After two long years at Moorpark College, I’ve finally made it to UCLA, where my remaining two years seem all too short.

My educational world has expanded from a small cluster of buildings concentrated around a single walkway, to a huge expanse of giant lecture halls, networks of paths and staircases, and more to see and do than anywhere else I’ve lived before.

On the rough exterior, UCLA, or any four-year institution, seems like quite the impersonal place. Whereas Moorpark College had student services for just about anything, students expect to be left to their own devices at university.

My experience has been just the opposite, however.

Here, I feel like the counseling department is truly looking out for students on their degree path. As a transfer into the psychology department, the counseling team made sure that all the new third-year students were able to enroll in the first of two required courses to enter the major.

The university also offers all students low-cost health insurance on campus, career and job services and, of course, more educational opportunities than a community college has the means to provide.

Living on campus adds the most important dimension to attending a four-year school.

To me, living on campus, as opposed to commuting, is a must. I live on a floor with almost 100 other students ranging from first years to third years, and about 20 transfer students. It really helps to try and meet all your floor-mates.

At community college, I really only knew a handful of people that I met on the newspaper staff or already knew from high school. I met the fewest from the classes I took. I have found new friends, study groups and partners-in-crime amongst my floor-mates and roommates. Each floor really acts as its own community, where everyone is friendly with each other (so far) and tries to help one another.

This is, perhaps, the most important of all the university experiences. Sure, I can get free services and earn a degree from a prestigious university, but it wouldn’t be the same without this amazing group of people to share it with.

College life seems like too much sometimes to fully understand in just two years. At MC, my college career was counting up towards university, but now it is counting down to graduation.

Transfer students must be prepared to make the best of the two to three years they have at this truly formative and influential place.

There will never be another opportunity like it.