From NSOP to the weather, Staff Writer Lauren Woodroffe provides a first-hand look inside the transfer student experience.

As a transfer student, I had no idea what to expect in the months leading up to the start of the school year. I had no way of knowing what the social culture would be like at Barnard and Columbia. Other than the sometimes inactive Geneva group chat that Barnard admissions so kindly set up for admitted students, I had no form of communication with admitted or current transfer students. 

Now that I have been at Barnumbia for a month, I have a few tokens of advice under my belt that I would have so greatly appreciated months ago. 

Without further ado, here is Lauren’s Declassified Transfer Student School Survival Guide™: 

Starting off with the New Student Orientation Program (NSOP): you will soon realize that the program is specialized for freshmen, and you’ll soon be begging your orientation leader for the tea on consequences for skipping sessions. 

As for the first week of classes, your friends will either be registered in 19 credits or 8, and there is no in-between. You will probably be registered in an Introduction to Psychology lecture if you are an incoming transfer sophomore, but then you will realize that you were not taught how to find a lab to enroll in. Or a discussion section (I still do not know what a discussion section is and I am not registered in any. In December I will provide you with an update on that…) 

In the spirit of the first week of classes, if you are not wearing a baby tee with Levi 501 shorts and a pair of Samba’s on the FDOC, prepare to be the black sheep of Barnard. 

On to my favorite topic of advice: campus dining.

Hewitt dining will be your truest, most consistent friend. The tater tots will rarely betray you, and the gluten-free pasta bar will do it for you Every. Single. Time. If Hewitt Dining has 100 fans, I am one of them. If Hewitt dining has 1 fan, it’s me. If Hewitt dining has 0 fans, please send out a search party because I have gone missing. 

Next, there’s Diana. There is a 99.9% chance that your non-transfer friends will have a fascination with Diana’s mid burrito bowls that you will not understand. If you ask me, I would stay away from any meal that Diana puts into those brown, compostable bowls; this includes the Tikka Masala. 

Lastly for dining: always, and I mean always, run, not walk, to Ferris on Hello Kitty themed dinner-night.

Next, we have my list of ‘beware of’’s: These are things that nobody will tell you about the weather until it’s too late. 

  1. Beware of the 119th St. Barnard gate outside of Milbank. Every spotted lantern fly on the Upper West Side of Manhattan will congregate here.
  1. Oh, rainy days are celebrated with BYOB at Barnard: Bring your own boat! Especially if you have a class in Milbank during a storm. The Milbank brick walkway floods like it’s nobody’s business.
  1. If you purchased an umbrella on Amazon for under $10, go ahead and return it. By the first rainfall, your umbrella will snap backwards as the gust of wind lifts it into oblivion, causing you to walk into Avery Library at Columbia quite drenched. If you saw this happen to me on Friday, no you did not. 
  1. Nobody will tell you that there are underground tunnels connecting all of Barnard’s buildings to one another until you walk into class drenched from the rain. If you cannot already tell, I have a lot of horror stories from last week’s storms. 

I am happy to be the Oprah to every transfer student’s Meghan Markle, and represent those who have been silenced by the chaos of the first month of classes! I am sure that I will be back for more transfer student news, so until then, use this guide to the fullest.

Yesterday’s Sunset Outside Of Milstein Center via author