Saturday, April 4, 2009

Are You a "Reverse-Transfer" Student?

Meet Cameron Rodish. Cameron began her academic career at Randolph Macon College, where she took a few classes and then realized it was not for her. Several years later, after she started working, got married, and had a baby, she knew she wanted to return to college for better opportunities and to be a positive example for her daughter. She started taking classes part-time at NOVA in 2005 and is now in her last semester. She has also been accepted to Liberty University for the fall to continue working towards her Bachelor’s degree. She said that the journey has not been easy, but she took it semester by semester and it has paid off. I look forward to seeing her walk across the stage at Commencement (graduation) this May.

The reverse-transfer is very common at NOVA. Reverse-transfer students are students who began at a four-year college or university and then transferred to NOVA for a variety of reasons. Many of them have plans to earn their Associate's Degrees and then return to a 4-year college or university for their Bachelor's Degrees.

What are your reverse-transfer stories?

4 comments:

  1. I'm a reverse-transfer. I started with the plan that I would complete my higher education at a four-year college in North Carolina, but life has its own plans, sometimes, and I ended up returning to VA because of health issues.

    I came to NOVA two years after everything settled down, looking for a way to ease myself back into the academic world before hitting up a university. So far, it has been a great decision.

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  2. Cameron Clark-RodishApril 6, 2009 at 5:05 PM

    Wow...never thought I would see my name "in lights"! Haha! To be fair...I must say that I am doing this for my son, my husband, and myself too. Hopefully, all this work will improve all our lives!

    Being an older reverse transfer student is hard and being a parent/spouse/etc while being a full-time student is even harder!

    My advice to anyone else in this situation is to keep fighting against the odds to do what needs to be done.

    And most important...remember that there ARE people that truly want you to succeed and are willing to go above and beyond to help you do so! Thanks Lori for everything! :)

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  3. What wonderful stories! I am on the ELI staff and am very involved in creating good educational experiences for you all, but until I read what you said, I never thought about being a reverse-transfer student just like you - and that's exactly what I was. I went back to GMU about 10 years ago and found it incredibly rewarding to learn as an adult.

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  4. I too started at a 4-year college, but as others here have said, circumstances changed - and now I am back in school and glad to have made the change. It's a wonderful place to start anew, become a student once again no matter how long you've been gone.

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