AT AN ACADEMIC CROSSROADS: WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING A TRANSFER STUDENT?

Understanding the transfer student perspective at Boise State

Kaylie Hilliker | Staff Writer | news@stumedia.boisestate.edu

Walking around campus, there are the faces of strangers and friends.

For new students on campus, the hurdle is to change the faces of strangers, to faces of friends. Transfer students have to undertake the same hurdle several weeks, months or semesters behind their peers.

It can be an intimidating process. In the fall 2022 semester, 1,634 undergraduate transfer students sought enrollment at Boise State University. Of these students, 52.7% transferred from in-state schools such as the University of Idaho, Idaho State University, Lewis and Clark State College, College of Western Idaho, College of Southern Idaho and North Idaho College, according to the Boise

State Census Day Profile of New Transfer Students Fall 2022.

Transfer students have a unique experience: they must start their college experience over again in a new place, with new people.

Alongside state residents, 42.2% are nonresident transfers from fall 2022. Others have joined fellow nonresident transfers this spring semester in their college careers.

Lauren Gustafson, a freshman transfer from Colorado, is majoring in visual arts with an emphasis in ceramics. During an interview with The Arbiter, she mentioned that she chose Boise State for multiple reasons, including that Boise State felt similar to her hometown and she wanted a community of Christian clubs and influence she was aware of on campus.

Aja Wilson, a freshman transfer student majoring in nursing, told The Arbiter that she chose Boise State because it gave her an opportunity to go somewhere else, rather than stay in her home state of California.

Other students experienced the added challenge of long-distance travel for the sake of an education in Boise.

Thirty-eight international students transferred to Boise State last fall, as recorded by the Boise State University Census Day Profile of New Transfer Students Fall 2022.

Tina Ngeh is an international student studying integrated media and strategic communication with a minor in journalism, landing somewhere between a junior or senior in credits. She transferred last semester from the University of Buea in Cameroon, West Africa.

Ngeh’s story of how she ended up at Boise State is one that began in 2017, while she was in high school.

“Discovering Boise State goes back to five years ago when I was an exchange student for Middleton High School in Middleton,” Ngeh said. “So, we would always come out when there were football games, Boise State events. When I came for games, for basketball, football, I liked the ambiance.”

Ngeh’s time at Boise State all those years ago made an impression on her.

“I liked Boise State,” Ngeh said. “It was love at first sight.”

After she moved back to Africa, she was determined to find a way to come to the United States for her education — particularly Boise State.

“I was like: ‘I will apply for Boise State. If they don’t take me, I’m not going anywhere else,’” Ngeh said.

Because of Cameroon’s ongoing civil war, the Anglophone Crisis, the application process took her two to three years.

Just last year, after help from a friend in the United States and endless months of effort, Ngeh was accepted to Boise State.

ASBSU Transfer Student Representative Gabe Rodriguez, once a transfer student himself, spoke about his advice for all transfer students.

“I transferred from ISU in Pocatello, and it was very intimidating to come here with a completely different set of people,” Rodriguez said. “A big part of getting involved in the community is putting yourself out there, finding something you are interested in, and just engaging with other people in those organizations that share common interests.”

Rodriquez’s job is to oversee that transfer students feel welcome and comfortable on campus.

“Ultimately,” he declared, “They are part of a bigger collective: Boise State students.”