Wow. My first year of college went by in the blink of an eye.
Some of my biggest milestones this year: finishing the last math classes of my entire life (hopefully), maintaining decent grades while online learning, getting fully vaccinated, and completing several internships! I got to say… I’m proud of myself for not giving up. This year was rough for all of us and there were many lows but also many highs, but I think we’re nearing the light at the end of the tunnel. Hang in there everyone, I have faith everything will return to normal again soon. We’re getting there.
I think my most impactful class this year has been the honors humanities core series! The theme this year was animals, people, and power, and this course has really changed my worldview. It’s made me think about our responsibilities as humans in our relationship with animals–something I wrote about for my research paper this quarter and am quite proud of. Less often, I find myself blindly consuming meat products, something I have felt guilt about before. I think even insects have garnered my sympathy after this course and I am very much not an insect person. The texts, media, topics, and ensuing in-depth discussion really made me reconsider my part in this complex ecosystem. I highly recommend this course to any freshman. Non Honors students can also take humcore, the discussions are just a little different! As an honors student, I really enjoyed the small group discussions lead by the seminar leaders. I have to shout out to Professor Berghof for being such a supportive and knowledgeable professor! I had him for two out of three classes in the series and really enjoyed being in his section! I don’t think my research paper would have turned out as good as it did without his help.
Now a little about the undeclared life… I’ll be honest, being an undeclared student is not the easiest thing, but college life was never supposed to be easy. So, if you are coming in as an undeclared freshman, do not fret. My tips for you are as follows. Keep up with the emails and actually read them. I know there are a lot of emails that you receive but missing just one bit of important information can really set you back. Avoid that at all costs! Another thing is to reach out to your advisors; they are there to help you! Go to advising appointments and get things figured out. Lastly, join the clubs that interest you. You’ll get a better idea of what you want to major in and meet like-minded people with similar interests. Personally, I joined several career-focused clubs like Human Resources Association and Business Careers in Entertainment to get a feel for what fields I’d like to pursue. By the way, I’m going to be director of marketing on the BCEC board next year! I’m super excited to take the club to new heights. I highly recommend joining the two clubs I mentioned as they really helped me grow professionally and participate in campus social life–something that is difficult as a remote student stuck in her own home! I met so many great people and it has been an unforgettable club experience this year.
I cannot express how grateful I am to have been able to be a Zotblog writer this year. As someone who started college feeling very isolated from the UCI campus, this internship helped me to feel less alone. I was never much into journaling or writing out my casual thoughts so this was something new and exciting to me. Reading my fellow Zotbloggers’ posts and knowing that they were finding their way as an undeclared student made things feel a little more okay. I don’t know how many people actually read my posts but I think just knowing that a little piece of my life is out there for everyone to read and experience alongside me made things better.
So… I guess this is goodbye. I wish you all the best in life. Things are only going to go up from here!
Your friend,
Vivian