Advice for uc davis incoming frosh

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Davis
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If you have any advice for frosh coming into UC Davis, please do share!

Welcomed topics may include but are not limited to the following:

  • possibility of GPA inflation
  • best housing
  • best dining halls/food places
  • most interesting classes
  • best professors
  • availability of academic resources/study groups…??
  • party scene…??
  • ways to get involved in undergraduate research
  • availability of study abroad funding
  • frequency of cool late-night convos
  • school traditions (e.g. birthday showers)
  • best things about the school/strengths
  • worst things about the school/weaknesses
  • etc. etc. etc…

Please post below; all information is sincerely appreciated. :slight_smile:

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Go to Dos Coyotes- fantastic burritos! I would offer more info but I graduated 20 years ago so it wouldn’t be up-to-date info. But the school is great and the community is fantastic. if you’ve been accepted, a visit is a must!

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@Emsmom1
Thankfully I live relatively close (5 hrs away) so I will definitely be visiting campus sometime soon! Thanks for your response! :slight_smile: Did you go to graduate school after Davis?

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I did. I earned my MA in experimental psychology from CSUN and was accepted after that to the PhD program in Public Health (Community Health option) at UCLA.

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I still live very close to UCLA- and it is in no way the college town Davis is…

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  • possibility of GPA inflation Most classes are curved so that the average grade becomes a B-. From what I have seen, the rough average GPA of all majors at Davis is a 3.0. Engineering majors are a little lower, biosci ones higher.
  • best housing Tercero is arguably the best since it is new, and also located close to large lecture halls where freshmen most likely will have classes at. This is mostly personal preference honestly.
  • best dining halls/food places The dining halls are pretty similar. Cuarto one has ice cream you can scoop though, but it's the only one without a chow mein stir fry station iirc. Silo pizza hut is very convenient and I eat there way too much. Favorite place I went in downtown as a freshman was Thai Canteen, and Ohana was good for convenience. Now I still love Thai Canteen but at UMall I would say old teahouse is good now. Or you can buy some frozen stuff from trader joes and microwave it shrugs.
  • most interesting classes, best professors Really depends on your major and what you are interested in.
  • availability of academic resources/study groups...?? SASC tutors are available for most lower-division science and math courses. Office hours are a great time to gain better understanding of material. Many classes will often form groups on facebook to communicate about class material as well
  • parties, frequency of cool late-night convos You need to know the right people.
  • ways to get involved in undergraduate research Look at faculty websites for things you are interested in, then contact the faculty member asking for a position. Alternatively you can get close to a professor or TA during office hours to ask. There are also job blasts sent by major advisors and Aggie Job Link.
  • school traditions (e.g. birthday showers) idk what birthday showers are but. Fall has many welcome events for freshmen - go to all of them because there's tons of free stuff. Winter has nothing I can recall. Spring has whole earth festival and picnic day. Summer has nothing. There used to be undie runs before finals every quarter but I don't hear much about that anymore. However last quarter there was an event in the quad where people gathered to scream.
  • best things about the school/strengths Pretty. Big so you exercise a lot by biking or speedwalking to classes. Mostly quiet so you can study more. Great Ag program.
  • worst things about the school/weaknesses Spring allergy hell. Biking in the rain if your class is too far away is hell. Too quiet so you can get bored. Sometimes you get a whiff of manure.
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@facadence
Dangggg thanks for all the info!! It’s VERY much appreciated, my fellow Davis-er. Hope your quarter (or whatever you’re currently doing) is going well!

PS: Birthday showers are a tradition at Stanford which requires other members of your residence hall to put you under a cold shower on your birthday at midnight. Kinda glad Davis doesn’t have that tbh :))

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@tonjanaenae no problem. lol it’s the sunday before a new quarter begins so i’m just being awake and anxious :smiley: If you want any more clarifications or questions feel free to @ me (before I log out and log back in like…a year later)

and jeez that stinks. Yeah at my dorm floor it was totally optional for there to be birthday decorations for you, I think my RA made it so that the floor only celebrates the people who sent in their birthday dates on a google form to her

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@facadence
Oh nice haha. Thankful for the spring break? What year are you in college/major? I’ll probably be in biological sciences, so I’m trying to feel out which classes/profs are the best.

Interesting… what would you have to say about the dorms? Is there a strong sense of community or does everyone just kind do their thing?

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Haha yea. I am a 3rd year biochem major planning to minor in environmental toxicology. I think in general that Rate My Professors gives you a good idea of whether or not a professor is the best choice, but it’s really also dependent on you, your study habits, and how you acquire information. I’m not sure what your area of interest is, so what I say is the best can be drastically different from what you think is the best! What I can say is that biosci majors aren’t that large, so you can definitely minor or even double major if you wanted to.

I lived in the honors dorm so there was definitely a strong sense of community - having first pick of classes meant that I most likely ended up with people from my dorm, so we’d help each other out. Your RA will probably facilitate floor meetings where you get to socialize and get to know people that live on your floor. There was a nice lounging area where you could mingle with folks on your floor too. I’d say in general though that you have to be or act pretty extroverted to be/feel included. I became pretty reclusive after winter quarter of my freshman year and stayed in my room a lot, which wasn’t healthy, but some people still reached out to invite me to go eat and stuff so it was okay.

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@facadence
Cool, I used to be interested in biochem a lot. Environmental toxicology sounds super interesting and very relevant to a lot of issues today, so that’s awesome!
Oh yeah, I was looking at Rate my Professors yesterday. Obviously I’m currently very big on preparation. heh.
I put neurobiology on my app, but I think that I will change my major… But in general I REALLY appreciate exceptionally organized professors (usually having a good number of years under their belt) and those who display an undeniable love for their subject. I have found that these two characteristics make for a very enjoyable learning experience.

The honors program sounds really awesome. I didn’t even know it existed until earlier this week, but unfortunately I wasn’t invited and don’t know exactly why. It’s okay, though. I’ll just have to work a little harder at finding good study groups.
Aw man, I’m sorry to hear that about your freshman year. I’m glad that friends still made time to try and get you out, though. I’m not exactly the most extroverted person, but I would really like to have a nice dorm community so maybe I’ll have to challenge myself to branch out a bit. Thanks for all the feedback!!

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@facadence
Oh, are you in any clubs or interest groups?
What is your favorite spot on campus? It can be study spot or just hang out spot or whatever
Have you heard of that Humans v. Zombies game that happens every quarter on campus? I’m kind of secretly a huge nerd and this freaking game sounds epic. But I think it’d be lowkey annoying during the day when you’re just trying to get to class…

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@tonjanaenae
Yeah don’t sweat about changing majors, almost everyone I know has done it. I wanted to do engineering for a while lol.
Hmm yeah those characteristics do seem simple but they can be hard to find. Some professors do love their field of study but wow are they bad at relaying that love to students. Well I’d say the best class I’ve taken for lower division was BIS 2C with Eisen and Moore - not related to my major much at all but the professors were very enjoyable (and I did well, so I’m biased ((I am blocking out the rest of the lower divs I took because I didn’t do that well and didn’t enjoy them))). Upper division faves were BIS 102 with Monafred and 103 with Zerbe (which are the biochem classes so I am also biased on that part lol) ((let’s forget about ochem for now))

I joined a lot of things freshman year…Circle K, VSA, ASBMB. I only stuck around a bit for Circle K my sophomore year though. Now I’m not part of anything haha, just going to my job.

Favorite study/chill spot on campus of mine is the 2nd floor of the Life Sciences building behind Sci Lec, there’s tables and chairs that have a view of the bike circle nearby. There are people walking to the restroom or the stairs from their lab room every so often…but it’s pretty quiet. As a freshman though my friends and I loved to study at the SLB study lounges and dorm floor lounges.

Don’t play Humans v. Zombies sorry :< but i do see those foam darts around on the ground lol

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@facadence
Yeah I figured I’d probably change my major at least a few times in life lol
Thanks for the prof/class recs! I’ll continue my little research endeavor and will definitely keep all of those in mind.
That’s cool – I was looking over the clubs n stuff today so yeah, I was curious.
I’ll definitely have to check out those spots when I visit campus at some yet undetermined time lol. I’m firm believer in finding nice study/chill spots around campuses.
Aw I suppose I’ll find out more about the game when I get there. Seems intriguing enough.
So I have a lot to do tomorrow (including our local UC Davis welcome reception fyi! :wink: ) so I am going to try to actually sleep tonight… Before I sign off, though, I wanna say thanks for answering all my questions! That was really nice of you and it definitely helped. I hope you have a great spring quarter!