ESS 612: Transfer Center & Transfer Ambassadors

Laura Vogt:
Hello, and welcome to the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m your host, Laura Vogt. I’m the associate director for marketing and communications for the college of engineering. For a penultimate episode this season, I’m happy to have three guests today to talk about transfer student resources that are part of engineering student services in the college of engineering. So, Nicole McIntyre, manager of transfer success initiatives, and two transfer ambassadors, Steve and Naz. Thank you all so much for being here today.

Naz Khairallah:
Thank you having us.

Nicole McIntyre:
Thanks for having us.

Laura Vogt:
So Nicole, let’s begin introductions with you. So, why don’t you tell us about yourself and your role in the college of engineering?

Nicole McIntyre:
Of course. Thank you, Laura. So, my name is Nicole McIntyre, and I use she and they pronouns. As Laura said, I’m the manager of transfer success initiatives for the college. So, what that means is my whole role is focused on transfer students and helping California community college students prepare for transfer, including running a research program for them here on campus, being involved in the admissions and yield process, and then running a suit to programs for our matriculated transfer students to ensure that they’re successful and connected to their peers as possible.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much again for being here today.

Nicole McIntyre:
Of course.

Laura Vogt:
So Steve, it’s your turn. Why don’t you tell us your major, maybe a student organization that you would recommend, and what you do for fun and Berkeley.

Steve Foryoung:
Hello, everyone. I’m Steve Foryoung I’m an EECS major. So, a student organization that I would recommend, I’m in… I think IEEE is a good organization, and there’s definitely many competition teams for engineering students. There’s Cal Construction, that if you are a civil engineering student, you might have heard of. And there’s definitely other fun student organizations that you can find on the Berkeley engineering website.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you again for being here today. And Naz, why don’t you tell us your major and what you’re involved with on campus and what you do for fun in Berkeley?

Naz Khairallah:
Hi, Laura, thank you so much again for having us. My name is Naz Khairallah. I’m an EECS major. I’m involved on campus in a lot of stuff. First of all, teaching. I am involved in EE16A teaching, the award winning transfer program, T-PREP. I also do research, and yeah, transfer ambassador. What I do for fun in Berkeley is mostly talk to people. I enjoy talking to the community and love walking around campus. And yeah, I think that’s very soothing for me.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you again for being here. So, we’ve got two programs that we’re going to talk about today. And I know we couldn’t really have one without the other. So Nicole, can you tell us why you developed both the transfer ambassador program and the transfer center?

Nicole McIntyre:
Absolutely. So, we developed these programs really to formalize and institutionalize what transfer students already do, which is support and help each other. We know this has always been done, and this is just an additional way to try to provide support to students as they prepare for and arrive at Berkeley, especially students that maybe aren’t able to commit to a full program like T-PREP, transfer link, the transfer mentor program, or S-STEM. The ambassadors are always available for drop in conversations. The center is a great place to build community and to have a little home on a really big campus. I think it was also a way… We, in ESS, really understand that our students know what they and their peers need best, so it was a way to empower our transfer students, to support each other and develop programming that they think their peers would most benefit from.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much. I know I’ve seen where you’re located before, but why don’t we talk a little bit more about what the hours are of the transfer center and exactly where that location is?

Naz Khairallah:
Yeah, definitely. That’s a great question. The hours of the transfer center is are Monday from 2:00 to 5:00 PM, and Wednesday from 1:00 to 5:00 PM, it’s located in 240 Sutardja Dai Hall. It’s right next to [inaudible 00:04:21]. It’s on the same floor.

Nicole McIntyre:
And I’ll just note that they change every semester. So, that is for fall 2022.

Laura Vogt:
So Steve, what makes transferring from a community college so different than coming in as a first year student? So, why did the transfer students there experience differ?

Steve Foryoung:
I mean, there’s so many things that make coming as a transfer student very different. The first thing is the time factor, right? As a transfer student, you have two to two and a half years to do a huge amount of classes. So, it sort makes getting involved in many different organizations very difficult. And even if you want to get all the classes you really want to take, it’s sometimes not possible. So, getting all those resources in a very short time, it could be a very difficult thing for students, so that’s some of the things that make being a transfer student quite different from being a first year student.

Laura Vogt:
So building on that a little bit, what role do you as a transfer ambassador play in the services offered to those transfer students?

Steve Foryoung:
Well, we sort of act as a point of reference for them, where… If you come and you really don’t know where to get some resources, if you really don’t know, oh, how to get an internship, things that you have to do really, really urgently, but you don’t really know how to go about them. So, we, transfer ambassadors, provide sort of advice for transfer student. And if we don’t know something, we’re just going to refer them to where exactly they could find that.

Laura Vogt:
Thank you. So Naz, what ways are transfer ambassadors making themselves available to students, and at the same time, how can students keep up to date with events and workshops?

Naz Khairallah:
Oh yeah, definitely. As Nicole mentioned a bit earlier, the transfer center is a big part of what we do as a transfer ambassadors. They go along together very well. We make ourselves valuable during those times where the transfer center is open, again, Monday 2 to 5, and Wednesday 1 to 5 in Sutardja Dai Hall. You can definitely reach out to us as well through email, at transferambassadors@lists.berkeley.edu. We also have a brand new Instagram page that I would recommend everyone to follow. It’s @transfersambassadors on Instagram. Please follow us. And we’re going to be posting a bunch of events and flyers, and all the workshops we’re going to be holding throughout the semester on there. So again, make sure to follow us @transferambassadors. We also send most of our workshops events to email, so keep an I out to emails from Nicole McIntyre, and also sometimes in the ESS newsletters,

Laura Vogt:
Always in the ESS newsletters. So Steve, this is your second time of being a transfer investor. So, what is it about the program that made you want to come back?

Steve Foryoung:
Oh. Well, I mean, I spent the whole of last year sort of helping transfer students at the transfer center, and I was kind of bummed that this was my last semester and there’s a whole new cohort of transfer students coming in. And I knew that there was many things that took me a lot of time as a transfer ambassador last year to sort get going, and I just believe that for the transfer center to make some more progress, it would be good if I was there again, offer a little bit of guidance for those who are incoming transfer ambassadors. And also, I really just love helping transfer students. It was a really, really rewarding experience last time, so yeah, that’s why I decided to come again.

Laura Vogt:
Well, let’s talk a little bit about what do you do as transfer ambassadors? Why would students want to come and talk to you?

Naz Khairallah:
That’s a big question. Why come to us? A lot of us are specialized in different majors. So, me and Steve are EECS majors, but we have two other transfer ambassadors, Dalia, which is a bioengineering student, and Abby who is an IEOR major. So, you can come talk to me personally about bunch of stuff I’m involved on campus on with a research or teaching, even T-PREP. So, definitely if need more info information about any of these, then definitely reach out to me and come to the transfer center. I can also help with applying for internships or resume building, how to reach out to professors. That’s a big part of what we do as transfer ambassadors, how to teach students, incoming students, to communicate with the faculty.

Steve Foryoung:
And some of the things, I mean, we offer… Also, we just offer a space for bonding with transfer students. We sort of have this room where you could come and meet with other transfer students and really just talk about school, even other things that you just need someone to talk to. So, we offer that, and it’s just a place also where you could make friends and have study groups, and literally just that to benefit your social life and things like that. And really, we’re a stopping point for resources that we can offer, but also for resources that we don’t have, but we can tell you where to-

Nicole McIntyre:
I think also, the first semester, especially as hard as a transfer student, and so our ambassadors are second and third year transfer students who have gone through that experience and made it through and are able to give advice for how to navigate the university, share their insights about imposter syndrome and maybe being older than fellow new students. So, there are lots of general life advice things that can connect about and talk about too.

Laura Vogt:
So Nicole, what’s a moment that you’ve had that made it so you knew this program was doing what it needed to do to support students.

Nicole McIntyre:
That’s a great question. So, in addition to offering the transfer center and meeting with our current transfer students, our ambassadors are involved in the process of welcoming, newly admitted transfer students. And in the spring of last year, we had Golden Bear Welcome, which was an event for all of the admitted transfer students to come to campus and to learn about their college and the resources available to them. And our transfer ambassadors attended and spoke on a panel for our incoming engineers, which was really great to see them share their experience and their advice. But then I traveled and I went across the state meeting our admitted transfer students, and so often I would suggest they connect with the ambassadors. And they’d say, “Oh, I’ve already been texting with Steve or with Paulo.”

Nicole McIntyre:
So, it was really cool to see all of these admitted transfer students who had already connected and were already really benefiting from the wisdom of our ambassadors. And then to see those students arrive on campus during Golden Bear orientation and come by and say hi and reconnect with the ambassadors, or meet our new ambassadors, has been really special to see how newly admitted transfer students in fall 2022 are experiencing that support system before they even decided that Berkeley was the school for them. And I think for some of them, it was the difference between choosing Berkeley engineering and another school is. They saw that we had such a comprehensive support system for transfer students, including our amazing ambassadors.

Laura Vogt:
That’s awesome. I’m so glad that they were getting something before they even got here.

Nicole McIntyre:
Yeah, it’s great.

Laura Vogt:
So, is there anything that we haven’t talked about yet that any of you would like to add?

Naz Khairallah:
I wanted to remind everyone our hours and the location. So, it’s on Monday from 2 to 5, and Wednesday from 1 to 5 in 240 Sutardja Dai Hall, the same floor as [inaudible 00:12:42].

Nicole McIntyre:
And follow us on Instagram for all of our updates and flyers for our events. We are @transferambassadors.

Naz Khairallah:
I’m looking forward to seeing you guys the transfer center.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank all three of you so much for being here today.

Naz Khairallah:
Thank you.

Steve Foryoung:
Thank you, Laura.

Nicole McIntyre:
You, Laura. Thank you for having us Laura.

Laura Vogt:
And I really appreciate your time, especially since classes just started. I know the beginning of the semester is always fun, trying to get used to what you’re doing. [inaudible 00:13:12] Say it one more time

Naz Khairallah:
Saying I don’t even know what I’m doing yet. It was my [inaudible 00:13:22]

Laura Vogt:
All right. Thank you everyone for listening this week. We’ll be back for our last episode of the season. Next Monday with the co-presidents of the engineering student council. I look forward to podcasting with you again. Bye.