Many Santa Rosa Junior College students want to transfer but know very little about the process.
September is Transfer Awareness Month, and SRJC is offering multiple workshops and counselor meetings to guarantee success for students.
The month started with Transfer Day, an event where colleges from Northern and Southern California helped answer students’ questions about requirements, prerequisites and the overall transfer process. On Sept. 6, students piled into Bertollini cafeteria with volunteers stationed between the recruiters to assist with transfer questions.
While the event remained busy in the first few hours, students became restless as colleges left with their scouts. At the end of the event, few colleges and students remained. However, the event was focused on helping students who were confused about the transfer process, and some walked out satisfied with their answers.
“The program they offer for my major should be a solid one with a good track record. It needs to be a good fit and I need to somewhat like the area,” said SRJC student Jake Ethington, 19. Ethington is an engineering major and has already researched four colleges, half of which are CSU and the other half UC.
For students with a STEM major (science, technological, engineering and mathematics), it can take three years to transfer and most choose to transfer to a CSU.
Nursing student Kayla Hernandez, 18, attended Transfer Day to look at other nursing programs. “There’s a lot of options,” she said. “It’s not like high school where there is a ton of pressure to have extracurriculars and volunteer experience, although it helps.”
While both the transfer and IGETC programs help students move to either a CSU or UC, studies have shown that most transfer students prefer the CSU system. According to U.S. News, more students apply and are accepted into a CSU as opposed to a UC, and CSU also dominates the UC population by a 214,000 student margin.
Additionally, vast differences exist in costs, requirements and number of campuses when choosing between a CSU or UC.
To prepare for the college decision process SRJC is hosting several workshops during the month of September in the transfer center, located on the third floor of Bertollini hall. The times and dates of these workshops are listed in the building.
For more information on the transfer process, visit the Transfer Center page on the SRJC website. https://transfer.santarosa.edu/transfer-basics
