Junior economics major
Pack your bags and leave this place. Just do it. Fill out that application and transfer to any other university in the world. Leave now, and if it suits your fancy, never come back.
No, this isn’t about you, Mr. and Mrs. “I love College Park.” You’ll happily don your state flag shorts and Natty Boh T-shirts long past the day you bring your children to visit your alma mater. You take pride in your university — congratulations. You love this place and there isn’t any other place you’d rather be right now.
But in case you haven’t noticed, not everyone can say the same.
This is for all those freshmen who thought things would get better after their first semester, and now, a day away from March, your college outlooks continue to dim. Those first few nights living on a dorm floor sprinkled with peculiar personalities and potential best friends didn’t lead to the year you’d planned, and now you constantly question how things will get any better.
This is for all those sophomores who’ve ignored the longing for a better life and decided it’s better to passively hope you’ll wake up to a better tomorrow. It can be exhausting to pretend you like your school, especially when it appears everyone around you is maniacally obsessed with this campus. It’s possible your classes will finally start inspiring you, and it’s possible your social scene will dramatically improve in the next couple of years. I just hope you don’t kid yourself.
No university — even those consistently ranking highest on those infuriating Huffington Post or Princeton Review lists of happiest schools — is perfect for every student. Extenuating circumstances could have prevented you from reaching your full potential here. Staying may only deepen the rut you find yourself in.
Personally, I look back at a few tumultuous moments in my college career and can’t help wonder what might have been if I’d made the leap and gone elsewhere. Transferring carried alluring possibilities, while life in College Park felt suffocating. I’m happy the frustration never metastasized further and that I’ll graduate from this university. Confronting the difficulties in your life head-on — e.g., changing your major, switching apartments or finding a fulfilling club — certainly helps. Yet I have profound respect for the students courageous enough to admit they need a change.
Transferring schools isn’t admitting defeat — it’s a bold accomplishment that could transform your life. Even if it means you must take a semester off before you get your life in order, that’s fine. Interning full-time for a company you’ve long respected or working a job near your home could offer clarity as to what you’ve been missing thus far in college. If the solution doesn’t involve more time in College Park, don’t hesitate.
Never let inertia lead you to tolerate an intolerable situation. If the sight of tour groups walking across McKeldin Mall has ever triggered a compulsive desire to jump in front of the guide and shout at the kids, “Don’t do it! Never come here! Folly, you fools!” and maybe throw some dirt in their eyes and flee the scene, it’s probably time to leave.
This isn’t about our university or its shortcomings — it’s about you. Your transfer application deadlines may start March 1; don’t wait another day before salvaging your future.
Nadav Karasov is a junior economics major. He can be reached at njkarasov@gmail.com.
