On Monday, Sept.12, Bakersfield College held their annual University Transfer Day on the Student Crossroads Lawn. The event commenced at 9 a.m. and concluded at 1 p.m.

More than 30 college representatives were on campus, of which included: UC Berkeley, UCLA, Humboldt State, Whittier College, University of Alaska Fairbanks and many more. The goal of transfer day was to provide students with the opportunity to gather information regarding everything from costs per semester to scholarship opportunities at all of these prospective schools. Students were encouraged to have face-to-face interactions with representatives from institutions they are thinking of attending.

Bakersfield College student Samuel Nelson, 19, thought that the event helped put into perspective how many different schools and opportunities there are for students. “With the amount of schools present it really opened my eyes to all these different opportunities out there,” Nelson said.

Nelson believes the event accomplished its goal of informing students about the requirements to transfer to their desired school or university.

While the point of the event was to provide information to students about transferring, it was clear that not all students felt informed about the event.

Gina Fields, 19, stated that she had not heard of transfer day prior to the event taking place. Fields said that she did not know what the tables set up throughout the Crossroads Lawn were for, or why they were there. “I thought it was a food fair,” she said.

Fields believes the event would have been more effective had she known in advance it was taking place. “It would be nice if the administration would post around campus as well as sending an email letting everyone know about upcoming events. Doing so would help people prepare and do the necessary steps to make the events actually mean something,” Fields said.

According to Fields, she felt that because the majority of the student body was unaware that transfer day was going on, the event was a waste of time and effort. “It’s a waste of funds. You had all this planned and didn’t tell anyone. It’s like telling people you’re going ice skating the day of and they have other plans so they can’t come.”

Jenna Haywood, 18, felt that the event would have been more beneficial if the school took more time to inform the students what was going on. “They should walk around and say, hey this is what we’re doing,” Haywood said.

Out of 20 students polled about whether or not they knew transfer day was taking place, 18 of them said no. Of those 20, all 20 said they would like to see the event held next year with more notice so they can participate.