Styleforum › Forums › General › General Chat › College transfers and social life (transferring colleges late here)?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

College transfers and social life (transferring colleges late here)?

post #1 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:05pm
Thread Starter 

For the past 2 years (counting this semester that makes it 2.5 years), I have been at what we call a "commuter school" which is a 4 year university with not much of a dorm life and most students being all over the age range. I have also been living at home (with my parents) while going to college.\

 

I have finished 63 credit hours (need 120 to graduate), will have 77 by the end of this semester.

 

Currently I am a 20 year old kid (turned 20 about 2 months ago) and at my current university I have not had much luck getting that much of a social life going. Many of my friends who have been here have said similar things and I have found that I cannot grow here at all. It has been disappointing here, although I have made academic progress, I have not been this miserable at any time in my life and I set my eyes on transferring. Lots of people who work after classes, hard to get any social life going unless you pay money to be in frats, even then there are no frat houses so it is pretty pointless.

 

The college is 6 minutes from my house, plan was to go there for 2 years and then transfer but then some complications happened (not going to get much into that).

 

I am pretty much set on transferring (parents and I have agreed it is for the best) and have my things together. I am deciding between two colleges (been accepted to one). Both are residential campuses, both have majority of the student population in the 18-22 range, and both sound better than the college I go to right now (visited both and they were great).

 

Now my main concern are things I have read online about college transfers. The colleges I am picking between are both in college towns, one was ranked a top 10 party school. I have read that college transfers struggle to get a social life since most people make friends in college during their freshman year. This worries me. I want to know how difficult it would be for me, transferring this late, to get a social life going which includes a large circle of friends and such.

 

I have not had much of a chance for a social life throughout my life due to parents moving around A LOT and me going to a high school with only 300 kids.

 

I understand that you guys are inclined to give advice like "hay focus on grades forget about social life" or "what are your future plans?". Thing is, I am not looking for that type of information and advice. I am looking for advice from guys who know how typical 4 year colleges are like and how much being an upperclassman can limit your social life.

Reply
Reply

Featured Stories on Styleforum

Belvest at Pitti Uomo 83
Allen Edmonds Appreciation Thread
Marketplace: Classic menswear, shoes, and accessories
post #2 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:11pm
are you asking a question?
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by NAMOR View Post

are you asking a question?

my fault for being so long

 

no trying to dig out info

 

"I am looking for advice from guys who know how typical 4 year colleges are like and how much being an upperclassman can limit your social life."

Reply
Reply
post #4 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:15pm
Thread Starter 

no I am trying to dig out info, basically the last sentence of my post summed it up

 

how much can being a person who has transferring into a university late limit your social life, how difficult would it be for me to establish a big circle of friends

Reply
Reply
post #5 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fisher Shard View Post

no I am trying to dig out info, basically the last sentence of my post summed it up

how much can being a person who has transferring into a university late limit your social life, how difficult would it be for me to establish a big circle of friends

Probably a 7. I mean, it can be. But it probably wont, unless it is.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:35pm
SRS though, in my experience (small liberal arts school), I felt like I was getting phased out of campus life after my sophomore year anyway. It will be difficult to gain random friends like you do living in the dorms as a freshman, but you might have some success if you join clubs, do IM sports and other activities that have you interacting with people outside of class.

Alternatively, you could request to live in a freshman dorm but unless you're interested in having 18 year old friends, that will suck.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:46pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedLantern View Post

SRS though, in my experience (small liberal arts school), I felt like I was getting phased out of campus life after my sophomore year anyway. It will be difficult to gain random friends like you do living in the dorms as a freshman, but you might have some success if you join clubs, do IM sports and other activities that have you interacting with people outside of class.
Alternatively, you could request to live in a freshman dorm but unless you're interested in having 18 year old friends, that will suck.

I have seriously been thinking about going that route. How the hell am I even going to get much or any bit of a social life going at all. Anyways, since you live in off campus apartments, wouldn't it be easy for you to talk to others that might be living there and such?

schools I am deciding between are division 1a schools

Reply
Reply
post #8 of 52
10/29/12 at 3:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fisher Shard View Post

I have seriously been thinking about going that route. How the hell am I even going to get much or any bit of a social life going at all. Anyways, since you live in off campus apartments, wouldn't it be easy for you to talk to others that might be living there and such?


schools I am deciding between are division 1a schools

At my school kids tended to live in off-campus houses, not in apartments. In either case, you make friends in the dorms because your dorm room is really just a cell that you sleep/study in, people tended to congregate in the hall and common areas.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 52
10/29/12 at 4:31pm

I am at a major university and the best thing you can do is become involved.  Join clubs, play intramural sports, become active in a church on campus, etc.  I am in a fraternity at one of the top Greek universities in America and let me give you a tip, don't call it a frat if you're looking at transferring to a southern school.  You don't call your country a cunt and you don't call your fraternity a frat.  I wouldn't recommend pledging if you're an upperclassman by the way.  And don't live in a freshman dorm if you're going to be a junior.  Most apartment complexes in college towns have a roommate matching system if you don't know anyone.  That way you are pretty much forced to interact with someone socially.  Good Luck

Reply
Reply
post #10 of 52
10/29/12 at 4:51pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by adsmith4 View Post

I am at a major university and the best thing you can do is become involved.  Join clubs, play intramural sports, become active in a church on campus, etc.  I am in a fraternity at one of the top Greek universities in America and let me give you a tip, don't call it a frat if you're looking at transferring to a southern school.  You don't call your country a cunt and you don't call your fraternity a frat.  I wouldn't recommend pledging if you're an upperclassman by the way.  And don't live in a freshman dorm if you're going to be a junior.  Most apartment complexes in college towns have a roommate matching system if you don't know anyone.  That way you are pretty much forced to interact with someone socially.  Good Luck

I heard upperclassmen cannot even pledge in most cases.

 

Anyways, so to put it in a better perspective from what you said, I am pretty much fucked in terms of making a large circle of friends and dating different girls.

 

Part of the reason I came on here was so I can go to the new college with my best look and enjoy dating and social success......

Reply
Reply
post #11 of 52
10/29/12 at 5:01pm

Man you can make as big of a social circle and date as many girls as you want to.  All you have to do is put yourself out there.  Best advice I can give you is just do you.  Do as absolute much as you can and don't have any regrets.  

Reply
Reply
post #12 of 52
10/29/12 at 5:06pm
Don't worry so much about making a large circle of friends and dating tons of chicks - thats not reality for 95% of the people in college. Make a couple friends. Learn a lot. DIck around. Drink beers. Maybe hook up with a couple chicks. Mainly just hang out a lot around people and you'll eventually be hanging out with them. Once you find yourself hanging out with them just say something like, what are you guys up to this weekend? I'm trying to get strange. Who wants to kill some brew dogs and talk about the internet?
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 52
10/29/12 at 5:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by adsmith4 View Post

Man you can make as big of a social circle and date as many girls as you want to.  All you have to do is put yourself out there.  Best advice I can give you is just do you.  Do as absolute much as you can and don't have any regrets.  

Ignore this platitude factory.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 52
10/29/12 at 5:30pm
Thread Starter 

A lot has to do with me being hungry, seeing college as the last time to have anything like this, and being sheltered throughout most of my life.

 

I want my final two years of college (will be spending 2 years) to really mean something.

Reply
Reply
post #15 of 52
10/29/12 at 5:31pm
I agree with Redlantern. What he's describing pretty much held true back when all my friends were doing the college thing.

The people I knew who transferred definitely didn't have the same social life as people who started at a school and stayed. The latter group tended to have the typical college experience, while the former had smaller groups of closer friends."

You don't list your schools, so it's hard to make any broad statements, but that could impact your experience with transferring. If the school has a strong greek culture, it's going to be tougher to make friends if you're not a frat boy (and it doesn't sound like you will be). Also, some places just have a different culture regardless of frats. The Deep South, for example, can be very cliquish, which could make it even harder to break into a group of friends.

One thing you could look into is how the school deals with transfer students. If you're in a place with an established community college system, for example, you might find that the major universities have more options for integrating upperclassmen than do places where doing two years and transferring doesn't really happen.

Either way, it doesn't sound like where you are now is best for you, so why not give the transfer a try? It seems to me you'd almost certainly regret not at least giving it a shot more than you would if you did it and it didn't work out.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: General Chat

Featured Stories on Styleforum

Belvest at Pitti Uomo 83
Allen Edmonds Appreciation Thread
Marketplace: Classic menswear, shoes, and accessories
Styleforum › Forums › General › General Chat › College transfers and social life (transferring colleges late here)?