I’m Hannah Jung. Daughter. Sister. Christian. Athlete. Korean-American. Elementary Education major with a focus in Language Arts and a minor in Spanish. Transfer student.
I started my time in college as a freshman at Grand Valley State University. I loved it, but transferred to Michigan State University for the second semester of freshman year. This is because I applied to MSU late, so I was accepted for the spring semester and went to GVSU for fall. While I loved my time at Grand Valley, I do not regret leaving. Being a transfer can definitely come with some challenges. By leaving friends and the familiarity gained in that first semester, it’s easy to feel lonely at a huge new place like MSU, but lucky for me, I had family nearby. My RA was my cousin and my brother also went here. Having family here was great, but my roommate situation was not.
My roommate my first semester here at MSU was crazy! She had the cops called on her and moved out after about five weeks without saying a thing. In total, throughout my freshman year, I had five roommates, so I decided to go into my sophomore year with a single. Shortly into the semester, a teammate of mine ended up moving in with me because she was having roommate trouble herself, and no one truly understands roommate troubles like I do.
Another struggle of being a transfer student comes with credits. Some of my Grand Valley credits didn’t transfer so that means I have to make them up. I’m taking 18 credits this semester and took 17 credits last semester. Taking 18 credits is crazy, but I started this year with freshman standing and I’m set to finish this semester as a junior, so hard work pays off.
I really enjoy spending time with kids, which is how I chose Elementary Education as my major. I’m just more comfortable with kids and they make me happy. I chose a Language Arts focus, because I hate everything else (like math), and a Spanish minor to make myself trilingual. My sister’s reaction to this is, “So you’re a Korean that speaks Korean and English with a Spanish minor, but you want to teach kids English???”
And yeah, that’s exactly what I want to do.
This story originally appeared in Facing College: Diverse Student Voices, a publication of The Facing Project that was organized by Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.