Hello fellow anteaters and all others who are reading this post! My name is Jack Fedor and I am a freshman at UCI who is living on campus in Mesa Court. I currently am undeclared as for my major, but through the course of this school year and shared through these posts, I hope to share my journey towards declaring a major. Entering the school year I am interested in majors in science such as biology, chemistry, physics and earth system science. However I am going to take classes and participate in other activities which hopefully will allow me to experience other fields before I decide on a major. Some other information about me is that I am from Sacramento and I was able to participate in a lot of activities when I was in high school there. I wrote a bunch of articles for my school and a community newspaper, I competed on my high school’s mock trial team and I was a sound and lighting director for my school’s drama productions. I also volunteered a lot with community organizations and was a part of my high school’s student government. The point of sharing all of this information is that I hope to participate in a lot of activities (both similar and different) during my time at UCI.
This summer I was able to go to UCI for the first time for SPOP. That trip was my first trip to Southern California in nine years, so while it was a school I had never been to, it was also a region in California I had not been to in a long time. From the moment I arrived in Orange County, I felt like I was in a place that I would enjoy spending the next few years. This belief felt even more true as I arrived at UCI. From finding the dorm that I would stay at, organizing activities at the dorm, answering questions and guiding me to the evening activities at the student center, all of the older students helped me learn so much about the campus and feel like I was a part of the school. I was able to meet so many new people during orientation and make so many new friends, it was a super enjoyable experience. The one memorable thing about orientation for the students who attended it was that it was the first SPOP to be ended early. The tropical storm which hit Southern California on the second day of my SPOP may have ended the event earlier, but I think it made us all try to enjoy the first day more since we knew there was not going to be a second one. The people in my dorm and probably other students at the SPOP will remember it as the hurricane one and will have a story to tell future anteaters.
I hope that I can share many more exciting events during the school years, that are just as interesting as orientation, but hopefully none of them end the same way. Have a great start to the school year everyone and I hope to meet many more anteaters on campus in the upcoming month!