While CC is already a small school, transfer students find themselves in an even smaller circle. Less than 6% of Fall 2021, 2022, and 2023 new students were transfer students.
“Coming from a university, with over 17,000 students, it was definitely a transition to the small, close-knit community CC has to offer,” says Emilia Murdock ’26, who was a first-year Nutritional Science major before transferring to CC. “I immediately felt more comfortable and supported during my first few weeks at CC. I participated in Winter Start Orientation with several other transfer students during our Priddy Experience. During that orientation I met my current four roommates and a great group of friends. The intimate nature of the Priddy Experience made my go into classes feeling like I had created genuine friendships to support me through my studies.”
Murdock’s first class at CC was Buddhist Art of East Asia, which she says catapulted her into the intensity of the Block Plan.
“The Block Plan is very rigorous and immersive, but it also allows for deep connections and time management skills,” says Murdock, now a Psychology major. “At first it was very difficult to manage my schedule with short deadlines, but it taught me a lot about scheduling my time. I found that the Block Plan allowed for students to make meaningful friendships that lasted outside of the block. I got very close to my peers in each block which is something I did not experience previously.”
Murdock is grateful for CC’s on-campus living requirement. She did not live on campus at her last school and was hesitant to experience dorm life for the first time at CC. However, it ended up being one of the best parts of her time on campus. She also appreciates her first Residential Advisor Isabella Hageman ’24, who really helped Murdock transition to the Block Plan and to CC as a whole.
“Isabella was also a Psychology major and helped me with balancing the rigor of the Block Plan,” Murdock says. “She fostered a community in our hall and made it such a comfortable space for everyone. She introduced me to friends and other mentors, and I am very grateful for her guidance and support during my transition.”
Students agree that joining extracurricular activities as a transfer student is so important, as CC students tend to be very close and have already formed tight friendships, so participating in extracurricular activities can help transfer students meet more people and form those bonds.
During her first year at a different liberal arts college, Dana Mulco ’27 says that she quickly realized that she needed a different environment to thrive, both academically and socially.
“I chose to transfer to Colorado College in search of more challenging coursework and greater opportunities for extracurricular involvement,” says Mulco, an Economics major. “My last school lacked the balance between academics and social life that I value, and Colorado College offered the perfect fit with its rigorous Block Plan, which allows for a deeper focus on each subject, as well as its outdoor program, which fosters both community engagement and a connection to the outdoors.”
Mulco says her transfer experience was smooth and that she felt very welcomed. “During New Student Orientation, we were placed in Priddy groups specifically for transfer students, which helped me connect with others in similar situations and prevented me from feeling excluded,” she says. “Some of the transfer students I met at the start of the year have become some of my closest friends.” Mulco is now part of Model UN and CC’s Consulting Club, as well as the vice president of the Women in Business Club.
When Dana Angeles ’22 was in her first year at a large university, she knew she was unhappy and wanted a change. Many of her classes took place in lecture halls with 300 to 500 other students and she quickly realized this wasn’t the experience she wanted. While considering her options, she decided to withdraw and take classes at a local community college while applying to transfer schools.
“Community college was actually a great reset for me,” Angeles says. “It gave me time to take care of my mental health, do more research about what colleges would be a better fit for me, and I was able to get good grades and get close enough to professors to write me recommendations. This round of admissions, I applied to only liberal arts schools and other small schools because I refused to ever sit in a 500-person lecture hall ever again.”
Coming from such a large university, Angeles found the transition to the Block Plan challenging, but absolutely worth it.
“I liked that I got to be immersed in whatever subject I was taking at the time, and for bio classes, I loved that we were actually able to go outside and do field work because of the Block Plan,” says Angeles, an Organismal Biology and Ecology major and Art History minor. “I’m naturally a procrastinator and I’m used to doing large amounts of work all at once because I keep putting it off.”
While the first few months were difficult socially for Angeles, as many new-student events were aimed at first-years and she lived in South Hall, a primarily first-year building, Angeles made the most of it, joining Delta Gamma and volunteering with the Office of Sustainability. She then jumped into the CC experience, taking Block Break trips with her new friends to the mountains, to New Mexico, and to Las Vegas. Her friends at CC taught her to ski, and Angeles eventually found herself spending a lot of the winter months on the slopes. Because the on-campus experience was so valuable to her, Angeles took the 2020-21 school year off to avoid having to take her classes online. She spent that year doing an internship in Oregon and then returned to CC in Fall 2021 for her senior year.
While on Winter Break after completing his first semester of college, Tom Byron ’23 got an email from his school that explained its financial difficulties and encouraged students to transfer schools. This was a difficult time for Byron, but he made the most of it. He took some classes at a local community college and worked on a local campaign, focusing much of his time on transfer applications, despite having received the news from his previous school after the transfer application deadline.
“That process during Spring 2019 was pretty miserable, but CC’s Admissions Office was incredibly helpful and understanding,” Byron says. “They gave me help every step of the way; they’d been following what was happening, and they wanted to make sure I had a shot to come back to a similar liberal arts environment that year.”
Byron’s first class at CC was Fundamental Debates on the Common Good, a two-block FYP introductory course to political philosophy, taught by Dr. Eve Grace, Associate Professor of Political Science.
“I had an amazing time in that class,” says Byron, who declared a Political Science major shortly after Grace’s class. “Eve was an incredible professor, and it showed me what the Block Plan could do intellectually.”
Byron says orientation was helpful both socially and academically, and that he met a group of transfer students who he remains close with even after graduating.
While Byron was originally disappointed about having to transfer, he quickly realized that it was a great opportunity for him. He dove into the opportunities available to him at CC and was incredibly successful throughout his four years on campus. Byron helped reignite the Democratic Dialogue Project, led CC Votes and Colorado College Democrats, was a member of the President’s Council, and worked with the Collaborative for Community Engagement in various outreach projects aimed at encouraging CC students to get involved in local politics. He also worked on and led several political campaigns both while taking classes at CC and through a block-off program through the Political Science Department. Byron was awarded a Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs in Spring 2023 and recently led the successful campaign for now District 18 Colorado State Representative Amy Paschal.
While transfer students have a unique introduction to CC, many find strong bonds in this. Angeles and Byron met at a mixer for transfer students during New Student Orientation and, while they wouldn’t have guessed that they would become close friends, they did, and they still remain good friends, post-graduation.
“Dana’s one of the first people I ever met at CC, and I can’t express how glad I am to know her,” Byron says. “I couldn’t have imagined then what would happen, but meeting her as a transfer student helped me see I wasn’t alone here. We’ve been friends through every up and down of college and graduation, and one day, I hope we’ll get to meet back in Colorado again.”