Howdy Everyone!

Hello everyone! I’m Brandon Ro and I’m your third and final writer for Zot Blog! I’m from San Jose, California, which is just south of San Francisco for those who don’t know, but now I’m living at Gray Havens at Middle Earth. I’m in a triple with two of my high school buddies Ryan and Calvin, and you can usually find us either at the top floor of Pippins watching Family Feud, or shooting pool in the Tolkien Game Room.

My hobbies are mostly pretty nerdy, and the two clubs that I frequent are Fighting Gamers at UCI, and Tabletop Games Club. I’m also a part of Acts 2 Fellowship, a Christian group that meets on Fridays for food, bible study, and fellowship (as the name suggests). I’m also into all different kinds of music, horror movies, video games, anime, food, and baseball, but I’m always open to trying new things!

Currently my major is undecided but I’m actively trying to transfer into Business Administration, so I’ve been pretty focused with trying to stay on top of my studies. I’m taking MGMT 30A (Intro to Accounting), ECON 20A (Micro Econ), and Sociology 2 (Globalization), so if we share any classes hit me up! So far transitioning into UCI has actually been pretty smooth! I think it definitely helps that I’m living with people I already know, but I’ve been enjoying campus life and all of my classes. There’s definitely a noticeable increase in work coming from high school, but I was expecting the worst so I haven’t been too caught off guard. Dorm life has been peaceful so far, aside from the three fake fire alarms and subsequent evacuations. >_> The rooms are nice, the beds are comfy, the food is good, but the bathrooms are another story. Okay they’re not really that bad, but if you remember anything from this post, look for bathrooms in hallways or floors of the opposite gender. I live on the third floor in a hall with a bunch of other dudes, and everyone uses the same bathroom at the end of the hall. I’m not sure if anyone else on our floor knows this, but there’s another men’s bathroom on the floor below that nobody uses because that side of the floor is all ladies. It’s pretty much like my roommates and I have a bathroom all to ourselves, and although we suspect others will catch onto this sooner rather than later, we’re trying to enjoy the luxury while we can.

I’m hoping to have a successful year, and I hope that I get to meet a lot of new people and readers! I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences as a first year with all of you and I hope I can help bring some enjoyable content to the Blog. See you next post.

-Brandon

Me and my girlfriend Amanda!

Greetings!

Hellos and warm welcomes to all the fellow anteaters, allow me to introduce myself as Josh. I look forward to writing about my experiences here at the University of California, Irvine.

Some details about me are that I was originally born in Northern California, Fremont to be exact, and moved down to a small town called Eastvale when I was in the 3rd grade. A major I would be interested in taking would be Computer Science since that seems to be the trend for many jobs in the STEM fields. My hobbies are rather simple, I enjoy going out with friends, playing video games in my dorm room on the weekends, and just chilling out with some music.

My first two weeks were pretty exhilarating as the university campus is a new environment for me so there was so much to do. Week 1 was quite hectic because I held myself to a crazy standard of waking up a full hour before my classes started so that I would be sure that I would have enough time for my morning routine which, unsurprisingly, only took around 15 of those 60 minutes I afforded to myself. That being said, waking up an hour early did pay off one day when my roommate left for classes while I was in the shower. We have an agreement that if no one is in the room we would lock the door so that our stuff can be secured but my roommate forgot I was in the shower so he ended up locking my keys in the room as well. So I had to walk into the Mesa Court Housing Office in a towel and sandals and figure out what to do. As it turns out getting locked out due to a roommate was a common occurrence so that was, personally, a relief to hear I wasn’t the first instance. I was given replacement keys to my hall and room and was sent on my way. So the moral of the story here is… Always bring your keys with you when you’re on campus, even when in your own hall. Week 2 was definitely more relaxed than Week 1 because a couple hallmates and I went to the beach to just enjoy the sun before submerging the study submarine in preparation for the first midterms of our UCI careers. The lows of Weeks 1 and 2 were pretty much non-existent mainly because I can’t recall them at the time of writing this post.

Onwards to classes! Classes have been pretty well spread out through the week I am only REALLY busy on Wednesdays. Currently I am enrolled in Environmental Engineering Challenges (ENGRCEE 60), Math 2A, Writing 39C, and University Studies 1. If anything in my classes this quarter surprised me, it was how interested I was in the topics being discussed in my ENGRCEE 60 class. I think it’s in the way that the professor explains the topic that let’s you know that she is an expert in that field. That being said, Math 2A is like one of those classes where you just gotta suck it up and do it. Writing 39C is the last class for the lower-division writing requirement and it involves research and argument. My professor in that class is an absolute blast to be around and makes the class more like a critical thinking class than a writing class. University Studies 1 is in my opinion what it is advertised to be, an easy A to help your college GPA. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it and say that it has some work because that class has loads of just busy work but the thing is, if you end up getting ahead of the deadlines it’s a class you never have to worry about. In my hall, it seems that if you just sit around in the commons you are bound to meet a majority of the residents and so I made a few friends in that time.

Besides that there seems to be a large portion of people from my high school here at UCI so I have quite a number of familiar faces. Overall my time at UCI has been extremely fun and not too stressful, given that midterms haven’t started yet so there’s that. I hope to have an eventful first year with all of you. 

 

Zot On!

Josh Yow

Hello!

Hi everyone! I’m Nancy Duong and I’m so excited to be writing for the UU Zot Blog! A little bit about me is I’m from Anaheim (Disneyland!) which is about 25 minutes away from UCI.

Although I live close, I really wanted the dorming experience so I’m living in Valimar in Middle Earth. Side note, people say Middle Earth is the worst housing but I honestly don’t mind it. It’s close to classes, especially SSL and ICF, and nice and quiet. There is construction going on right now, so that’s a small hassle, but it doesn’t bother me. And, you can always go visit Mesa if you want too! I do it all the time since most of my friends live in Mesa and it takes about 12 minutes. Then you’ll get your steps in. Fun fact: I average 20,000 steps a day (about 8 miles) and my record so far is 27,034 steps (11.2 miles)! UCI’s campus is huge so you’ll get your exercise in. Especially if you have 10 minute gaps between your classes and sprint across campus like me.

So I actually applied to UCI as UU because I don’t know what I want to do yet, but that’s okay! This quarter I’m taking public health orientated classes: Bio Sci 93, Chem 1A, and Writing 39C. I quickly learned that I hate biology, so public health is not for me, but good thing I’m undeclared so I can take business classes next quarter! Anyways. week 3 came up so fast. Even though I was part of Summer Bridge, I was still thrown off by the quick pace of the quarter system (I have midterms this week!) and the crazy amount of reading for each class. The transition has been a little hectic because it’s so different from high school. I would definitely recommend investing in an agenda because professors will not remind you about assignments! Trust me, I’ve missed two deadlines already… Aside from academics, I’ve joined Mustard Seeds (predominantly Vietnamese Catholic group) and VSA (Vietnamese Student Association) along with going to a few dance workshops. There’s so much going on at UCI, you’’ definitely find something for you. Try something new! I’ve never danced before and have no rhythm, but still had fun at the workshops and met a lot of new people.

I can’t wait to keep sharing my year with you guys so stick around and join me on my first year journey and if you see me around campus please say hi! 🙂

Welcome to Zot Blog 2017-2018!

Thank you to everyone who visits our site. I’m pleased to welcome 3 talented young writers to our 2017-2018 team: Nancy, Josh, and Brandon.

They are all Undergraduate/Undeclared freshmen who will be writing about their first year experiences. I hope you all find their experiences and insights valuable!

Please look forward to their first posts.

Best,

Lauren Bermudez
(U/U Academic Counselor and ZotBlog Coordinator)