Olivia
New member
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2026
- Messages
- 11
I've been researching what it's actually like to transfer to a California university, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo comes up a lot. Analí Salazar, a junior transfer studying mechanical engineering, shared her experience with CalMatters .
The academic transition:
She came from Santa Barbara City College, where she was surrounded by people of color with similar backgrounds. At Cal Poly? "Everyone's white." She has one friend from her old school who also speaks Spanish. "We'll be in our welding class, speaking in Spanish, and we'll be yelling at each other in Spanish because that's how we are, and everyone is staring at us, like, 'What are they saying?'"
The social environment:
Analí also described walking around campus: "seeing a huge group of frat boys walking towards me. I am a small person. I am a five-foot little brown girl. So seeing a huge group of, like, 6'3" white frat men — not a great feeling." She added: "They could be the nicest people ever, but also, you have no idea, because of how many incidents so many frats have had."
Other transfer experiences:
Airin Valdez at Stanford, also a first-gen student, struggled with feeling behind. "After a year of online learning, it's very difficult and so different. I often feel behind compared to my peers who have more resources or had the opportunity to be exposed to content that is completely new to me."
Stanford helped by bringing first-gen students to campus early for summer classes. "Their support is very continuous, not just during the summer but also now during the school year — like being able to speak with an academic advisor who specifically works with first-generation and low-income students."
Jeevan Acharya at Chapman University, a film production major, had a different challenge: filming his thesis during COVID. "The biggest part about (the production) was adapting as the situation was changing. And every week, we had to update our (COVID-19) guidelines to make sure everybody was safe."
What I'm learning:
Every transfer story is different, but they all share one thing — resilience. Analí, Airin, and Jeevan all faced huge challenges and kept going. That's what I'm trying to do too.
Anyone else have transfer stories to share?
The academic transition:
She came from Santa Barbara City College, where she was surrounded by people of color with similar backgrounds. At Cal Poly? "Everyone's white." She has one friend from her old school who also speaks Spanish. "We'll be in our welding class, speaking in Spanish, and we'll be yelling at each other in Spanish because that's how we are, and everyone is staring at us, like, 'What are they saying?'"
The social environment:
Analí also described walking around campus: "seeing a huge group of frat boys walking towards me. I am a small person. I am a five-foot little brown girl. So seeing a huge group of, like, 6'3" white frat men — not a great feeling." She added: "They could be the nicest people ever, but also, you have no idea, because of how many incidents so many frats have had."
Other transfer experiences:
Airin Valdez at Stanford, also a first-gen student, struggled with feeling behind. "After a year of online learning, it's very difficult and so different. I often feel behind compared to my peers who have more resources or had the opportunity to be exposed to content that is completely new to me."
Stanford helped by bringing first-gen students to campus early for summer classes. "Their support is very continuous, not just during the summer but also now during the school year — like being able to speak with an academic advisor who specifically works with first-generation and low-income students."
Jeevan Acharya at Chapman University, a film production major, had a different challenge: filming his thesis during COVID. "The biggest part about (the production) was adapting as the situation was changing. And every week, we had to update our (COVID-19) guidelines to make sure everybody was safe."
What I'm learning:
Every transfer story is different, but they all share one thing — resilience. Analí, Airin, and Jeevan all faced huge challenges and kept going. That's what I'm trying to do too.
Anyone else have transfer stories to share?
