This is the Spartan Transfer Hub brought to you by Impact eighty nine FM and MSU Transfer Student Success Center. Here's what we've got for you today.
Zuhaer:Hi everyone, welcome back to today's episode of Spartan Transfer Hub, the podcast about all things related to MSU transfer students brought to you by the MSU Transfer Student Success Center, also known as TSSC. On this episode, we are going to be talking about the Undergraduate Spartan Completion and Emergency Fund, also referred to as the Spartan Retention Fund. I'm your host, Zuhaer Aranya. I am from Bangladesh.
Zuhaer:I use he/him pronouns. I am studying mechanical engineering as a rising senior. In the studio with me today are two staff members of MSU's Strategic Retention Unit, alongside the director, program coordinator, and graduate assistant of TSSC. Could you all please introduce yourselves?
Justin St. Charles:Yeah, of course. Thanks for having us. Justin St. Charles, he and his pronouns. I am a strategic retention manager at Michigan State University.
Justin St. Charles:And the involvement with the Spartan Retention Fund is we are, you know, co- grant leads on it, as well as fund managers. So, we coordinate the resource and as well as distribute funds to students directly.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Christina Bridges. I use she, her pronouns, and I am the other half of this amazing strategic retention unit, the other co leader. Been at Michigan State for ten or eleven years now.
Dr. Christina Bridges:I identify as first gen and I am very excited to be here.
Dr. Charles Jackson:All right. Dr. Charles Jackson, Director of the Transfer Student Success Center. I use he, him, his pronouns. Been at MSU, man, a little bit over twenty years. And, was also a former transfer student to MSU. So those are the lived experiences that I bring to transfer student success.
Ashley Hewlett-Lemke:Hello. Hello. My name is Ashley Hewlett Lemke. I use the she series of pronouns. I'm your neighborhood friendly program coordinator with the Transfer Student Success Center.
Ashley Hewlett-Lemke:I was a transfer student to Michigan State. I graduated from arts and letters with an interdisciplinary humanities degree, and I transferred from Washington Community College.
Lauren Sargent:Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren Sargent. I use she, her pronouns. I am in my last year of my master's program in student affairs administration. I graduated from Florida State University.
Lauren Sargent:Go Noles. And I am the graduate assistant of the Transfer Student Success Center.
Dr. Charles Jackson:Let's put a go green in that since you put go Noles
Lauren Sargent:Go green.
Zuhaer:go White.
Lauren Sargent:cut the go Noles out.
Zuhaer:Now before we all get started, I've lately been thinking about something along the lines of how I am recently now earning adult money. So I, you know, sometimes have weird purchases every now and then that are kind of catered to the inner child in me. So I was wondering, like, do you guys ever feel like that that you now have adult money and you can purchase something that would, like, satisfy the inner child in you? Like, can you give me your thoughts on that?
Justin St. Charles:Mhmm. Yeah. I think for me, there's kinda two things that I spend my adult money on. Travel is huge. Like, I used to travel as a family, so my inner child just loved being outside of my bubble. And so, travel is a really big thing for me.
Justin St. Charles:And super nerdy is like we used to play board games as a child. Right? And so they were very simple, like Monopoly and Yahtzee. But now I get these really ornate board games that like you build while you're playing, and it's a lot of instructions.
Justin St. Charles:They're very time consuming, but I definitely have a good collection that feeds my inner child. Yeah.
Dr. Christina Bridges:So I know for me, I had two things that came to mind as well. The first actually just happened earlier this week, Tuesday. So the first is food. And shameless plug, for Wingstop, they have $2 tenders on Tuesdays. And so I was gonna go to Wingstop to get $2 tenders, two tenders for $2.
Dr. Charles Jackson:Wow.
Dr. Christina Bridges:I went bananas with the menu and by the time I left, I had spent $20. Was like, for purpose, I'm going on Tuesday for the $2 tenders. But I do that now because I'm like, why not? Like, just gonna get all the foods that I can eat and then, you know, I'll just cry about it later. And so that's my first.
Dr. Christina Bridges:And then the second I would say are, I like to prank others, not often, but if there's like a good enough prank, like, I'm down. And so one thing that I've purchased, is like, fake toilet paper.
Zuhaer:Oh, no, no.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Gotten a number of people, with with that one. One. I am very strategic on, who I use that particular prank on. But, yeah, so those are those are, a few of the the items that I spend money on that kind of fulfill my inner child.
Justin St. Charles:I thought you were gonna talk about the lottery tickets. You got us on that one?
Dr. Christina Bridges:Another prank.
Dr. Charles Jackson:Oh, wow. So I'm in a lot of meetings with Dr. Bridges. So, note to self, just to be aware that doctor Bridges loves to pull pranks. Again, Dr. Charles Jackson. And I would say two of my childhood, favorites, that I would like to do now would be to have a gigantic train set, in my room.
Dr. Charles Jackson:And also a fan of comic books still because comic books was just my thing growing up. So, my innermost child things that I wish that I could have as an adult is a huge train set and also just tons of like comic books, Marvel and DC.
Zuhaer:Do you have a favorite comic series of all time?
Dr. Charles Jackson:Iron Man.
Zuhaer:Nice.
Lauren Sargent:That like fits. Like I I see it. Like Yeah. You give Iron Man
Dr. Charles Jackson:That Tony Stark vibe?
Justin St. Charles:Yeah. Built into the cave. Yes.
Dr. Charles Jackson:Yes. It's all me.
Lauren Sargent:Mine would be I just like crafts. I love to craft now that I'm an adult and I can spend ridiculous amounts of money on it because I not I don't have ridiculous amounts of money, but I make some money. So I get a lot of, like, paint by numbers. And I also have a very big yarn collection because I crochet. So so just like things like that little craft stuff.
Ashley Hewlett-Lemke:So I'll preface this. I'm an eighties and nineties girl. So American Girl dolls. Right. Dr. Bridges?
Dr. Christina Bridges:The books in particular, Growing Up.
Lauren Sargent:Yes. So
Ashley Hewlett-Lemke:I will neither confirm nor deny that I have a sizable collection in my adult of the historical characters. And my favorite is probably Claudia Wells. And she was the character released Harlem based in Harlem in the nineteen twenties. I love her. She is a beautiful doll.
Ashley Hewlett-Lemke:Her collection is beautiful. Her books are written by the New York Times bestselling author, Brit Bennett. And yes, like in my leisure time, I still go back and I read those books. I can read those, you know, I could get through, like, the entire six book series of the OG characters in, you know, like an hour, hour and a half.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Yeah. So nostalgic.
Ashley Hewlett-Lemke:Yeah. For sure.
Justin St. Charles:I wish everyone could see your nonverbals. You are in this.
Dr. Christina Bridges:American Girl was my thing.
Zuhaer:I'm glad you guys connected because I have a way of connecting to Dr. Jackson because you like collecting comic books. Right?
Dr. Charles Jackson:Yes.
Zuhaer:I love collecting action figures of those kinds of characters. Like you mentioned Iron Man. I got my Iron Man action figures. I got my Superman and Batman action figures. And like, is that little nerdy kid in me who likes to buy these things?
Zuhaer:But if anybody asks, and I'm not being candid about it, then I'll say I love collecting sports jerseys as well.
Zuhaer:Not as much of a kid thing, I guess. Gotcha. But thank you all for sharing. This was this was a nice little reflection into everybody's hearts a little bit.
Zuhaer:Jumping into our topic of discussions today, could I ask you guys to give us a brief overview of what the Strategic Retention Unit does?
Justin St. Charles:Yeah, of course. I think one thing that's hard about giving a brief overview is that we do so much, right? And that's not in a braggadocious way. It's just this unit was created to provide a holistic support to students. And so we really have tried to be intentional about embedding ourselves in the different systems that students are gonna interact with, right?
Justin St. Charles:So when we talk about the work that we do, we are involved in the microsystem, so these kind of individual impacts and barriers that students might feel, we try to help and intervene and support and be concierge in that, but we also try to be really intentional around reviewing policies and procedures at the meso level that would impact their ability to kind of persist through the institution. And then, at the macro level, we work with executive management. So that's the provost, the president, VPSA, those types of folks to kind of address these larger wicked problems that we would call them on campus. Things like affordability that impacts pretty much all students in different ways. And we're in each of those spaces because we recognize that students are impacted by each of those different levels.
Zuhaer:The biggest thing we want to tell our listeners about is the centralized undergraduate completion and emergency funds, which some people might know as the Spartan retention fund. Could you tell us what this fund is used for and who can use it?
Dr. Christina Bridges:Yeah, so this fund is used for a number of completion and emergency purposes. Students may run into a number of barriers to their success here at MSU. And so that might include barriers with educational expenses, so books or technology that could be barriers to future enrollment. So if there's an account hold on their account, funds from this can be used to alleviate that. You may have personal needs like transportation needs, essential needs that include food and housing.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Maybe you're behind on your rent, you're facing eviction, we can help with that, as well as medical expenses or unexpected life circumstances as well. And so maybe you've had a family member who has passed away, you have to travel out of state, you need some funding immediately. Those are some of the things that we can assist with. And so most of, well, all of our funds are actually for undergraduate students. There is funding for graduate students, but at this time we only serve the undergraduate student population.
Dr. Christina Bridges:I'm trying to think if there's anything else that we use the funds for. It's really to help our students persist, and to stay here at MSU. As we think about student success, and helping students to graduate, again, it's just having that holistic approach, and just recognizing that students are individuals and they are people and you run into a number of different issues while you're here. And so this fund is really just to support anything that may come up, including educational expenses, but anything outside of that realm as well.
Justin St. Charles:And I would just add that this is really a community effort. So when we talk about holistic and treating things holistically, this isn't just our unit running this. This is really a partnership of a collaboration of colleges across campus, right? So nearly every college is a part of this fund. The student affairs, their SOS fund, right?
Justin St. Charles:All of these funds have come together because our mission, what we recognize in doing the work that we've done with students is that one of the biggest barriers is financial affordability. And so what they had talked about and described was they would have to go to five different people and describe their story every single time. And so what we decided was we need to come together, create one landing spot for the students. They can share their story once. And then on the back end, what our unit does, in addition to being fund managers, right, because we do have our own funds and we do participate in that, but we broker a lot of that, right?
Justin St. Charles:So the goal of this is a lot of cost sharing. So we share it with the colleges. That means colleges can support more students, different funds can support more students. And the main goal is to make sure that we can have the student share their story as little as possible, but get the funds that they definitely need.
Dr. Christina Bridges:And as we're talking about our partners, and also where we're situated, so we're in the, Undergraduate Education Office of the Provost, but we, in addition to the colleges, I think a huge shout out to all of our other partners as well. So institutional research, the office of financial aid, student accounts, where we are situated within undergraduate education, it allows us to position ourselves to partner in a very intentional way with all of these different offices across campus. So I think that's one of the cool aspects of our unit and the work that we do is that we are able to, as we're looking at changing institutional policy for students, we're able to position ourselves in a way that we can use our social work skills in many different directions, right? Like up the chain, across the chain, and that really speaks to the power and the work that we do and yeah it really helps us to support students that much more.
Zuhaer:Thank you for that elaborate answer because you covered more grounds about the topic more than I could have imagined. So thank you for sharing all that. I have to point out how important this is because a lot of times students may overlook or may not be able to, you know, predict these kinds of issues that might arise. So I think this is a very good initiative and thank you so much for sharing about that.
Zuhaer:Now if I may ask a little bit about where does the funding for this program come from and how can students learn about this fund and apply it?
Dr. Christina Bridges:So the funding for this program comes from a few different sources. So we are partnered with all of the colleges across campus. Their funding may come from the institution or it may come from donor funds as well. For us with the strategic retention unit we have funds that came from a grant called MILEAP through the state of Michigan and that grant has a goal of really helping to funnel as many students as possible through the education system to earn a degree ultimately. And so our funds, which are federal grant funds, come from MILEAP.
Dr. Christina Bridges:We are hoping for an extension of funds, so shameless plug. We are looking for donors. We are looking for institutional support to continue this really great effort that we have right now across the campus. But yeah, colleges, federal funds, I don't know if I forgot anyone, but students can learn about this fund. We do have a website that they can go to.
Justin St. Charles:It's retentionfunds.msu.edu.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Yes, thank you for that. And also, if you are meeting with academic advisors, if you're meeting with the deans of your colleges, there are academic staff that are aware of this resource. And so while it may be sometimes challenging to share vulnerabilities when you are in need of support, one thing that we like to really push in our unit is that help seeking is a part of student success. And so if you all, you know, meet with someone in your college and you indicate that there is a need, more often than not, they will direct you to our fund.
Zuhaer:So I have to admit that we did a little bit of digging into your website and wow, there's just so many different initiatives that this unit does. Could I ask you guys to just mention a few of these and tell us a little bit more about them?
Justin St. Charles:Yeah, of course. Dr. Bridges and I started in the strategic retention unit, though we weren't a unit at the time. It was just us two lone wolves running together and really trying to kind of change campus. And when we started two years ago, it was really the main goal was to do our main project, which is our persistence campaign. So what we try to do with that is we want to be really proactive with students.
Justin St. Charles:We recognize that as Dr. Bridges shared, asking for help can sometimes be the barrier in itself. And so there's a lot of students who would benefit from outreach. And even just little nudges. We always say in our unit that nudging matters.
Justin St. Charles:Even just reaching out and saying something like, Hey, we realize that open enrollment is here and you haven't enrolled yet. We just want to see what's going on. How can we help? And we've had it where students have actually responded back saying, not for that particular campaign, but then something will come up later, and they would be like, it really meant something that you noticed, and they were like, I'm sorry, I didn't respond, but like, now I do need something, and I just felt like your emails come off as really genuine. And so our persistence campaigns will identify students who each semester during semi annual enrollment who have not enrolled by open enrollment, and our goal is to work with them up until the fifth day of class of the following semester.
Justin St. Charles:And so through our persistence campaigns, you know, Dr. Bridges and I, 40,000 students is a lot for us to take on ourselves. And so what's been amazing is through that work, we were actually able to build our team. We have two incredible strategic retention coordinators, Kay Stevens and Julia Barnes, who have just added such tremendous value to the work. And through them, they've been able to kind of create this really cool toolkit that campus partners can use.
Justin St. Charles:And actually, it led to the creation of our Council of Undergraduate Retention, which as Dr. Bridges talked about where we're getting all these funds, the council is folks from all across campus, the colleges, so that's in advising, student success work, that type of thing. But we really wanted to make sure that enrollment services, so that being like admissions, student accounts, financial aid, and then as well as institutional research, that they were also part of this conversation because we recognize that barriers to enrollment were not always just in academics, right? And so one of the things, you know, I'll kind of wrap up with one of our other big initiatives that we're really proud of is, you know, we had these persistence campaigns. We wanna make sure that if a student's goal is to graduate from MSU, are helping them realize that goal.
Justin St. Charles:Some students, for whatever reason, have to take time away from the institution. And so if a student is away from Michigan State University for three or more consecutive semesters, they actually get onto a different list that we wanna track, which is our Some College, No Degree. And Kay Stevens is actually our lead for that particular program. And the goal of that is to reach out to students who haven't fully completed their degree and see what was the barrier and how can we address that. One of the most transformative things that we've done in that space was making sure that students who left even years ago, when there were old policies and old procedures, they've updated now.
Justin St. Charles:And so even just last month, we were able to confer eight degrees to students who from previous policies would not have been able to graduate from Michigan State University. But because policies have changed, we were able to confer their degree, and so now they have, and one was from like twelve years ago. They've been walking around this planet with 122 credits completed, and didn't have their degree because of one single holdup. So that work is really important to us too, because the Some College No Degree folks is really helping to what Christina was talking about in terms of the MILEAP funds of encouraging Michiganders to have that post secondary credential, but also recognizing if they poured so much investment into us over that time, we need to invest into helping them finish that credential if that's what they want.
Justin St. Charles:But Dr. Bridges has three other phenomenal campaigns or yeah.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Yes, because our unit stays busy. So, we also have the Modern Campus texting platform, which is a two way texting platform that we utilize in undergrad education to connect directly with students. So as we talk about that holistic approach, the individualized connection to students is what drives everything that we do. And so that's a really cool platform where we can text students directly to their cell phones and have an accessible way to engage them with university services and supports. Through this particular initiative, which is co led by Julia Barnes, we are also able to influence what texting policy should look like across campus since we do not widely use text messaging as a campus and so that's a cool initiative where we're able to really get some really valuable insights into how we move forward with texting as an institution.
Dr. Christina Bridges:And then we also have our Spartan Voice Pulse surveys and so those go out quarterly to all students across MSU. They're essentially asked questions regarding, you know, how are your classes going? How are things in your residence hall? How are you doing personally? How are you finding success with the supports that we have on campus?
Dr. Christina Bridges:And so we're able to kind of use the answers for those trending topics to then build some additional context with our persistence campaign. So there's some overlap there with our Spartan Voice Pulse survey where it's another touch point where we can get individualized feedback from students and we can help to move the needle in other spaces as we're talking about institutional changes that need to happen for the betterment of our students. And then lastly, we have the First Generation Presidential Initiative, which all of these, I mean, are near and dear to our hearts because, you know, this is a part of the work that we've started collectively. But as I mentioned earlier, I identify as first gen. I know Justin is also first gen as well.
Dr. Christina Bridges:And so we have the very cool opportunity of having this first generation presidential initiative in our unit as well, where I in particular was tasked along with Dr. Heather Shea to lead the creation of a first generation college student success center here on campus. And so we are working with a committee of various staff members. I think we have a total of 20 folks who are on our committee from all various divisions of campus helping us to really identify what it means to be first gen in our campus, what it means to support first gen students and to help them thrive. And so we are looking, to hopefully have that come to fruition, by Fall of '26, I believe.
Dr. Christina Bridges:And so I feel like those are the bulk of our initiatives. We did not even touch on all of them, but that is just to give you a little taste of some of the work that we're doing in our unit.
Dr. Charles Jackson:And Dr. Bridges and Justin, I appreciate, the initiatives that you shared, especially around the first gen presidential initiative because we also have some transfer students who are first gen. And I know for the Transfer Student Success Center, we've personally used Modern Campus Message to, do outreach to transfer students throughout the academic year, especially during National Transfer Student Week or leading up to National Transfer Student Week. And I appreciate the importance of just the surveying too because we really need to get more student feedback and insights into, policies, procedures, anything that we're we're thinking about doing to contribute and enhance student success here on campus.
Justin St. Charles:Yeah, and there's a lot of overlap between the transfer student experience and all the initiatives that we're doing, right? I think a lot of folks think that the majority of our work is just working with first time in any college students. Even when we think about some college, no degree, many of those students that we're working with have gone on to other institutions. So what's funny is they're almost like a reverse transfer.
Justin St. Charles:They start here at MSU, they then have to transfer to another institution, they do some things there, haven't gotten a credential, and then they're transferring back. And that's a whole new way of meta transfer experience. Exactly. It's important work. It's critical work.
Justin St. Charles:And I'm excited that the first gen identity, like Christina said, we we both share that identity. And it's it's it's widely known, and it's widely supported now. Christina's gonna be humble, but all of their work and efforts up to this point was formally approved by the Board of Trustees at their June meeting, which was a massive accomplishment, which gave the giving them and their committee permission to plan, which will allow them in October to move Forward a amazing resolution. And it's a labor of love, I think, for Christina especially.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Absolutely. I mean, I think all of the initiatives, you know, and I can't recall if this was mentioned earlier as we talk about the work of our office, but we're looking to close opportunity gaps in the work that we're doing. And so each of these initiatives help to chip away at every opportunity gap. So I think that we're both just very proud of the work that our team has been able to accomplish so far.
Zuhaer:Absolutely. I could not paint a better picture of everything that you guys do better than yourselves, but I want to appreciate everything that you guys do because it's just so much work, again, many grounds covered, it's phenomenal work, so thank you on behalf of all students for all of your efforts. And I want to track back to something that you guys mentioned a little bit earlier about how asking for help is such a big thing, such an important thing to do in the student experience, and sometimes reaching out for help, especially financial help, can sometimes be considered a source of shame or embarrassment for some individuals. What can you say to encourage students who need support to reach out to your office?
Justin St. Charles:Yeah, I think financial, asking for financial help, I think is, it feels shameful or embarrassing for everyone, right? Even if you gotta ask your parents to borrow $20, it's still like, God, there's such a weird feeling in that. But I think, for us, particularly, I think one way, one thing I can say is that if you contact us, you will be responded to. And you will be responded to in a very individualized way. We really act as a concierge service in a lot of ways.
Justin St. Charles:Like, I mean, we do it all, right? So we're talking about all these levels, but one level that we interact with the students on is that our office is not going to solve every single issue. And we're not trying to pretend that we will. But what we have done is we've been able to build connections across campus where we can help students find support, the kind of support that they need much easier. And so, what I would say, at least in my opinion, is that, you know, asking for help is not a weakness, it's actually a sign of strength.
Justin St. Charles:And I would encourage, you know, it's something that we talk about in therapy a lot around like exposing yourself to things that you're uncomfortable with. What I can assure you and promise you, any student who's listening to this, if you email retention@msu.edu you will get a response back. You will be helped.
Dr. Christina Bridges:I just would like to say ditto. I echo that sincerely. I think also it's important to note that closed mouths don't get fed. I don't know who initially came up with that quote, but that speaks near and dear to my heart. And as someone who, I mean, I completed my undergraduate career here at MSU as well.
Dr. Christina Bridges:And as a first gen student for a number of different identities that I hold, think asking for help can sometimes seem as a weakness. But now that I am on this side of the fence in terms of being a staff member, there are a lot of students that advocate for themselves like no other in ways that I could not have imagined advocating when I was an undergrad. And so I would just say, perhaps this is a thing for some, but not for all. I think there are some who might feel a level of shame or embarrassment, but there are some that are like, no, I need help. And I'm not ashamed of that.
Dr. Christina Bridges:And that's what you're here to do. And so I encourage students to have that boldness when seeking help, because we are here for that very reason, to help you all to, to succeed. And so I would just say, you know, to Justin's point, if you reach out to our office for support, we are here. We always have a listening ear. We're always here to support you.
Dr. Christina Bridges:If it's not our office, we would direct you in the direction that you can go to seek that help. But just don't be afraid, I would say. Ultimately in terms of encouraging students, yeah, that self advocacy piece is everything. I think it's just, it's how you reach success as well in college and beyond. So you don't advocate for yourself, who will?
Justin St. Charles:And building off of the closed mouths don't get fed, right? I think, you know, sometimes it can be shameful because you're asking for help and the feeling is that I'm being a burden to somebody. But if you need to use us to flip that script, the reason that Dr. Bridges, myself, Kay, and Julia have a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs, is because we are situated on campus to help. So if we don't have students reaching out and helping to us, then we don't have the our mouths will be closed and we won't get fed. And so I say that because sometimes, you know, I think students, again, think that they're being a burden.
Justin St. Charles:But really, at the end of the day, that's what we're here for. That's what we've been called to do just in our own personal spirit, but also in the actual job description that we have. And so it's one of it's a couple of things, right? If you have to convince yourself that I'm actually helping this retention unit thrive, amazing. As long as you're asking for help.
Justin St. Charles:That's all we ask for, that self advocacy.
Zuhaer:Absolutely. This is such an important thing that you guys just talked about, and I in my experience, more often than not, any opportunity that I've been given has been because of my tendency to be a little bit brave in that lapse of a moment that yes, I have to go and ask for this and it's so important. Especially when something especially when it comes to financial help, can be sometimes so important, you should never shy away because everybody here, they're here to help you. And thank you so much for giving us so much information on that.
Dr. Christina Bridges:Just really quickly, I also wanted to add the importance of not only asking for help, but asking for help immediately. Don't wait until it's too late because sometimes things can snowball and become a bigger issue than it has to. And so I just wanted to stress the importance of asking for help right away.
Zuhaer:Absolutely, absolutely. And on that subject, if there's because we're wrapping up today, is there any last pieces of advice or any message that you would share with our listeners today specifically advocating or promoting the idea of persistence and resiliency like we've talked about?
Dr. Christina Bridges:Well, I think for me when I think of because I'm thinking of, you know, transfer students particular, I think embedded in that is a level of resiliency, right? Like you have perhaps traveled a journey that does not look like the quote unquote typical journey. You have found a level of self confidence to find your path forward whatever that might be. And so I think for me in terms of advice, I would say look inward, give yourself grace, give yourself kudos, because you are here for a reason, recognize your purpose and walk into that.
Dr. Charles Jackson:And I appreciate you sharing that Dr. Bridges because it just reminds me of just some of our Transfer Student Advisory Board members who have that resiliency and who have that drive. And also it has me reflecting on my time, way back when, when I was a transfer student, because I went to multiple institutions before receiving my undergraduate degree here at MSU. And at the time I felt like, man, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna finish, you know, higher ed, but, you know, I had people around me that motivated me and encouraged me. And that's what we're here to do too, as well, is to just make sure that students know that they have that level of support and advocacy amongst faculty and staff who wanna see you succeed.
Justin St. Charles:Yeah. And I agree with everything that Christina said around the resiliency path or response because it's true. The way that they got here was a significant journey. And so I might just take a quick stab at even the persistence piece. And a piece of advice I would give transfer students is give yourself permission to struggle, right?
Justin St. Charles:Like, I think a lot of individuals that I've met with who are transfer students, particularly who we would call, I hate saying nontraditional, but ones who might be older, right? I worked with a student who was 28 when they came back to this institution. And they thought they had a major in mind, and they didn't. And they got really frustrated because they were like, I've been in school for eight years, and I still don't know what I wanna do. That's okay.
Justin St. Charles:You know, I've been in my career. I still don't know what I wanna do. I like what I do, but there's still questions. I think, you know, I had another student who came back and they were actually older, think it was like 34 or so. And they had really lost some of those academic skill sets that you use, right?
Justin St. Charles:It's a muscle, you got to reacquaint yourself. And they were taking like one class at a time. So jumping in from one class to a bunch of, you know, 15 credits full time was really disorienting. And so I think my piece of advice is similar to like what we're saying, asking for help is not shameful or anything like that. Give yourself permission to struggle.
Justin St. Charles:Folks are gonna look at you and maybe see you in a different light. There might be, not a stigma, but a belief that you have it figured out. You've taken college classes, you get it. Michigan State University is so different from every institution, just like every institution is different from Michigan State University. Allow yourself to stumble, allow yourself to get frustrated with the systems, allow yourself to reorient about how we do things here culturally, and just allow yourself to exist, to experience, and then to just be who you are in transfer experience.
Justin St. Charles:Because I think transfer students, there is an unfair expectation put on them because they have all of this beautiful journey that they've lived through and have gone through, but at the end of the day, they're brand new to this campus. And I think that's important for all of us to remember.
Zuhaer:Absolutely. I could not ask for better advice myself, even though I'm sitting here asking you guys these questions for on behalf of our listeners. I feel like this conversation has just been so inspirational and I've collected so much advice from this. And again, want to thank you guys for joining us today, having this conversation. And once again, this has been the Spartan Transfer Hub, and we're wrapping up today.
Zuhaer:If you want to hear more, please check out our other episodes on the Impact89FM website, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or all the platforms listed down below in the description. Go green.
All:Go white.
Zuhaer:Thanks for stopping by the Spartan Transfer Hub brought to you by Impact89FM and MSU's Transfer Student Success Center. See you soon!