By Megan McConnell, Editor, Transfer eNewsletter
When my kids were about 3 and 5, one of their favorite books was a beautiful children's book called "The Hello, Goodbye Window," written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Chris Ruschka. In it, an exuberant little girl experiences the kitchen window near her grandparents' front door as a magical portal, a place where hellos and goodbyes to the most important people in the whole world—her parents and grandparents—are said, and perhaps more importantly, where her imagination is set free and ordinary events become extraordinary. The queen might come for tea, for example, and you'd see her first right through this window. The child might spend an afternoon watching the neighborhood cat become a tiger in the garden, right through this window. As the child narrator tells us: It looks like a regular window, but it's not.
May on a college campus always feels like the "Hello, Goodbye Month" to me. It is the time when we are wishing our graduates sincere congratulations on their accomplishments and hard work, and wishing them well in the next challenges and adventures in their lives. We are also carrying in our hearts and minds the incoming students and their families, the ones planning moves across thousands of miles, the ones embarking on something no one in their family has ever done before, the ones who come here with dreams of making the world a better place, and begin with a world-class education at the University of Washington.
What the book my children loved so much and the month where I say Hello and Goodbye on this campus have in common is the sense of wonder and discovery present in them both. The child narrator in the book exudes a sense of discovery every parent will recognize in their preschoolers...everything is new to them at that point in their lives, ordinary objects are fascinating, the world is full of possibilities that are theirs to discover. The UW is sort of like that, too. There are new disciplines waiting to be studied. Independence to be found. Scientific discoveries to be made. Lifelong friendships to embark upon.
In this issue of the Transfer eNewsletter, we hope to give you a taste of the opportunities to be discovered at the University of Washington. You might begin your discovery at Transfer Orientation or in a TRIG—a learning community designed for incoming transfer students—and we've got articles telling you more about both. Thought about study abroad? In the article on Studying Abroad, we interview two former transfer students who discovered a world far beyond the UW while earning academic credit toward their degrees here. In Technology for your Future, Computer Science & Engineering and Informatics advisers Raven Avery and Dowell Eugenio discuss how their majors will be accepting more students in the coming year, and how students with interests in technology and computing can pursue a variety of options at the UW. Opportunities to begin one's journey of discovery in summer quarter are also discussed in Mary Larson's article called Make Your Summer Count!
While much in the issue is about beginnings, it's just about time to say Goodbye to the student interviewed in this issue of the Transfer eNewsletter, a transfer student from Wenatchee Valley College who will be finishing his degree requirements in August. Jason Sims is one of my favorite students, a true renaissance guy with an interest in just about everything, and an Army veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His interview will be compelling to anyone who has served in the military, been interested in anything from art to politics to biology, or tried to balance being a parent while being a student.
In addition, we've got all our standard stories—an Admissions Update (ever heard it's easier to get in during summer quarter at the UW? Read whether that's true or not in Carlos Williams's article!), a summary of upcoming application deadlines for academic departments and the UW, information on upcoming scholarships, and updates from the Tacoma and Bothell campuses.
The Hello, Goodbye month...so much is possible! It's a good time, right now, to begin to imagine all the things you might discover at the University of Washington!