Transferring to a new school can be a wonderful experience and a scary one as well. You aren’t really a freshman compared to the majority of incoming students, but you feel like one. Here you are, on a new campus, having to make new friends all over again — you might as well call yourself a freshman.

I transferred into Drexel University in fall 2017. Maybe everywhere is like this, but if you are transferring into Drexel, it’s easy to get lost in the freshman mix. Drexel tries its best to have something for the new upperclassmen, but just like high school, colleges love to mold the freshmen for the next four or five years, so their focus is heavy on them.

When it was time to sign up for clubs, everyone thought I was a freshman and it wasn’t until weeks later they realized I was a pre-junior. Sign up for every club — seriously, Drexel has so many.

During Welcome Week I met some great people and made new friends, but they were all 18-year-old freshmen and here I was 20 years old and constantly being asked about Drexel as if I had been here for years. You are required to attend Welcome Week for some odd reason, so make the most of it and sign up for clubs so you can meet people your own age — …if you can, don’t show up.

Here’s something that might happen to you when classes start: I was in advanced classes for my major, and my professors would always ask me why they haven’t seen me before. This left me surprised, but there are only so many communication and English professors. When you tell them you transferred in, some professors are happy and others just stare at you like they never heard such a thing.

No matter what, you will feel like you don’t belong for the first month, but that comes with any new atmosphere you enter. The reason you choose Drexel and got in says a lot about you already. I hope you find everything you’re looking for. As Rascal Flatts said, “I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow and each road leads you where you want to go.”