Opinion

Opinion Roundup: perspectives on transitioning in as sophomore transfers

Hannah Fang • January 9, 2025

Sophomore transfers share their experience at Townsend Harris.

The transition from one school to another can be hard, especially during high school. For transfer students coming into Townsend Harris High School, the environment can be very different as they are faced with the school’s rigorous curriculum and new surroundings. Currently, transfer students meet with their guidance counselors at the beginning of the year and attend the same orientations as the incoming freshmen before the school year. But many transfer students still struggle with learning to adapt to the new school environment.

Below sophomore transfer students were interviewed on their feelings regarding the current transfer process:

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“I was new [to] the school and everyone in the grade already had their own groups. So it wasn’t as welcoming as I expected. It felt like I was just intruding by coming in sophomore year instead of freshman year, like everybody else. Everyone else had everything established, and I was just starting fresh. The staff was helpful and I’m mostly in freshman classes, so it’s not on the same level as everyone else. The classes are easier to understand. [For X2VOL] staff have to first approve your account, [and] then they have to verify your hours. They still haven’t verified my account so I can’t even get my hours approved, which is really annoying. I couldn’t understand how we skipped bands at first, and I would go to the wrong class for a whole month straight. I wanted to take AP Seminar and AP US History, and I didn’t even know that we could apply for these classes because I never got any emails or updates. I was left with all of the leftover classes. I wish that in orientation they taught us how the schedule worked and what to expect because I feel like they didn’t really focus on that and they just told you about random things. It felt more like we were just being introduced to all the transcripts instead of learning about the school.”

— Sophomore Zareefa Islam

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“Coming from a different school, you’re with a smaller group of people and everyone already knows everyone else so it’s harder to make friends, and it’s harder to try to fit in as much as you want [in a new school]. [When] adjusting to the environment it’s kind of like you’re on your own for that, because other people can’t really help you adjust as well as how you want to adjust. I had a lot of difficulty with figuring out my schedule because they gave me classes that I didn’t want or I didn’t need or classes that didn’t make sense for a sophomore to have. For example they gave me study hall and normally sophomores shouldn’t have study hall. They also didn’t give me any electives and all they gave me were required classes. I wanted to take intro to engineering and or intro to computer science so I had to talk to my guidance counselor to get electives. When I wanted to get a specific elective, they put me in the wrong elective. I had to change my schedule again, and in the end I wasn’t able to take [either of] the electives. I feel like if there were information sessions that would be a lot better because it would help transfer students know what they’re coming into.”

— Sophomore Sherry Chen

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“I feel like the staff is really helpful with getting you adjusted with your classes,your schedule, and what credits you need. Something that really made it easy for me was that there’s a lot of other transfer students. Having them as a resource to talk to about certain things made me feel really comfortable, and then obviously that’s in addition to the staff. I don’t like using x2VOL. It’s really confusing, and there’s a lot of different places to go and it’s not really clear because we didn’t get specific instructions on how to use x2VOL. And so because of that, I just didn’t even create an account. There was a lot of confusion with scheduling my classes because my classes were ordered wrong and they were the wrong classes entirely.  So that was hard to figure out, because I was in the wrong place for the whole first month of school. By the time I got my schedule figured out, it was too late to get everything together so I wasn’t able to take a lot of the AP classes like AP Seminar. So that’s one thing I wish that I could do. I wish the information about taking classes was communicated a little bit earlier, maybe in June, because for example, my elective, I didn’t really get to pick that.  I was kind of just put into [it], and I don’t hate it, but I wish I was able to take another elective that I’m not taking currently.”

— Sophomore Emily Ramgoria

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“It’s kind of hard to get used to the school environment because there’s new people. It wasn’t that difficult settling in though. I got set up and got my OMNY card fairly quickly. I think x2VOL is organized, but I didn’t know about it until three months [after school started].  I think it would be easier to navigate if they gave some instructions on how to add hours because there’s lengthy steps on how to log your hours.. For the first couple weeks, there should be an information session for transfers because they don’t know what they’re doing. For Arista, it should have been made easier for transfers to put their hours in, because most of us missed the window for Arista.  And only two people who are transfers are doing Arista, so we are missing out on opportunities that we could have had.”

— Sophomore Amber Liu

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“At first, I did have a difficult time. I just think that it is because of the school environment because you don’t know anyone. I kind of didn’t know what to do, and I was very confused with so many different things that were new, but as soon as I got to meet more people, they were able to help me out and I was able to adjust. I did receive help from my friends in order to adjust to the environment. For example, one of my friends helped me set up an X2VOL account for community service hours. I am aware of how to log my hours thanks to my friends and personally, I don’t find it difficult to navigate [X2VOL] in order to log my hours. When I transferred I wanted to take AP Seminar but since I hadn’t completed my elective, which is band, I wasn’t able to take AP Seminar. I guess specifying stuff for transfer students [would be helpful] because they mostly appeal to the incoming freshmen. For example, there are things like open houses which I couldn’t attend because I had school that day or I had something on that day for my previous high school. I remember there was this one open house which I couldn’t attend, and it would’ve been really helpful for me to attend, but since I had school on that day, I couldn’t. I feel like if they were able to make it easier or more accessible for transfer students to do things or understand stuff it would [be] help[ful].”

— Sophomore Moises Arvelo

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