Transfer students and family milled into the Fireside Room Thursday, greeted by a trumpet blaring cheerfully over excited chatter.
The Transfer/Career Center’s 14th annual Transfer Reception began without a hitch at 2:30 p.m., with nearly all the seats provided occupied.
“We’re here to celebrate your accomplishments,” Transfer/Career Center Coordinator Robin Harrison said to the audience, welcoming friends and family as well as the number of Contra Costa College students transferring to four-year colleges or universities in the fall.
The reception began with a variety of speakers from within CCC’s administration, including President McKinley Williams, Vice President Carol Maga and Transfer/Career Center collaborator Kenyetta Tribble, as well as speakers from admissions offices at different universities in California.
The main theme of their opening remarks were congratulations for the students moving on, as well as an emphasis on perseverance.
“Make sure that you finish what you started here,” Williams, said. “Stay the course.” Maga also drove home the importance of persistence.
“Eighty-five to 95 percent of the game is sticking through it,” Maga said. “Take that joy you had with us here into your next college experience, but know that CCC is a place you can always call home.”
The messages remained in this vein, light and brief, until Senior Dean of Students Frank Hernandez approached the podium. Though he also offered his congratulations to the transfers, he coupled them with a warning.
“Our state and college system is faced with problems the likes of which we’ve never seen,” Hernandez said, alluding to the budget crisis looming “like a black cloud” on the horizon. “We will fight; and you are why we are fighting. You are the proof (of our accomplishments).”
He said the students in the crowd need to survive, to push, to succeed.
“Most of all, you need to come back,” Hernandez said, “to help, to give, in whichever way you can.”
The next round of speakers was doing just that. A handful of CCC alumni who have moved onto four-year universities — UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Stanford, to name a few — each spoke briefly about what a transfer student from CCC can expect once he or she makes the leap.
They shared anecdotes about their first semesters away, dropped tips on how to stay ahead in the system and warned of overwhelming class sizes and reading assignments.
“(Transferring) is like coming from elementary school right into college,” CCC alumnus and UC Berkeley student Victoria Chavez-Casias said. “My first semester (at UC Berkeley) was really, really scary. My advice is to do what you have to do to make sure you’re known by your professors and the school.”
CCC alumnus and Cal State-East Bay student Sikia Blue warned that transferring is a big step.
“But a lot of the things you learn here help tremendously,” she said. “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.”
Many of the students in the audience said they believed CCC did a fine job preparing them for their next educational experience.
Each of the students in attendance was called to the podium to receive a certificate of transference, much like a graduation ceremony.
Student Alma Perez was one in particular who said she was excited to move on.
“I’ve been here for three years,” Perez said, “but not because I’ve been lazy. I’ve just been taking my time before (making the next step).”
Contact Cassidy Gooding at cgooding.advocate@gmail.com
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