Andrew Zirkman sat in the packed Russell House Ballroom with his mom, who came down with him from New Jersey. It’s just his second visit to USC’s campus, but he’s transferring after just one semester at Virginia Tech. And he’s not alone — several hundred students are officially joining the ranks of the Gamecocks this semester after starting their degrees at other institutions.
Reasons that people transfer are just as diverse as the reasons that people choose to attend USC in the first place. Bigger campus, more class offerings – and the warm temperatures certainly don’t hurt.
Zirkman had been admitted to USC before he chose Virginia Tech, but just a few months in reversed his decision and made the Nov. 1 transfer deadline to come to USC instead.
“I have a lot of friends here, so I figured it would be easier to transition than any other school,” Zirkman said.
While Zirkman came from multiple states away and was drawn by friends and SEC football, USC facilitates easy transfers from the seven satellite USC campuses and the 16 South Carolina technical colleges. These transfers are often driven by academic concerns.
“It ended up being fate, because the way my program went I skipped a summer,” USC Sumter transfer Alexis Guessregen said. “It would have taken like four years to finish my degree which was only supposed to take two.”
As a history student, Guessregen is excited about the broader course offerings. The Columbia campus has more than 25 times as many students as the Sumter campus. The size isn’t necessarily always an advantage, though – Guessregen has moved into Park Place, and was surprised at how far away it was from the academic buildings where she’ll attend class.
With between 1,000 and 2,000 transfer students every year, it can be difficult to integrate into the USC community.
Coming in as a freshman is “almost like a family experience,” orientation leader Blake Brewer said. “And then when you transfer, you’re more of a small fish thrown into a big pond.”
Brewer knows the experience well – he transferred from USC Lancaster.
“I was a huge fish in a little tiny puddle there, and whenever I came here it’s like I felt like a tadpole in the ocean,” he said. He struggled academically his first semester and realized he was in danger of just holing away in his room. That’s when he got involved with orientation.
“A lot of people from transfer orientation really struggle with connecting with other people,” orientation leader David Romero said.
At the lunchtime resource fair, the ballroom that had few empty seats and people lining the walls during the mandatory program welcome was sparsely populated.
The one-day orientation program for transfer students is different from the freshman one, Romero said, so that they’re not hearing the same things over again and get only the information that they need. Agreeing with Brewer, though, the most important thing for transfer students was getting involved.
Zirkman wasn't too worried about fitting in because of his friends already attending. Beyond that, he said there seemed to be a real sense of community:
"Everyone in the town seems to be South Carolina."