Though the quarters seemed to have dragged by slowly, it appears as if the end of my first year was silently biding its time to pop up out of nowhere. I would be lying to you if I stated that my first year at UCI was a complete dream. But it’s not as if it was a nightmare.
So the good, the bad, and the somewhat okay.
Fall quarter Addie was a bit too ambitious… My idea of being successful in college was structured around three main goals: maintain a high GPA, avoid the classic freshman fifteen, and have a great social life. Well, I accomplished about 1 ½ of those benchmarks. I don’t have straight A’s. I’m still pretty socially awkward. But I had an adequately consistent gym schedule, three solid friendships, and while it’s too early to tell what the results from finals are, I’m somewhat confident that Math 2A will be the only class I’ll fail. Not exactly what I would picture as the definition of success at the beginning of the year, but something I would not write off as complete failure now at the end of spring quarter.
If I were to teach a class on being undeclared, I think I would want the curriculum to be structured around the topic of being okay with failure. I would want students to know that you’re not always going to get the outcomes that you desire throughout the quarter. And that’s completely fine. For my first midterm for Biology 94, I scored a 68%. I also was not successful in getting a writing class at all this year. However, those events still resulted in me getting a B for Biology 94 and taking Political Science 31A- two of what I consider to be some of my greatest accomplishments. Although I still have yet to kick my habit of procrastination and my work habits definitely could use some improvement, failing that one midterm taught me a bad grade does not signify the end of the world. Overall, actually understanding the material is more important than getting an A out of the class.
Moreover, not getting into your preferred major right away and being Undeclared is not a setback. At the start of the year, I thought I was certain I wanted to major in Nursing. I had an ideal schedule set for my first two years at UCI that was centered around taking mainly Biology and Chemistry courses with a few GE’s scattered here and there. After scheduling Fall classes during orientation, that plan was basically thrown out the window. When I decided to challenge myself winter quarter by taking 16 units, and the writing classes had filled up, I picked a random GE- Political Science 31A. Despite the fact I am more leaning towards the possibility of majoring in Public Health and the likelihood of taking another Political Science class is relatively low, that class with Professor Chambers remains as my favorite for this year. Fingers crossed for the possibility of still getting into UCI’s nursing program. But looking back now, I’m grateful I had the opportunity to be Undeclared my first year because if I weren’t, I probably would not have signed up for a class that interested me yet was unrelated to my major. So for those of you who were slightly disappointed of being Undeclared, instead of seeing it as a setback, view it as an opportunity to explore your options.
Furthermore, this year was not absent from struggles. But a few of my professors and ZotBlog were highlights that made those difficult moments less painful. I never fell asleep during Professor Chambers lectures; she always made the course material easy to understand and engaging. And Biology 93 with Professor Taagepera is probably the second hardest course I have taken so far after Math 2A. But even with such a heavy workload and challenging midterms and finals, she showed me you can still love a subject that you don’t always understand. To end, I would like to give a huge thank you to Lauren for allowing me to be a part of ZotBlog. My favorite aspect of being one of its writers is being allowed an opportunity to reflect on your prior experiences at UCI and also having a counselor and second-year students answer a never-ending list of your questions.