IU welcomes transfer students

New Student Orientation is well under way, but IU welcomed a different kind of new student Friday – transfer students.

Friday was the first of the transfer student orientations, where students from other four-year and two-year universities and other IU campuses gathered together for a day of getting to know IU.

Junior Alex O'Cull, a business major transferring from a two-year university, said he was first unsure whether to attend IU or Purdue University, but then decided IU after his credits transferred better.

"I wanted to attend Purdue first," O'Cull said. "But my credits wouldn't transfer as well. IU accepted all my credits."

O'Cull added that orientation for him had made for a very smooth transition.

Junior Amber Ryan, a Zionsville, Ind., native, spent her first two undergraduate years at the University of Kentucky before transferring to IU. As a microbiology student, she said she felt IU had a better program.

"It might sound kind of nerdy, but I transferred basically for the academic standpoint," Ryan said.

Ryan said she agreed that orientation was a smooth process and added she thought it was very informative.

In the welcoming PowerPoint presentation, members of the IU orientation team mentioned that some of the top concerns for transfer students include making friends and learning the big campus.

Alexa Dimengo, an IU orientation team member from Nashville, Tenn., said she experienced those same worries as a transfer student herself.

After transfering to IU from Columbia College, Dimengo said finding her niche and place at IU were her biggest obstacles. She described herself as an out-of-state student from a small school who had transferred to a school with a massive campus and where she knew very few people.

However, Dimengo's advice to transfer students addresses those main issues.

"Don't be afraid to get out there and get involved," she said. "Don't put up walls."