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In Conclusion

As my chapter as a Freshman comes to a close its important to look back and reflect upon what had happened during the year. I came into UCI as an Undergraduate/Undeclared major and was hoping to start the path to a Computer Science major. That goal has been achieved since I took the highly sought after ICS 31 during the Winter Quarter. I also wanted to make some new friends during my time here and I can safely say that I have made more than a few friends during my three quarters here.  Lastly I wanted the college experience to be more fun that my high school one and I can safely say that so far it definitely has been more fun. From causing the dorm to think that there was a sewage leak by boiling cabbage, to allowing my friends to peer pressure me into events.

Looking back my proudest moment was how innovative my roommate and I were in regards to our dorm room. Being essentially a single room with two people in it we were forced to use the space to its maximum effect. It’s quite funny that whenever someone else from our dorm comes into our room they immediately notice the arrangement that my roommate and I have. The top bunk has been converted into a pantry/storage area while the bed was moved to the floor. Before any of you say I was a terrible roommate, I did ask him if he wanted the bottom bunk. Regardless, despite the cramped living conditions of the reduced double we managed to make it work.

In regards to the ZotBlog program, my favorite memory was actually meeting everyone else in the program. Brandon, Nancy and Lauren all made the experience of being a ZotBlog writer extremely enjoyable. From just stressing over finals to helping each other with classes everyone in the program was a joy to work with and I hope to work with them again in the future. If I had to choose a specific memory of my favorite part of being in ZotBlog it would have to be when Lauren mentioned that other members of the U/U office read our blog which at first made me nervous because I’m usually not one to let people read my writing but upon hearing the positive feedback from the people in the office I was more okay with the idea.

As for next year, my goals are going to mainly focus on getting into the ICS major while keeping in touch with the counselors at the U/U office. Keeping in touch with your counselor is something I would strongly recommend any incoming freshman to do. All the counselors here are all knowledgeable about which classes that you need to take in order to get to where you wanna go. ZotBlog was definitely an opportunity for freshman to not only get involved but to just relax as none of these blog posts feel like work. The posts are just about your day or days past so there isn’t any intensive thinking to do. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone interested in joining.

Since this is my last post as a writer, to those of you who are planning to become future Anteaters, I wish you the best of luck as I’m sure that you can do whatever you set out to do here at UCI. I am actually part of the Class of 2022 Facebook group so if there are any questions I would be happy to answer them. Beyond that, there isn’t much else to say but enjoy your time since you are only a Freshman once.

Zot On!
Josh

Photo Credit: Nancy

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A Few Interesting Places on Campus

As the title suggests, this is going to be a short post about some places of interest that you can visit while attending UCI.

Engineering Pavilion
First up we got the Engineering Pavilion which is where I spend time working on anything as the place just has a nice atmosphere to do work or nap. This is located between the Engineering Tower and Computer Science building. If you ever take a tour of the campus at UCI this will definitely be somewhere that the tour guide will take you. On any regular day, it is usually pretty lively with people heading in and out of class, people taking a quick nap, or just working on assignments.

 

Center of Aldrich Park
So this spot is at the center of Aldrich Park, big surprise I know, but hear me out, this spot is just a nice spot to be because its under a huge tree and when it’s hot outside, you can just kinda chill there with a couple friends. Beyond that there are shrubs nearby where someone took the liberty of moving a table into so you could chill there if you choose. Unfortunately I didn’t take a photo of that table in the shrubs but I feel that you guys can find it without much trouble. It is also in the middle of Aldrich Park so if you are just chilling in between classes, this is the spot to be.

 

San Diego Creek
Now this spot is more out of the way in comparison to the other ones but gives you a good opportunity to break from the constant hustle and bustle of school for a short time. To get to this spot involves following a trail that is behind Mesa Court. This trail is officially called the Mountains to the Sea Trail & Bikeway and it does in fact go all the way to Newport Beach so for those of you that are planning to bring a bike with you to UCI, this could be something that you could follow to get to the beach. I, unfortunately didn’t bring my bike with me so I just walked to the Creek.

There was actually a fisherman that I ran into while coming back and after a brief conversation I learned that there is quite a diverse array of fish that are in the water. The fisherman was telling me that since the San Diego Creek connects to the ocean it is usually saltwater fish where I took the picture but if you keep going in the other direction, you will find more freshwater fish. Funny enough, according to that fisherman, there are stingrays and spotted sea bass downriver from the dorm and regular bass, carp and catfish upriver. He also told me that the fish are not really the right size to eat so fishing in that area was mainly just for sport.

 

 

Zot On!
Josh

 

Bonus Panorama:

*right-click the photo and select open image in new tab for the full experience*

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For Those Moments Where You Feel Like Your Essay is Trash

The Writing Center is a resource that I try to take advantage of as much as possible. The reason being is that instead of awkwardly asking your roommate or friends to read your flaming trash can of an essay, you can ask someone who is contractually obligated to tell you what’s wrong with it so you have a chance to turn it into something that will get you that A. Because we all know the first draft is the worst draft. That being said, there obviously those of you that can write an A grade paper on the first try so kudos to you, I unfortunately am not one of those people.

In in the Fall Quarter, I was taking Writing 39C which is the last lower-division writing class that everyone has to take. While in Writing 39C there are two projects that involve a lot of writing and will pretty much be your ticket out of that class with an A or with a just passing grade. My writing professor actually recommended everyone in the class to go to the Writing Center at least once so I took him up on that offer. After setting up an appointment with an experienced professional, full time writing specialist, my essay got ripped apart but I ended up getting a better grade in the end for it. For those of you who are planning on going this route, a word of caution: definitely set up the appointment way before the deadlines of your essays because they will go in depth about your writing so there may not be enough time for you to implement all the recommendations if you set the appointment too late. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, the Writing Center and all its services are FREE for UCI students. Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen the price of getting professional help is zero dollars.

Now you are probably wondering, where can I find such a GREAT and FREE resource? Well dear reader, I’ll tell you. There’s a place on campus called the Ayala Science Library which is across Aldrich Park from Middle Earth Housing. As for future Mesa Court residents you are going to have to walk a bit further. After a quick Google Search I found a nice map that highlights where Ayala Science Library is.

The Writing Center should definitely be something everyone tries at least once since they offer more than just writing help. Some other services they offer are drop-in peer tutors, help with scholarships, and even email consultations. All of which are FREE by the way since the good folks at UCI understand that we as students, are BROKE 100% of the time.

Zot On Anteaters!
Josh

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That One Week of Spring Break

As the title suggests, we only have one week off here at UCI for Spring Break. That being said, I was able to go home and just relax for a while which is a nice change of pace from the usual hustle and bustle of campus. Since I only had a week to do things I just mainly hung out with my friends. That week was actually my birthday week so I celebrated leveling up in the game of Life along with two of my other friends surprisingly. Although their birthday was before mine we all celebrated in the same week so that was a good time. Compared to Winter Break, I’d definitely say that it was less rejuvenating and more of a short break. By that I mean that with the two weeks from Winter Break, I was able to fully unwind and relax but with only a week there was only so much relaxing you can do so what I’m getting at is that it definitely felt too short. This Spring Quarter however, I can look forward to starting to take classes that are related to the Education major I am thinking about attempting alongside my Computer Science major. This will be my first steps towards that goal so I’m hoping that the class will be interesting. Since this is arguably my last quarter as a Freshman here at UCI I believe that I should try and impart some knowledge to the incoming class of 2022.
1. Don’t worry about the stigma of being Undergraduate/Undeclared, it just means you are not sure of what you want to do yet. So take advantage of that and explore!

2. Avoid getting a Reduced Double room if you are in Mesa Court unless you are living with someone who you know well because there is zero extra space in my reduced double at the moment.

3. Participate in some kind of way. By that I mean while you are here at UCI, you are in charge of what kind of experience you are going to get. So be proactive and try new things. Maybe join ZotBlog for those sweet 1.3 course credits every quarter so that you can almost get out of taking another class

4. This one is going to be in regards to food. Yes you will get tired of the Anteatery’s or Pippin’s food after a while but that doesn’t mean you are stuck without options, instead think of combining different ingredients together to make something good. For example the Anteatery has both cheeseburgers and thousand island dressing and you know what you can make with those two? A budget In-n-Out burger that technically didn’t cost you anything! Throw in unlimited fries and you got a meal worthy of any fast food aficionado.

5. This one should go without saying but GO TO LECTURE and TALK TO YOUR CLASSMATES and PROFESSORS. Yes, it will be intimidating to talk to your professors about something and possibly look stupid but so what? After talking to the professor, you are probably going to end up with a better understanding of the subjects than if you didn’t so what is there to lose? Also talk to your classmates because you’re all on that college grind anyway might as well make it as enjoyable as possible. As for attending lectures you already paid for the professor to be there and teach you something so you risk wasting hard-earned money should you skip too often.

That’s all the tips I got for now, I’ll add more in later posts if anything comes to mind.

Zot On!
Josh

 

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Inside the Freshman Mind

Everyone in university has important details to keep in mind, be it the date of the next midterm, your next enrollment window, or the details of the study session that you just went through. For me however, I like to tell people I’m a pretty simple person. So I used the following picture to describe the things I personally keep in mind while at school.
As you can see, its pretty simple. Four boxes for the four major pillars that keep me going. There is a hierarchy to this image in that like in all things, studies should take priority because that is the reason you’re here at UCI after all. Studying itself is important to me because its like the key that will open up doors for you in the future. I like to think of studying as a way to make that key unique so that the doors that become available to you are ones that will fit your key. Thus, studying takes the highest priority in my mind.

Next on the hierarchy is socializing. This is also another important aspect of college like and is especially important for me because its friends that you learn which professor to take, what is most likely going to be on the final, and if the class is enjoyable or not. I used the logo of an app called Discord because that’s what my friends and I usually use to communicate albeit playing games together or just having a conversation. There was a recent series of events that really made me appreciate having friends in university that I will get to later in the post.

Down the hierarchy is food. Despite hearing some dorm mates complain about the food here, I feel like it was strictly better than what I was eating in high school so I’m not complaining. That being said I put food in my brain because there’s no better feeling than just sitting down, eating, and just talking with friends or studying. I often see people in the Anteatery studying because it has a moderate amount of noise that for some people helps them concentrate. On top of that eating food also keeps you alive so that’s also a nice bonus.

Lastly there’s arguably the most influential aspect of university life, sleep. The photo is also extremely accurate of what goes through my head whenever I head back to the dorm. The question is no longer “what time should I sleep” it has evolved to become “how long can I get away with sleeping” because at UCI, there is always things to do. Sleep is important because simply if your tired, your not learning and that would be detrimental to the most important part of this hierarchy.

Now, for that story that made me appreciate friends. This actually happened yesterday while working on a project for my BIOSCI 9B class that I took with a few of my friends. Being an online class, we didn’t need to go anywhere for our lectures but that’s besides the point. This project is essentially just to create your own food experiment and write a report on it and turn it in. Simple right? That’s because it is. My friends and I decided to extract red cabbage juice and utilize its sensitivity to pH to show the effects of making pancakes with different ingredients. We didn’t foresee the effect of boiling the cabbage which ended up causing the first and second floor of the dorm to smell strongly of cabbage. That was also the night that we learned that cabbage is not popular with the other people in our dorm. We had a lineup of ingredients to mix in like bananas, pineapples, almonds, and the strangest one, baking soda. The whole experiment was going well up until the final portion of the experiment. That was when someone in the group thought it would be a good idea to eat the pancakes that we made. Looking back, 3 of the 4 pancakes that we made were actually pretty good except the baking soda one. I can still taste it just typing about it. It was the unholy combination of way too much baking soda and pancake mix. Now you may be wondering why use baking soda? It was because there was no fruit or vegetable that we could think of that was basic enough to change the color of the mix. Almonds came close but the amount that we needed to even change the color slightly made it so that the pancake ended up being a brick rather than a pancake. Now back to this horrid creation, when you chewed that pancake, you could feel the granules of baking soda between your teeth. It was also beyond bitter and just overall an unpleasant experience. Sadly, one of the members of the group took the worst of it as he ended up having to run outside and throw up around a total of 8 times. So, for future reference, never use baking soda in pancakes or if you do, don’t eat it.

 

Zot On!


-Josh