While we bid farewell to our beloved seniors and other graduating students, I’d like to take a minute to say farewell to a group of students that will also leave Case Western Reserve University this year: the outgoing transfer students.

This year might have been terrible, it might have been great, it might have been somewhere in between. In any case, these next few weeks will be your last at CWRU. Whether or not your time at CWRU was enjoyable, I think it’s important for outgoing transfer students to at least have a positive mindset and finish out their last year here strong.

One of the most important things for students is not necessarily grades, but rather the people and experiences they encountered during their time here. This is especially true for outgoing transfer students because, while they may take their GPA and course credits with them to their next college, they will be forever fundamentally impacted by their time spent meeting new people and experiencing the college lifestyle here. I think it’s incredibly valuable to make your last few weeks here at CWRU memorable by spending a bit more time appreciating the friends you’ve made and reminiscing on the experiences you had here. I’d also like to suggest that you tell your friends that you will be leaving at some point before finals; they will most likely want to make the last few weeks they have left with you count and to reminisce with you.

That being said, I’d like to mention that you obviously also do not want to stop working and let your grades drop. Transferring is still a big deal, even if you are attending a university that already accepted you. Not making the grades you need could result in some pretty sticky situations, like if your new university suddenly retracted scholarships you were offered or decided to not accept you after all due to your GPA dropping at the last minute. While I encourage you to spend more time with the people you’ve connected with here during these last few weeks, I also would like to encourage discipline and time management skills so that you can see your friends, have your last laughs together and still make As on your finals.

The last thing that I want outgoing transfer students to remember is that the best way for you to leave CWRU is with a positive mindset. Maybe you had a terrible time here at CWRU and just couldn’t make friends, in which case, you are finally moving on from a place that didn’t accept you and on to a place where you have opportunities to look forward to. For those that had a nice time here, you can look back and remember the good times and learn from the bad. You will have friends that you can keep in touch with while you adjust to your new environment and help you through the rough patches. You can look forward to the new opportunities that transferring presents, too; it all just depends on your mindset.

I won’t lie: transferring can be one of the toughest, scariest experiences you will ever go through. You will be thrown into a new environment, have to learn a new college’s campus and campus hierarchy, try to break into seemingly-airtight friend groups and find new note-sharing buddies, all the while trying not to be overwhelmed. As someone who’s also facing transferring this year, these concerns are all the more real and unsettling.

Though it can be tough and scary, transferring is similar to attending college as a fresh-faced first-year: You have to dive in head-first. The most successful and happy students on a college campus are often the students that are involved with school clubs, sports or committees and make the effort to go and meet new people. These all maximize their chances of finding friends and purpose, which is what we generally look for and what keeps us going in the rigorous environment that is college life.

With that being said, the last thing I want to say is good luck to the outgoing transfer students. Life is unpredictable and change is its natural form, so make the most of your time wherever you are while you can.