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Winter Brain Map

I really believe that I have changed since the past 10 weeks plus 3 weeks of winter break, expanding my comfort zone overall. If you talked to me in my fall quarter vs my winter quarter, you would be surprised how different I was. Fall-quarter-me would be less likely to approach people to build friends, focus only on studies and would overall be clueless with things going around him. Winter-quarter-me would approach more people, talk to them, get to know them despite my shyness, divide my focus between studies, friends, and family, and have a better understanding with what I am getting myself into. To conclude what my mind was made up of during the transformation, I made a brain map which tells what my brain matter consisted of.

I chose these specific ones because they were really on my mind. To expand my comfort zone with people, I decided to talk to my hall mates, attend events and made plans. I attended different professional events to improve my networking skills. For my academics, I think about my Grades/GPA to motivate to study harder/smarter for my classes, while keeping in my mind about the major I want: Computer Science. This also keeps me motivated as my career life will receive a huge boost from CS. Of course, I utilize different sites, such as LinkedIn and Handshake to make myself available to the job market. Overall, I learn from my mistakes to improve my personal-self. To balance my important side, I often watch Netflix to pass time, play video games, and love to think about the philosophy of life in general. When playing video games, I play with friends as this also helps me de-stress from life in general, talking about our lives while playing Smash or other video games.  At the same time, I love to let my mind wander into the philosophy of life, looking at what life is from an individual, societal, and global point of view. While it’s not on the brain map, sleep is an essential part of my college survival and the best way to relax.

Constantly balancing and working on myself, I was able to slowly break from my shyness, which also resulted in improving my confidence as well. Overall, I believe that I made good choices for myself because I improved myself from before. Obviously, there were some negatives, but every coin has two sides to it. With the end of winter quarter, I realized I need more naps, and saw how time flew by like a breeze; time passed by too fast. The other challenge I faced is time management because I noticed hanging out with people took a good chunk of my time, which compromised my time for sleep, as I need time to study. Nevertheless, I am happy with the changes and excited as I head into the Spring quarter, ready to face new challenges and overcome difficulties.

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Events at UCI

  1. What was one event you attended?

Every now and then, UCI would host different events, from academic, career, social, etc, and it is highly recommended to attend these events, as you will gain new experiences. For me whenever I attended events, I found myself learning, gaining new friends and overall having a great time. For example, I attended this career event called “Internship career fair”, where different companies from the US would send representatives to UCI to possibly hire some potential interns. Going in by myself was quite intimidating, as I had no idea where to start, what companies are there, or even how to talk “professionally.” Realizing I really had no choice I went up to a booth and started talking. At the end of the conversation, I was surprised as it’s really not that hard to talk to them, and over time, conversations became easier.

What about timing? What if I have classes in between the event?

Time is flexible. The event was from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm because it’s understandable that students who want to attend also have classes to attend. As long as you registered online, which is for free, and checked in, you are able to leave and come back anytime within the hours. In my case, my class ended at 11:00 am, so I still had plenty of time.

So what if I don’t have anything on my resume?

Just because you don’t have a major, skills, work experience or being the first year be a limitation. Sure your chances of getting hired are low, but you have 3 to 4 years to build that. In that event, I learned how different kinds of majors can lead to different kinds of interns. For example, just because having a political science major or art major doesn’t mean there are no internship positions for you. It’s a big world out there, and the career fair was just a glimpse. You learn to talk to professionals, gain better knowing what a lot of companies are looking for, and even meet new people. Of course, this event is an example of a career, but there are tons more for social, academical and more, as long as you make effort to look and attend.

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How to not be a Zombie in college

At some point, stress will get to you. At some point in college, you will feel overwhelmed. Even if you never really had too much stress in high school, college is different. So how to counterattack stress? It’s called self-care. Throughout college, I heard may students and adults how they never focused on self-care, and how it negatively impacted their life in general. So trust me, focus on self-care as much as you can in college and start early like me.

So even if you heed my advice, what is self-care? Self-care is more than just showering or brushing your teeth. It’s taking care of yourself mentally. How? Each person has their own ways to deal with stress, but here are some things I do:

If it’s something small or minor, I generally push through it and move on. Delaying it too much would not only grow my anxiety but waste my precious time. But then there are day to day things, and to deal with those, I listen to music a lot, and I generally play video games. The game I currently play right now is Fortnite, (add me if you wanna play together). Sometimes I have those days where I feel overwhelmed with many things to do with little time. And to avoid going into my panic mode, I distract myself by watching youtube videos or talking to my friends. One of the best time to talk to my friends is via Fortnite because we can talk and play at the same time. Fortnite is more fun to play with your friends. Other times, I eat, because I generally am moodier on an empty stomach. So make sure you fill your belly. Another self-care I practice is working on my assignments late night (assuming it wasn’t done at midnight or requires logical thinking). For example, for my writing assignments, I work on them around 11 to 2 am, simply because I am too tired to fuss about the little details and my creative juices flow then. Just because of that doesn’t me you don’t sleep at all, because you should. There were times where I stayed up till 6 in the morning (on weekends) and it messed up my sleeping schedule (or circadian rhythm system). Regarding sleep, what matters is not getting that 8 hours, but it’s more about getting the consistent hours of sleep. Every now and then I sleep at 2 am and wake up at 7 and still function as if I got 10 hours of sleep. In fact, getting more hours of sleep makes me less efficient. But keep your hours consistent, that’s what’s important. Going out for a walk and working out is another great way. Making a list of things that need to be done is another good way because it helps to keep track of your priorities.

In college, at some point, you will feel overwhelmed, or stressed, or some issue you physically cannot solve, and it’s okay. It’s normal, but what is important is you take care of yourself, self-care. You may not realize the importance now, but when you have a job, responsibilities, and other activities, the self-care you practiced since the first year of college will pay off.

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And We are back for Round 2…

Just when fall quarter finished, I thought college can’t possibly get harder right? Again I was wrong. Week 1 of winter quarter just finished and I am already behind my reading and understanding of classes and content (Yikes! Help me). However, looking back at my fall quarter AFTER final grades came out, I realised I can’t repeat the same negative mistakes I made in fall in winter, otherwise the situation would not be pretty. For example: in fall quarter, besides being a Zot Blogger (it’s a great experience!), I had no other way to spend time productively besides gaming, sleeping, and studying/homework/classes. Unfortunately I never took action and I started to become less interesting compared to fall quarter. So my advice: if you find yourself having more time for other things, look for opportunities. Remember those spam emails you got from giving your email to clubs you never attended? Well now is the time to use them. Ask them if it’s not too late to join. 98% of the time it’s not too late. For my winter quarter, I am looking to some beneficial organizations to join.

Another example: I noticed I had an abundance of time (to certain extent) in fall quarter, and I never made any good use out of it, like learning something fun and useful. I realised this more towards during winter break when I saw I had absolutely (no hw, no classes, no work) during the break, and I decided to learn python. There was another reason that played part in the lesson: taking education in your own hands. I heard those words before, but I never understood what they really meant. You may think spending a mere hour every week isn’t productive to learn something new, but I was surprised. Within a couple of days I was able to knock down the basics of python and started to create programs too. My point is: use your time wisely and take education in your own hands.

Final example I promise. A little bit of history: I took freshmen edge and I saw that I always went to the TA or the professor’s office hours after every quiz or hw when I had questions. Now the example: I noticed in my fall quarter, I rarely stuck around to talk to my professors, or the TAs and never really went to their office hours. During summer I always went (keep in mind I had one class and one university study for summer) for help, which actually helped me greatly as I passed the class with an A. In fall, I had questions, ideas to talk to professors, but something pushed me back, and with that, those questions, ideas all dissolved and that quarter my grades weren’t as good. What I am saying is always go talk to professors and TAs for help of any kind. They are willing to help, plus they can help you for a letter of recommendation your senior year! This winter quarter, I will go to office hours when I need help (and trust me, I need a lot of help).

Those were some of the things I reflected upon my fall quarter and I will make changes to improve my winter quarter. Honestly, it’s going to be hard to change my negative habits, but it’s not impossible right?

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Short Letter to Thyself From the Future

Normally I would start my intro by saying “What’s Up!” or “How are you doing?!”, but I am way too tired to say anything. So if you are reading this, let me tell you about the content before you start reading this letter. This letter is written at the end of my first fall quarter, and to be read by me before the fall quarter. So, as a future college student speaking, I have composed a list of things it would be best if you knew before coming to college:

Academics:
In any course, ALWAYS go ask the professor to review your mistakes on your midterms. Please do this if you don’t want your grades to suffer for your mistake. The professors are really nice and kind, and they will help you. It does seem intimidating, but don’t worry. Just be yourself and ask questions.

Whenever taking notes, I (from the future) saw that you do better in classes when you handwrite your notes. So in every class applicable, take written notes, and pay attention in class too, even if the lecture is posted online.

Every day, please try to review your notes you went over in class when you go back home. You will be demotivated to do so as the major things that determine your grade is midterm and finals, but please do review note when applicable.

In terms of picking classes:
If you are in the major you want or love: well then don’t worry about anything else
If you are not in the major you want or love and are planning to change your current major: picking courses will be a little rough and frustrating, especially when you are the first year, which means a low priority (usually those with a higher credits get higher priorty, but not always the case. AP credits do count towards determining your standing.

Social Life:
Over the course of weeks, you will start living more in your room, only going outside for classes, food, and some extracurricular activities. Because of that, your interaction with people will slow down, so try to go outside and go and talk to people.

Throughout the ten weeks, you will make some really good friends, so make sure you keep in touch because maintaining a friendship will take more effort than you realize.

When you apply for things in the involvement fair, don’t just focus on professional/career development programs. It’s good but balance it with something you enjoy. A good example: join the cricket club, or the Zot Blog program. (Hint: DO APPLY! TRUST ME, YOU WILL BE GLAD TO DO IT!)

Personal Development:
I value in personal development a lot, and a college is a great place for personal development. However, there were challenges.
You will notice you will end up getting rejected a lot, and it hurts, but move on and learn where you went wrong. Don’t be afraid to ask people, where you went wrong

Love life:
Currently, the file doesn’t exist.

Overall: it will be a great year, and there are a lot of challenges, but there is two major advice I want you to keep in your head: have a good time management and don’t lose yourself and your ideas/goals. Because everything is fast-paced, you lose yourself into other things, so be careful. That and enjoy, because time flies FAST and you won’t get this opportunity again.