terms of age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and educational background.

Because transfer students are coming from different universities, they have to adjust to differences in classes, campus size, institutional practices and academic standards. These are factors that can impact a student’s experiences, happiness and success.

It’s easy to disengage when you really don’t feel included in a community and I didn’t. At first, I was excited to be at Chico State. I was eager to move out of the house and make new friends. I thought I had it all figured out and I did not see the challenges I would face.

Studies have found that students who don’t get involved in campus life are more likely to drop out. I received many emails about events happening on campus and attended many of them but I never felt included. The events were not transfer friendly. They were mostly geared toward freshmen. As I navigated through each class during my first couple of weeks, I had doubts about my place at Chico State.

These difficulties showed that the university was not made for transfer students and there was no way of knowing this before transferring.

I eventually found my place at Chico State and the experience has been great. Nonetheless, there is more than the university can do. We deserve to be at Chico State as much as the next student, whether it is through transfer or not. .

Guillermo Felix-Alvor can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.