The new Transfer Admissions Center has helped bring a bevy of new students to CU Denver. The CU Denver Business School has been a benefactor as CU Denver makes the transition for transfer students a seamless one. One such student is Olivia Snyder.

Snyder grew up in Los Alamos, N.M., and is used to small-town life, she doesn’t shy from jumping into the urban bustle. She immerses herself in the Mile High City by attending CU Denver, living downtown and, whenever possible, enjoying coffee shops and art galleries. Recently, Snyder strolled into a sea of orange to join half of Denver (seemingly) for a pre-playoff-game rally in Larimer Square.

Just a few months before embracing Broncomania, Snyder transferred to CU Denver from the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos (UNM-LA, a two-year institution). During the festive rally, the New Mexico native was asked if she enjoys her new university, city and state. “Oh, definitely,” Snyder said with a smile. “I have too many friends right now. Actually, it’s hard to organize it all.”

Transfer students like Snyder currently make up half of the incoming class at CU Denver. As a transfer student, new campus surroundings are just one thing to ponder. Other questions that arise: Will my credits transfer? What will the culture of this university be like? How can I fit in?

‘Very smooth’

Thanks to CU Denver’s welcoming atmosphere, all of those pieces came together nicely for Snyder, who enrolled at CU Denver in fall 2015. “It was very smooth,” she says of transferring from UNM-LA. “I know that at some (universities) it gets a bit rough to transfer, it gets a little complicated, but not here. CU Denver made it clear what credits counted, what didn’t and what I might need to do to get others counted, so it was really nice.”

Snyder is representative of CU Denver students in general: They have a strong desire to learn with purpose. Raul Cardenas, PhD, vice chancellor of Student Affairs, notes that our transfer students are – similar to CU Denver’s overall student body – diverse, often non-traditional and goal-oriented. “Our transfer students are an important part of the university,” he says. “They’re really focused, they have experience and they’re looking for somewhere to help them close the deal – meaning finish their bachelor’s degree.”

Like Snyder, many students start in a community college to develop a technical skill, or get a better idea of the career they’d like to pursue. “At CU Denver, we provide an important service by really helping fulfill many of these students’ dreams,” Cardenas says. “We opened the one-stop Transfer Admission Center last fall, and students are going to see more services being continually offered to transfer students.”

Olivia Snyder clarified her goals while at UNM-LA: She wanted to go to college to develop her art skills, but she also wanted to work on her business and networking skills. Now she is a double-major, studying painting-drawing in the College of Arts & Media and marketing in the CU Denver Business School.

“I like how major cities provide more opportunities than other places, so I started to look in that direction,” she says. “I felt like Denver was a little different (from where she grew up), but I was familiar with it because we visited often.”

CU Denver fit the bill on yet another front. Because CU Denver is part of the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) – and New Mexico is also in the 16-state WUE network – Snyder saves on tuition costs every year by virtue of being a WUE student. “I was looking at Western colleges (that are part of WUE),” she says. “Otherwise, I probably would have gone to an art institute back East.”

Transferring to CU Denver was “super smooth,” Snyder says. About half of her credits from UNM-LA transferred, but Snyder expects more will be accepted. “I’m talking with advisors about getting more credits transferred over,” she says. “Most colleges don’t do that – they’re black-and-white with it, either yes or no – but here at CU Denver they’ve been lenient and worked with me. So I like that.”

In addition to her school work, Snyder is a member of the Life Drawing Club and she landed a part-time marketing internship in University Communications. She’s in her sophomore year, but Snyder already has a clear idea of what she wants to do: “I want to open a coffee shop/art gallery,” she says. “I want to be my own boss and pursue the fine arts.”

To learn more about a degree in marketing at CU Denver, click HERE.