Diana Acosta Garcia, junior finance major, and Jane Rodriguez, junior art major, talk with students and mascot Knightro at a resource table during the U-Knight the Knights: Transfer Appreciation Celebration in the Student Union on Wednesday. The Office of Student Involvement hosted the event to help transfer students build community at UCF.
Juanita Olarte
Laughter and pop music echoed through the UCF Student Union atrium as students explored resource tables and connected with fellow transfer students during U-Knight the Knights: Transfer Appreciation Celebration on Wednesday.
The Office of Student Involvement held the celebration in recognition of National Transfer Student Week, giving transfer students an opportunity to explore campus resources, meet other students and build connections within the university community.
The celebration aimed to help transfer students become more familiar with the resources available to them as they adjust to a new institution, said Chantel Carter, associate director for the Office of Student Involvement.
“Some of them may not just be familiar with the available resources,” Carter said. “Often they’re coming from a different institution.”
The event held campus resource tables, including Counseling and Psychological Services, graduate studies, student legal services and student organization honor societies.
Participating offices offered students opportunities to learn about services available to the broader UCF community. Although the event was organized in recognition of transfer students, the resources are available to all UCF students, Carter said.
“As a transfer student, they are also a UCF student,” Carter said. “And as a UCF student, you have access to all of these different resources that exist for all of our students here.”
Beyond resource outreach, the celebration also aimed to help students establish relationships that could encourage them to become more involved on campus.
Carter said even one meaningful connection can help a student feel that they belong at the university.
“We want to create connection points, and we understand data says that all it takes is just one connection that has to happen in order for a student to feel as if they belong here,” Carter said.
For Diana Acosta Garcia, junior finance major and president of Transfer Knight, finding a community can be especially important at a large university.
Transfer Knight is a social club that organizes events where transfer students can meet others with similar experiences. Garcia transferred from Valencia College and said she became involved after a friend introduced her to the club.
“I know it’s kind of hard sometimes to find your community in such a large university,” Garcia said.
Garcia said connecting with other transfer students can help them realize they are not alone as they navigate a different college experience.
“It’s not like a linear path from freshman to senior year,” Garcia said. “These events allow them to see a lot of people are going through the same thing they are going through.”