Is Santa Monica College a true college experience?

College has been known as the time when students find their place in the world. They explore their beliefs and embark on journeys that will define who they are in the future and what path they will take after college. College is also the time when you establish lifelong connections with the people around you. They say, “The friends you make in college are the friends that will always be in your life.”

Well my question is this: Is that really case with Santa Monica?

The answer is no. We all know that Santa Monica is a transfer school and we come prepared to work hard with little to no play on campus in hope that we will end up in the school of our choice within two years. However in those two years, students living on there own or even with their parents are forced to grow up much faster than the typical college student. So when we actually do transfer we are forced to socialize ourselves. Moreover, coming in as a first or second year student we are “out of the loop.” The groups of friends have already been formed and that leaves the transfer student to fend for themselves. For most that is not difficult, college is a mixture of people from all over the world; some have different beliefs while others share the same.

SMC does not have housing nor does it have campus events where students can socialize and get to know one another. Instead, students come to school solely for class.

Going to SMC is a choice, one I made on my own but I what I do wish I had been a part of, is the college experience of making new friends and experiencing a new aspect of life.

college application stress

In my senior year of high school during the time when all senior students frantically dedicate themselves to college applications, I was interviewed by the school paper on the stress of our future. I stated, “college apps have taken a lot of my energy and time, ill admit it has been one of the hardest times yet in high school.”

However even after applying to 11 different universities around the country I still choose SMC. My dream school has always been University of Southern California and when I was not accepted for the 2008 fall school year I was devastated, but I didn’t stop there. I knew that if I really wanted to go to USC I had to take a year at SMC, which I was told was the best transfer school in the country.

The first thing I did was find myself an apartment in Santa Monica and enroll for the 2008 school year. Now it late November and the college’s are expecting applications from freshman and transfer students, which means once again I must dedicate myself to the process which had once taken so energy from me. This year is no different in terms of the number of schools I am applying to, but the stress load is much different. Not only do I have to focus on getting straight A’s so that a first year transfer is possible but I also have to worry about getting the apps in on time on top of my schoolwork. Not to mention the stress of living on my own without any help or guidance from my parents.

Each day I go to school and am reminded that I need to work on my applications but every time I sit down to work, I go into mental stress overload. The process is long, tedious and difficult. I feel as though an applying to college is like retail. They choose whom they want and the others are essentially put “on sale,” and are forced to go to their second, third, or maybe even fourth choice.

So with that said, I have chosen to lighten my winter workload and truly buckle down to get them in on time. I need the time to reflect on who I am and what I can offer as a student because if I don’t know then neither will admissions and that means one more year at Santa Monica College.