Above: Julia Bausari ‘23 traded in her old gear for new Christopher Newport swag during National Transfer Student Week.
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Julia Basauri ‘23 was nearly 3,000 miles away from Newport News when she first heard about Christopher Newport.
The social work major and Spanish minor’s sister, who works in Newport News, was driving down Warwick Boulevard when she stopped to text Bausari a photo of campus. At the time, she was enrolled at Portland State University in Oregon – a great university for others, but not the right fit for her.
Bausari said that as cliche as it sounds, she knew Christopher Newport was for her as soon as she saw the photo.
“The minute I saw the picture, I was like, ‘I have to go there,’” she said. “When I stepped on campus to do the tour for the first time, it was just this weird sense of, this is where I need to be. So many people have told me they’ve felt that before – I had that moment.”
Learn more about transferring to Christopher Newport at cnu.edu/admission/transfer.
Bausari is one of many students who, for myriad reasons, transfer to Christopher Newport each year. Some come after completing two-year associate degrees at schools in the Virginia Community College System, while others, like Bausari, find themselves drawn to Christopher Newport’s size and opportunities.
To make the transition easier, transfer students can access a robust suite of services. A targeted orientation, Changing Tides, helps answer questions that apply specifically to transfer students, and the Office of Student Engagement and Orientation offers lunches for commuting students and transfers throughout the semester.
Incoming transfer students meet with an engagement fellow to learn about student life and campus engagement, and a newsletter highlights opportunities to get involved. National Transfer Student Week in October was celebrated on campus, and included an event where students could trade in gear from their previous school for Captains swag.
“An aspect of our program that really smooths the transition is that new transfer students get assigned a department chair or program director as their academic adviser,” said Evanne Raible, director of transfer enrollment services. “They get the best of the best!”
And there are, of course, the usual ways to get involved on campus. When Bausari started in January, she quickly found herself inundated with opportunities to make connections.
Before classes moved online in March, she’d found her community across several clubs and her sorority, Gamma Phi Beta.
“I knew I wanted to get involved, but I also knew you get out what you put in,” Bausari said. “At my old school I didn’t do anything freshman year, whereas here I’d made so much progress in a couple months, even in a pandemic.”
Loudoun County native Emma Donovan ‘22 applied to transfer from Virginia Wesleyan during her freshman year, and excitedly became a Captain that spring semester.
Now, she’s majoring in history, minoring in political science and is on track to complete her master of arts in teaching in 2023. She hopes to teach high school history after graduation.
She and Bausari have both worked as transfer ambassadors, shepherding new Captains through the same process they’ve experienced. And like Bausari, Donovan has found herself at home with ways to make friends, be academically driven and to be herself.
“At CNU there are so many opportunities that I don’t see other places. If you want experience with a job, they will help you. If you want a club about lightsabers, they have that. There’s something for everybody, and I think that that’s very cool because it’s such a small school. You have an intimate feeling, but there’s something for everybody.”
Learn more about transferring to Christopher Newport at cnu.edu/admission/transfer/