Why I transferred to Wagner my junior year?

Wagner was always on my radar when I was deciding where to attend college. This was because my older sister went to Wagner and graduated from here in the spring of 2017. However, in high school I had my mind set on taking my own path. So, I chose not to go to Wagner, and not to go to Robert Morris where my other older sister went. In fact, I chose a school where no one I knew had ever gone.

My freshman and sophomore year of college I attended Longwood University. Longwood is a public university in rural Farmville, VA. The undergraduate population at Longwood is about 5,000 and my classes averaged anywhere from 20-30 students. I could walk from one end of campus to the other end in about 15-20 minutes. So it was bigger than Wagner but not by a lot.

To be brief, I would describe Longwood as a small-medium sized state school in a southern college town. Growing up in New York my entire life and moving to rural VA was a big change of pace for me. However, I enjoyed the change of pace and was fascinated by the difference in lifestyle in the south versus the north.

Unfortunately, being located in the center of a small town, with the nearest city over an hour away, made it difficult for me to pursue the types of internships I was interested in. After my sophomore year, I realized despite how much I enjoyed my time at Longwood, I had to transfer somewhere with more internship opportunities in broadcast journalism, publicity, and other related fields.

During my search for a new school, my Wagner graduate sister began to tell me of her friends and classmates who had done internships in NYC with broadcast, entertainment, publicity, news, and journalism. My sister had officially put into perspective that there was no better place for me to be than at Wagner next to "The Big Apple".

Due to visiting my sister multiple times I had already seen the campus, dorms, dining hall, and other campus buildings. Once the idea was placed in my head, it was a simple decision to transfer to Wagner. Despite the obvious differences between Longwood and Wagner, location being the main one, my transition into a new school junior year went smoothly.

I believe this is because all of the hands on and individual attention we receive as students here at Wagner. My academic adviser met individually with me multiple times to help me figure out how many of my credits transferred to Wagner and what I still needed to take. Together we planned my schedule out perfectly so I would still be able to graduate on time. If I did not receive the individual help from my adviser I would have struggled to complete my credits on time to graduate this spring.

Now that I have completed a year and a half at Wagner and I'm on my last semester, I can say I would not change a thing. When I transferred I was able to add a journalism minor that has improved skills as a journalist tremendously. I was also given the opportunity to intern at CBS Entertainment in NYC with their broadcast publicity department this past fall. This internship provided me with so much knowledge and experience in that field of work, as well as what it is like to work in a big city. Lastly, I was given the chance to join both the school newspaper and school blog which have expanded my writing styles and abilities.

The opportunities I have had and connections I have made so far during my time at Wagner have provided me with so much knowledge and experience before entering the “real world”. I couldn't be happier with my decision to transfer and I'm grateful I got to spend my last two years of my undergrad at Wagner.