National Transfer Student Week will be held Oct. 19-23 and will include a number of events aimed at assisting transfer students with their transition to CWU. 

The transfer center responsible for the event is a new department that focuses on reaching out to transfer students from other schools to help in a number of ways.

Nathan Rawson, a student ambassador for the transfer center, said the department has started to gain traction since its beginning in March. He said they’ve been organizing events and getting the word out to students that they’re up and running. 

“Forty percent of our students at [CWU] right now are transfer students so that’s a huge part of our student population that are needing assistance and trying to figure out what resources they need. I like to describe ourselves as a guide service,” Rawson said. 

Rawson said they will be collaborating with other departments and hosting 18 different events during National Transfer Student Week. 

“One of the [events] is we’re taking over the weekly trivia with the [Recreation] Center and we’re doing a theme of transition. We’re kind of trying to get students engaged and make transfer students feel where they’re welcome,” Rawson said. 

According to Rawson, the transfer center staff wants to meet up with transfer students before events to enter them as a group and make the students feel more comfortable. 

Transfer Center Director Megan McConnell said the main goal of National Transfer Student Week is to increase awareness of the important role transfer students play at CWU and to celebrate them. 

“We are here to serve transfer students at any stage of the game whether they’re preparing to transfer, getting admitted and starting classes or whether they’re continuing, and we know that our best experts are people who have already walked a mile in these shoes,” McConnell said.  

Some of the physical and virtual events planned for the week include a Monday Movie Madness showing hosted by the transfer center, a transfer picnic, coffee chats and a virtual career fair. 

“On Monday morning, Provost DenBeste will be kicking us off with a town hall. That’s the only event that requires registration. Everything else is just a Zoom link or a Twitch link you can just log on,” McConnell said.

McConnell also said the transfer center is doing an Instagram contest with all new transfer students. If the students post a photo of themselves and the stickers they were given in an interesting place, they have a chance to win a prize. 

The full list of events scheduled for National Transfer Student Week can be found on the transfer center’s website.

Curtis Johannson, a transfer student from Grays Harbor College, said he wishes there were resources available and events like those being put on by the transfer center when he changed schools. 

“I was kind of lost when I first switched schools and felt like it was all up to me to find information about stuff if I needed it. Other than my list of classes with the room numbers, I didn’t know much about campus or what was going on,” Johansson said. 

Because he transferred in fall 2019, Johansson didn’t have access to the kind of help that new transfers have. He said transfer week will be a good way for students like him to get settled in. 

“It’s pretty cool that they do [transfer week] because it can be pretty overwhelming jumping from one school to another without knowing anyone or knowing anything about the campus,” Johansson said.