CSUMB Orientation begins with transfer students flocking to campus

By Mark Muckenfuss

More than 2,000 incoming students are learning their way around the Cal State Monterey Bay campus both last week and this week as the university holds orientation for both transfer and first-year students. 

The annual orientation events offer an opportunity for students to acclimate and get squared up to start the fall semester. 

“I would say it’s essential for their transition,” said Kaci Turpin, director of New Student Programs. “They’re meeting with students and learning more about their home here at CSUMB.”

In fact, during the daylong events, students could scout out the locations of their fall classes, meet with faculty and administrators, tour the campus and meet with financial aid advisors and academic counselors. 

Ben Corpus, vice president of enrollment management and student affairs, said he was pleased with the feedback he was hearing from students and parents. 

“They’re saying the atmosphere is like a small private liberal arts college and people are genuinely friendly,” Corpus said. “The quality of the experience is impressing them.”

Corpus said he was also happy that the number of applications for fall is up for the second straight year. 

That showed in the groups of students trailing behind tour guides as they wound their way through campus, in the scores of chattering voices as new students got to know one another while lunching outside near the Otter Student Union, and in the crowds that hovered around the rows of informational tables that dominated the main quad, manned by various clubs, organizations and academic programs.

It was there that Makay Haynes was headed on Friday, June 20. Haynes, of Oakland, is a psychology major transferring from Sacramento City College. 

“I want to see what kinds of clubs and organizations I can get involved in,” Haynes said. 

Orientation was her first in-person encounter with CSUMB and she was genuinely pleased that picking a “small campus with intimate class sizes” was turning out to be a good choice for her. 

“Everything I’ve seen, I like it,” she said. “It’s a nice-sized campus but not too overwhelming.”

“It’s elegant,” said Josh Jimenez, an accounting major from King City who is transferring from Hartnell College. “It’s very clean and very open,” he added of his initial assessment of the campus. “I was always optimistic about it. Everybody seems super excited for us.”

Mairanna Castro, of Gilroy, was excited herself. Transferring from Gavilan College, she plans to study social work. Getting to CSUMB has been a long journey. 

“I’m a single mother,” Castro said, noting she has a 3-year-old boy. When he was born, she said, she was homeless. Some state programs assisted her in enrolling in school and finding housing. She now tries to return that favor by volunteering to help others do the same. 

She chose CSUMB, she said, because she sees the same kind of support here that she enjoyed at Gavilan. 

“They take care of their transfer students, which really caught my eye,” she said. “It made it more comforting knowing I would be supported.”

Castro said that when she arrived for orientation, she sat in her car for a moment and cried. 

"I felt so grateful coming to the campus,” she said. “I never saw myself as having access to education. It’s helped me find my sense of identity. My identity helped me find my purpose and now I’m here.”

Students who are interested in enrolling at CSUMB can contact the Office of Admissions.