There are 70 new students who skipped most of Wildcat Welcome week, but they won’t face repercussions for not completing the usual slate of Essential NUs.
This year’s transfer students were exempt as usual from much of the Wildcat Welcome programming the class of 2015 attended, but filled the free time with transfer-specific events such as a trip to Chicago and a bonfire on the Lakefill.
“One day we played capture the flag, one day we went downtown and did our own activities,” said Weinberg sophomore Jeffrey Heiferman, who transferred this fall from Loyola University Chicago. “It was a lot more fun and we were able to do a lot more things.”
But it’s not to say that the more than 100 students who transfer to NU each year don’t receive important information about life and safety on campus.
Information from the Essential NU programs is condensed into one presentation, titled “T101.” The program is a sort of refresher course for transfer students, many of whom completed similar orientation activities at their previous schools. This year, transfer students also attended the ENU on diversity, a two-part session called Mosaic intended to demonstrate the importance of inclusion in the NU community.
“We were very intentional in making sure that we not only were creating space and programming for our transfer students, but also fully understanding what their experience looked like,” said Josh McKenzie, assistant director of Orientation and Parent Programs at NU. “The information is repackaged and redirected so it is more pertinent to the transfer population.”
In accordance with that goal, Wildcat Welcome organizers trained a group of transfer peer advisors to lead transfer students through the week. Sasha Jones applied to be a TPA just two quarters after transferring to NU from Boston University.
“(Boston) was too big. I didn’t feel like my adviser even knew who I was, and the classes were like 350 people in a room,” Jones said.
The Weinberg junior said she found the more community-oriented environment many transfer students seek at NU, and hoped to share that feeling with incoming transfer students as a TPA.
“The experience of a transfer student is totally different from that of anyone else on campus,” she said. “(They need) some more flexibility to continue college and not just start over.”
Like Jones, Weinberg senior Maddy Hinkamp came to NU looking for a new atmosphere different from the one she experienced during her freshman year at New York University.
“I wanted a school with a campus, a school with a sports team,” she said. “More of the feeling of a community and not a city school.”
Hinkamp said she found that community both on the NU campus and among her fellow transfer students.
It’s a notion that Weinberg junior Jamie Wittenburg, who transferred from Boston University, agrees with.
“I really feel like my whole life is falling into place,” she said.
