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My Last Zot Blog :(

My first year at UCI is coming to an end, how crazy is that? As I have mentioned in many of my blogs, I had no idea what to expect coming to my first year of college. I was away from home for the first time, in a new environment, and ready to start a new chapter in my life. From my first blog to writing my very last one, I have learned so much about myself, experienced so many things, and met so many amazing people. For my last blog post, I just wanted to reflect on each quarter and highlight some of my favorite parts of my first year at UCI.

The fall quarter was probably the most terrifying part of my first year. I was very scared but excited to move away from home for the first time. I spent my fall quarter getting used to academics in college and being independent. I also spent time trying to discover different clubs that I wanted to join. Especially during the first few weeks of school, I attended meetings as much as I could. I mostly focused on going to dance workshops and meetings for Kababayan at UCI. Most of my classes were online, so I spent lots of my time studying in the study rooms in my dorm. I became close with my roommates and made new friends with people in my dorm. During this quarter, I explored different areas around Irvine. One of my favorite places that I went to with my friends was Corona del Mar. It’s a beach that is pretty close to campus. This was one of my favorite memories during the fall quarter because it was one of the first times I got to explore off-campus with my friends.

My winter quarter was probably the quarter I struggled with the most. I began to become more involved with one club, Kababayan at UCI, by participating in their internship program. For 10 weeks, I was able to learn more about the club, create programs, host general meetings, and create memories with my intern class and board. While this was an amazing opportunity, it did come with a lot of time and commitment. I struggled with balancing academics and extracurriculars for the first few weeks of school. I was also taking harder classes than the quarter before, so it was a lot more difficult for me this quarter. I started to learn more about handling stress and ways to become better at balancing my academics and extracurriculars. 

My spring quarter was more relaxed. I mostly spent my time focusing on finishing my first year strong. I took the lessons I learned from the past two quarters and applied them. This quarter was very important to me as it was the last time I could hang out with my friends before leaving for the summer. During the last few weeks of school, I got to celebrate the school year by attending a banquet and going out with my friends for the last time this year. At Kababayan at UCI’s banquet, I got to go to the Venue by Three Petals at Huntington Beach. I ate some delicious Filipino food from Seafood City, watch a talent show, watch some lip dubs, and learn who the new board is for next year. In the end, we were able to dance on the dance floor as the DJ played music. I also took lots of pictures with my intern class, mentor, and many other friends! 

Finals week was probably the most memorable part of my spring quarter. My birthday was during this week, so it was a bit stressful. After I finished all my finals, I went out to dinner at Mad Dumplings with my friends. Afterward, I celebrated my birthday by eating cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes. It was nice getting to celebrate my birthday with my closest friends and eat some good cake. On my last day in Irvine, I went out to dinner at BCD to celebrate my friend’s birthday. It was super fun because after, we went to Laguna Beach. It was super pretty at night looking towards the city.

Well, that’s the end of my first year and my time as a Zot Blogger. Thank you for following me and my fellow Zot Bloggers this school year! I can’t wait to come back and experience the next 3 years here at UCI.

This is Kylie Hadden signing off <3

  • Last Dinner at BCD
  • End of the Year Banquet
  • Laguna Beach Trip
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Time to Say Goodbye…

There is only a week left until the end of my first year of university. Looking back on the bits and pieces of my life this year, I can say I had an enriched life here about this year at UCI. I still remember when I walked into the U/U office for the first time, I didn’t know anything about my future college life, and I was very confused about my choice of major. However, through my continuous efforts over the past year and the help of the staff in the U/U office, I have finally found my goal, and have the direction and motivation to move forward.

As an international student, I think U/U Zotblog gave me the most help when I first came to the United States and was unfamiliar with everything, it gave me reliable and warm support. Every member of the U/U office family is very friendly and helpful, and they helped me adapt to the living habits and learning rhythm here faster. I have also mentioned in my previous blog that without the help of this program, it is hard to imagine whether I would be able to carry out these subsequent activities and projects so smoothly. We often say, “Starting is half the battle.”, and I’m glad Zotblog helped me start my college journey and have such a wonderful life. When submitting the blogger application, it was very difficult for me to imagine that I could benefit from this program or so many resources and opportunities and allow myself to be improved in all aspects. I would like to thank Zotblog founder Lauren here. Lauren is the first UCI staff member I have met since I came to campus. Her enthusiasm motivates me to try and challenge more possibilities, and she is very attentive to help me solve problems when I need them. Another person I would like to thank is my advisor Dedra, who played a vital role in my choice of major and related extracurricular activities. Hope we can meet and chat more often in the future!

In this year of study and life, I think my biggest improvement is time management and planning. This was the worst problem I faced in high school. The procrastination in my studies prevented me from focusing on the learning content and put off all tasks until the last minute. As a result, I tried to make myself a weekly study plan, fill out all the timetables or schedule sheets, and try to follow up on those plans. However, I still found that I was not willing to complete the task or follow those shifts according to the plan, which made me under a lot of pressure and exacerbated my procrastination. In the process of finding a study method and schedule that worked for me, I realized that I was not the right person to stick to a schedule, and that’s when I realized the importance of being proactive. I realize that when I am doing what I love, I do not care how much time I spend on it and will complete them as soon as possible. For example, when studying professional courses or participating in some activities, I can always concentrate my attention and complete the tasks in front of me efficiently without thinking about procrastinating. It also allowed me to find a field of expertise that I wanted to study, and that I was willing to put my time and effort into. Passion gives me initiative and keeps me from worrying about procrastination. Not only did I stop worrying about the arrival of the deadline, but I could free up more time to do more things. Compared to me who used to use anime and games to evade tasks, I now seem to be more at ease in terms of time. Therefore, I hope that everyone can find what they love and the direction they are willing to work for and spend a fulfilling and interesting university life at UCI.

My Zotblog life is coming to an end, and I would like to thank you all for your company and support over the past year. Looking forward to the arrival of new bloggers in the next school year to breathe new life into U/U Office! Zot! Zot! Zot!

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Bittersweet Closure

A major goal that I set for myself at the beginning of this year was to find an academic passion that I would be willing to dedicate my undergraduate career to. Throughout my four years at an arts high school prior to entering UCI, I focused on the single art that I was admitted to the school for: Creative Writing. I attended a variety of Creative Writing courses after my academic classes, I based several of my extracurricular activities on Creative Writing, and I built my college applications around my writing experiences. After realizing that I did not want to major in English or a related subject in college, it seemed that I had lost an intrinsic sense of direction that had guided me during high school and even middle school, when I held aspirations of being a professional author. This loss compelled me to apply to Undeclared programs, although I felt that my decision would ultimately set me behind other peers who had already developed the sense of direction that I longed for. 

However, the insight that I have received from mentors and faculty encouraged me to dispel the belief that equated being Undeclared with being behind, and I gained greater confidence in my ability to find an academic subject I am passionate about. I took classes in Psychology and Sociology that piqued my interest, discovering a curiosity for these subjects that I did not explore as much as I wanted to in high school. I enjoy learning about both the micro-level cognitive processes that enable complex human functioning, as well as the macro-level interactions between different groups of people. My interest in these subjects has also been facilitated by the astounding array of professors that have taught me. The opportunity to listen to lecturers who are so knowledgeable about their fields of study has been a fascinating experience, especially when looking into the extensive research that professors have completed. As my experiences in office hours have shown, displaying interest in a professor’s research projects is an effective method of establishing a relationship with them. One psychology professor I met with during the beginning of this quarter sensed my interest in research from my questions about her projects and proposed that I contact her at the beginning of next year to potentially take on a Research Assistant position in her lab. I have found that my professors genuinely care for students and their success, taking the initiative to connect us with opportunities that can advance our academic or vocational goals.

Even courses outside of the social sciences have been highly impactful for me, such as the challenging yet thought-provoking Humanities Core program. Humanities Core incorporates aspects of literature, philosophy, history, film studies, and several other disciplines to examine the course theme of Animals, People, and Power. Humanities Core is distinct not only in its interdisciplinary approach, but also in the intellectually stimulating questions it poses to its students. The curriculum urges us to shift our perceptions of the relationships between humans and animals in such a profound way that it has even motivated some students to alter their diets or consumption patterns to be more environmentally conscious. I believe that the most powerful college courses are the ones that inspire students to change their own lives in response to the material learned, and Humanities Core exemplifies this notion. 

Although I decided not to further pursue writing academically, I still sought to incorporate it into my extracurricular activities at UCI. This led me to the U/U Zot Blog, which I have thoroughly enjoyed being involved in during my first year here. It is vital to reflect on new experiences, particularly ones that entail as much change as college does, and I am grateful that the Zot Blog has given me the opportunity to do so. Thus, this last blog post of the year serves as bittersweet closure for me. I hope that future Zot Bloggers will also recognize the value of self-reflection and entertain themselves through their Zot Blog writing. Thank you for following me on the journey of my first year in college and I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors!

Your friendly neighborhood Unaffiliated major,

Sabrina

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Last Entry!!! WHAT???

Hello everyone, it is with my greatest pleasure and gratitude to write this last blog. Thank you to many who took time out of your day to listen to my adventures here at UCI. This will be my last entry as a zot blogger and as a college Freshman (Yay), It’s been a rough year and I’m glad it’s coming to an end but if I’m being honest, it only gets worse from here. Don’t be startled this is my personal opinion, it probably won’t be the same for you(hopefully). You might be wondering why it would get worse, but I like to believe that your dreams should scare you and that means the harder things get the closer you are to achieving it.

This last entry is going to be a fat rant, so let’s just get the pleasantries out the way. I’m very glad, I signed up to be a zot blogger and I recommend anyone interested to go for it. In the beginning of the year, I came to UCI with no expectations whatsoever because you can only be disappointed if you had expectation in the first place (take note kids), so if the bar is already on the ground, it can’t get any lower. Despite that, I still had goals that I wanted to experience. I wanted to try and learn how to swim, but that didn’t work out. Aside from my crippling battle to actually sit my ass down and sleep, it also didn’t work out. There has been improvement, so I guess that counts as *achieved*.

Compared to the other bloggers, I just rant and that’s why for this entry I plan on doing what I do best. I’m sure you all remember those guest speakers that would come and talk about how college was very humbling. Unfortunately, I’m here to tell you they weren’t lying. If anything, I would like to say that the way college humbles everyone is a little different and that is what we are going to be talking about. As a man coming from humble beginnings, I learned to humble myself rather than get humbled. This isn’t about my bruised ego because I don’t have one, but I would say there are some things that I was fairly confident in until I got to college.

From my high school experience, I believe that it would always be beneficial as a student to have a good relationship or somewhat of a relationship with your teacher. This is my personal advice to the incoming undergrad, “Sometimes it’s not always you, but the teacher”. In a very respectfully but disrespectful way, I really thought that this teacher was good because actually made the effort to talk to the students. In the end, it just turned out that he was trying to do his job (if you called that doing your job). In this class, I put in the effort to make friends in my class and frequently talk to my teacher if I had any question. This was as healthy as a healthy relationship with your teacher could get, I ended up failing that class and I should’ve been bummed out, but I personally knew that I did what I was supposed to do and worked to get a good grade.

The reason why I’m mentioning this is because during your second year of college, you guys are going to experience the “THRILL” of picking classes against “New Only”(Sarcasm). Unfortunately, I was graced with the lesson of learning how much of a difference it makes when your teacher actually knows how to teach. Now being somewhat of a veteran my advice to the incoming freshman who haven’t completed their GE. If you can’t complete it your first year, I suggest you try and knock out as many GE’s as possible because right now you could more or less say you are competing with other freshman’s and believe it or not, it’s definitely better. When it’s time for you to pick classes during your second year, you not only have to compete with other students who also know what the good classes are (second year) but also the freshman’s. Sorry not sorry guys I’m really not feeling you guys right now because classes are a lot harder to pick (I say this like I wasn’t a freshman before).

As per usual, it was nice talking to you guys and I hope these blogs actually help you guys

This is your favorite blogger signing out one last time.

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My last Zot Blog

I was no longer the freshman who had just entered the university, nor was I the one who often asked for help from my senior brothers. My freshman year was so short and so long that I learned so little and still had so much to learn. The study and life in the first year is our initial experience at the university. We are about to enter the second year. I believe that we will be more energetic and set a good example in front of the next semester. At the moment as a senior sister, talk about my freshman learning experience, and expect to have to enlighten the younger brothers and younger sisters. First of all, we should correct our learning attitude. Many freshmen tend to be immersed in the colorful activities of the university and do not spend most of their time on study. This attitude will directly lead to the undream of final grades and even lead to failing grades. Therefore, the university study still occupies the primary position, should arrange the study and the activity time reasonably, had planned the study task. Listen to the teacher carefully in class, and have a comprehensive understanding of the knowledge in the textbook, so that the final exam will be relatively easy. Second, attention should be paid to the expansion of knowledge. College study is different from high school, which focuses solely on the knowledge from textbooks, but focuses on the cultivation of learning ability. Universities can make full use of library resources to expand their knowledge and learn things beyond textbooks. Besides, I can conduct in-depth research on a wider range of aspects according to my interests, to learn more and improve my skills greatly. Third, we should attach importance to experiments. Plant protection is inseparable from science, which requires us to cultivate good experimental habits and experimental literacy in the normal experiment process. At the same time, learn to think, learn to summarize, and learn to innovate in the experiment process. For example, when doing basic chemical experiments, we should make clear the experimental purpose, experimental principle, and experimental steps. After finishing the experiment, we should discuss the experimental results and summarize the success and failure of the experiment. In short, experiments are what we must pay attention to. We should have the most basic experimental operation skills and the ability to analyze problems, to lay a solid foundation for the experiments and learning of sophomore and junior professional courses. Instead of just playing with the mentality, we should treat each experiment with the scientific attitude of Yan Lian. The above is just my personal learning experience, said bad place still hope to forgive me. It can be said that the university is the final stage in life to systematically learn knowledge, we should cherish this good time, study hard, strive to exercise ourselves, shape ourselves, improve ourselves, wish everyone have a perfect university life, wish everyone have a perfect life!