Transfer Talk Tuesdays: Research as a Transfer Student
Transfer Talk Tuesdays are a series of personal blogs where current USC transfer students dive deeper into their real-life stories, perspectives, and experiences in transferring to USC. Note that each transfer application is unique and there are no guaranteed paths to transfer. For guidance on how to put together a competitive transfer application, please review our Transferring to USC brochure.
My name is Darya Esmaeilshirazi, and I’m a senior at USC studying Health and Human Sciences on the pre-dental track. I transferred from El Camino College, and I want to be an oral oncologist working in underserved community dental clinics. I transferred to USC in fall 2020 and started my journey at USC during the COVID-19 pandemic. While my journey of adjustment to USC and being on the pre-dental track could’ve been challenging, I still truly felt that I received the whole Trojan experience and explored USC via research and other meaningful extracurricular experiences.
My decision to apply as a transfer student at USC started with a four-day program at the USC Ostrow School of Dentistry called the Pre-Dental Explorers program. While I was among the few community college students attending the program, I felt a true sense of support and community amongst the students. With guidance from the faculty, I decided that I’d like to transfer to USC for my undergraduate studies. Initially, I was concerned about the cost of attending USC and finding extracurricular opportunities given the big student body of the school. I was contemplating whether attending a smaller school would allow me to explore more close relationships with my professors. I thought it would be easier for me to do research and other activities if the school size was smaller. However, through asking friends I made during my dental internship program and my conversations with my Admission Counselor, I realized that there is a ton of support for all students despite the size of the student body. Now that I have been a Trojan for two years, I can say that the individual support and attention I received were impeccable, and I’m so glad I decided to attend USC despite my initial concerns.
Once I started at USC, as a first-generation student on a pre-health track, I felt as though I had to do everything. My first semester was filled with volunteer activities, clubs, and other extracurricular activities. However, I honestly struggled to find a research position – specifically a research position that was meaningful and rewarding to me. Most labs, if not all, were not taking students due to COVID-19 restrictions, and I remember many failed trials to find a lab or a professor that allowed me to do research with them. I explored various ways to find volunteer positions. Initially, I started by reading the research work of the faculty in the Psychology department, and I began by ‘cold’ emailing the professors whose work was interesting to me and explained to them that I’d like to do research with them. They all were very supportive and told me with regrets that they wouldn’t offer me a position due to COVID-19 restrictions, but that I can email them back again in a few months. I then started to ask my friends and other professors about positions if they knew of any. Finally, I was able to apply for a position at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA), which I learned about through the Instagram page of the psychology department. While doing my research at CHLA, I learned about a short-term position at the Social Psychology department through a professor whom I expressed interest in researching with months ago.
My best advice to find a research position at USC as a transfer student is not to give up and explore all means of resources! The process of transferring and finding meaningful extracurricular experiences is a little challenging. However, I genuinely believe that there is an experience for all types of interests at USC to be explored and with patience and hard work, finding those experiences is possible!
Written by: Darya Esmaeilshirazi, 4th year, Health and Human Sciences