Transfers help with adjusting

As freshmen ambled around on campus tours Saturday, first-year transfer students traveled in herds to South Street. During the Penn Reading Project and the Class of 2001 Barbecue, the transfers visited the Art Museum and Liberty Place. And as the first freshmen were just trickling in Thursday and Friday, transfer students were meeting and socializing at off-campus parties organized just for them. Just as the University turned over operations of The Book Store to Barnes & Noble, the organization of orientation events for transfer students has been a task handed over to a committee of past transfer students for years. The committee allows transfer advisors -- like College of Arts and Sciences Assistant Dean Eric Schneider -- to handle the academic advising of transferring, while students take complete charge of the social aspect of orientation. Equally crowded as freshmen orientation weekend events, the transfers' weekend was less like "summer camp" and more like a field trip. Students saw the Liberty Bell, ate cheesesteaks and explored SEPTA. And when they encountered problems -- whether with residence halls, roommates or schedules -- Julie Vance was there. Vance, a 1997 College graduate who transferred to Penn in the fall of 1994, headed the makeshift committee of transfer students for the last time this year. "Honestly, these are my favorite five days of the year," she said. "Transfers have unique problems that only transfers know how to solve." Standing in the High Rise North lobby all weekend, head transfer advisors Vance and College senior Sarah Greenbaum greeted transfers with a warm smile and helped them move into their rooms. "[Greenbaum] made me feel like I wasn't at a new school. She was really helpful," said College sophomore Sarah Vakil, who transferred this semester. Admittedly, the transfers, numbering approximately 240, are a much more manageable group than the freshmen. But they are also scattered thinly around campus buildings, with a much higher chance of being dissatisfied with their living situations and a much lower chance of forming a cohesive group -- if it was not for Vance and other former transfers. "Julie works harder than anyone else I know? She works very hard to make everything come together and she always does," said College senior and former transfer student David Austin, who added that all transfers involved come back to campus a week early to help Vance organize events. "There's a lot of responsibility for the students who coordinate it," said Schneider, whose office welcomes transfers for academic assistance. "Honestly, my interest would be in praising the group to the skies because they've always done a fabulous job." During the five days of orientation, however, the responsibility is a huge one. For Vance, it meant losing $1,000 of her own money on last year's festivities -- and having to raise the students' donation for activity fees by about $10 this year -- along with innumerable hours of unpaid work. Additionally, autonomy means a limited source of funds. The Student Activities Council pitches in $600 every year and New Student Orientation Coordinator Lori Reed foots the bill for the pizza party, but as Greenbaum admitted, "we would love to know who to go to" for more money. Yet the advisors are generally happy to shoulder the organization headaches -- and a few dollars, here and there -- to welcome the new transfers. The high attendance -- over 150 at every event, according to Greenbaum -- is a sign their efforts have paid off. "I didn't go to my freshman orientation and I went to this," said 1997 transfer Julie Gerstein at last night's ice cream social in the High Rise North Rathskellar Lounge, the last orientation event. "I don't usually participate, but [this time] I did. That says something."