When Sarah Kammers, a Monmouth County native, was making college plans, Rutgers never crossed her mind. “I thought Rutgers was way too big,” she said. “My high school was so small—there were only 60 people in the entire graduating class, and I liked that kind of environment.” So she played it safe, stayed close to home, and chose Brookdale Community College.
With its Georgian Colonial architecture and sprawling lawns, the Douglass Campus is where you’ll find Douglass Residential College, the university’s women’s residential college.
The campus is home to the Eagleton Institute of Politics and to the social and intellectual ferment of the Global Village, a group of living-learning communities, such as the East Asian House and the Human Rights House.
Changing schools in mid-stream can be a challenge. Senior Nadia Ahmadein made it clear sailing. Read more.
A chance encounter in her local supermarket caused her to rethink her options. “Normally, you don’t get college advice while you’re standing in the produce aisle, but I did,” she recalls. “I ran into a family friend who asked me why I hadn’t considered Rutgers. I explained my fear of the buses and how I thought I would get lost in such a large environment,” Sarah says. “She explained that Rutgers was only a big place until you started. And that once I had, its size would be a huge advantage for me because it allowed the university to offer so many experiences inside and outside the classroom that I would never be bored. That really hit home.”
Since Sarah was not completely sure of the direction she wanted to take with her information technology major at Brookdale, her friend suggested she look into the programs that comprise the “Douglass Difference” for women that teach empowerment skills and offer special support for female students in the sciences. She started researching Douglass Residential College online, and the more she learned about the Douglass Project for Rutgers Women in Math, Science, and Engineering and read about the women’s leadership course, the more she became convinced that the program was perfect for her.
She jumped in and applied to transfer to Rutgers–New Brunswick. “Waiting to hear if I was accepted was the longest two months of my life! As soon as I was accepted, I applied for a NetID and did anything I could to prove to myself that I was really an official Rutgers student,” Sarah says.
Using Rutgers Day in April as a way to explore the university’s academic and fun side, Sarah visited the Douglass Campus for the first time. Everything she saw further convinced her that she had made the right decision. “I could just imagine myself going to school here, walking around campus, and living in a dorm,” she says.
“It really hit me that this was real, when I came to Transfer Student Orientation Day, she says. Even though I was familiar with how college worked, it was exciting to go to all the events and programs that Rutgers offers transfer students to get them oriented.”
She was really impressed when she went to a separate orientation for Douglass students. “I got to meet the girls, take tours of the school, participate in group activities, and talk to my future professors. It was so refreshing to see all these caring and fun people who were going to be a part of my life the next two years and beyond,” Sarah says.
“When I chose Brookdale, my mother encouraged me to not make it my 13th year of high school and really embrace my new school. I took her advice,” she says. “I applied myself to my classes and joined clubs like the International Student Association where I ended up making friends from almost every continent,” Sarah says. “That exposure to college life gave me the confidence to really appreciate the world of things that Rutgers has to offer. There is so much to do here that if you can think it, Rutgers has it.”
This School of Communication and Information student has come a long way from her high school days when she was afraid of Rutgers. The day she moved in was during a raging hurricane—on her birthday—and when she thinks about her nervousness over the buses now, it just makes her laugh. “It only took me two days to figure out the big bad bus system on the Douglass and College Avenue campuses,” says Sarah.
As she gets ready for her Douglass externship this spring and graduation in May with a degree in information technology and informatics and a newly created minor in digital communication information and media, she knows that her Rutgers experience has prepared her well and that she is capable of overcoming anything.
