2+2: What I Learned From Attending 2 Colleges in 4 Years

In November of 2012, my high school guidance counselor called me into her office and asked one question: “Do you plan on going to college?” My immediate reaction was, “Hmmm, yeah, I think so.”

No one in my family had ever gone to college, therefore, we never talked about it. When I talked to my family they stated that it was my decision. Over the coming weeks, I went to a few of my favorite teachers and asked them for advice.

After speaking to my Italian teacher I found a few schools in New England where I could study business. Mrs. Taliani was an alumnus of Providence College and told me about their programs and it sounded interesting. I told her that I planned on doing two years at Providence College — after being accepted — and two years at a school near Boston, which ended up being Babson College.

Providence College

Later on, I will explain what it is like to be a first-generation college student but my first week at Providence College was rough. During orientation, I even tried to drop out multiple times.

Providence College was a good choice because it was 15 minutes from my home, had a great liberal arts program, and they were expected to construct a brand new business school.

The man reason I attended is that I wanted a strong liberal arts education. I initially committed to Bryant University and backed out because of this factor. PC has a program called The Development of Western Civilization and dates back to roughly 3000 BC to Present day. It was incredibly intense but absolutely worth it. You take it over your first four semesters and gain enormous perspective of the world we live in.

After the program ended, I decided to transfer. The business school was delayed by two years, I wanted to go to school in Boston, and I had enough 4 years worth of fun in 2 years at PC.

The second component of education I sought was entrepreneurship. I initially went to college expecting to join the world of business, but now I wanted to start my own. These two years taught me a lot about myself. I accredit this to the number of mistakes I made. My GPA second semester of freshman year was a 2.0 at 14 credits — I never went to class. Sophomore year my GPA’s were a 3.6 and 3.8, at 16 and 20 credits, respectively.

When I was searching for a college to transfer to, I saw a banner at the career fair that stated, “Babson College: #1 in Entrepreneurship for 21 years.” I had never heard of it but decided to apply and was accepted.

Babson College

After having a better understanding of college and what I wanted to do with my life, my second college was fairly easy to navigate. I knew not to join too many clubs, started focusing on my professional life — via exploring startups — and how to take the right courses, and skip the ones not worth my time.

Babson was heavily focused on entrepreneurship and people were incredibly serious about advancing their careers. About 50% of the student body is from a family business and 31% of the college is international. This brought a lot of diversity that I did not find at PC, which was about 90% white.

Entrepreneurship was my ultimate passion and being able to focus on the next chapter of my life brought a lot of difficult and good times. There are a lot of social groups at Babson and my first year I did not make too many friends, versus knowing everyone at PC. Being an introvert at a highly extroverted, Type A school is thought-provoking. Therefore, I lived in a single and focused on developing myself.

Senior year I was invited to live in eTower, which houses 21 of the top entrepreneurs on campus. During this year I took part in Babson’s San Francisco Summer Venture Program, represented Babson at the Forbes 30U30 Summit as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Scholar, became a Kairos Fellow and Hive Global Leader, started writing for the #2 blog on Medium (The Mission), won the MIT Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp in Australia, and was named one of the top 100 Social Enablers Globally.

What Did I Learn?

When I look back on these experiences I realize that I could not last four years at either of these schools. I like to change my environment often and prevent being stuck in a bubble based on the same ideologies.

Being able to gain a liberal arts, then a business background, gave me great perspective and exposure to learning. It is my belief that the path I chose to take helped me accomplish these goals before graduating, and has set me up for success after college. Therefore, if I would take the exact same strategy to college as I executed.

Transferring schools is not an easy thing to do from both an administrative point as well as your mental well-being. If there is enough interest, I would love to share some tips on how to successfully transfer colleges. This decision is incredibly risky but absolutely worth it if you do it right.

Furthermore, by gaining new experiences life is more fulfilling, you meet different people, share different moments, and are able to become a stronger thinker. Ultimately, I highly recommend this method but do not suggest going to more than two undergraduate schools. You want new experiences, but you have to be there long enough to understand the ecosystem.

Brendan is a Co-Founder and CEO of Shelfie Challenge, which pins sports rivals against each other to raise money for local nonprofits. For any questions or suggestions on the blog or Shelfie, please contact him: [email protected] or on Twitter @barbatobrendan.

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