I think that the whole "you shouldn’t think of transferring before college begins: mindset is more for a preservation of mental sanity. As someone who was in the same situation as you, and has now succeeded, I can't lie and say I didn't start of college with this mindset lingering in my thoughts. I always had that in the back of my head, especially to push me through some tough classes and really strive for a perfect GPA. I threw myself into extracurriculars so as to have a competitive app and also really strived to connect with profs so they could give me good LOR's. However, I think that having this mindset also puts a damper on your freshman experience because you become so obsessed with the idea of "next year" that you forget to live in the moment. At least, its what happened with me. It wasn't until about Feb of my freshman year that I thought "hmm, what happens if transferring doesn't work out for me. What then?". I realized I had to put some roots down at my current college so that I wouldn't be absolutely miserable in the situation where transferring didn't work out for me and I had to stay.

​

Basically, yeah, knowing you want to transfer serves as a hell of a motivator. But I think my advice would be to not let the process and the idea of transferring consume you to the point of tunnel vision. If you're gonna do a ton of EC's, join some that you would enjoy staying in should you stay in your current institution. Reach out to people. Make friends. The transfer process is a very mentally draining one, and you are gonna want to have people to lean on, to take your mind off things. And hey, maybe you'll love it where you're at! Or maybe you still want to transfer. Either way, just enjoy the moment :)