Some tips for succeeding at UCLA

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
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<p>I posted this last year and it got a generally favorable reception, so I thought I'd post it again for this years frosh.</p>

<p>ucla is a large school that can seem intimidating at first. At its best attending ucla can be an exhilarating experience in which you make close friends, get a great education, have plenty of fun outside class, and which prepares you for the working world and a killer entry job. At its worst you know few if any people, treat college as almost a "day job" in which you show up in the morning, punch the clock by attending large impersonal classes and taking tests, and are dumped out at the end as just another resume in a big stack of applicants (none of whom will even get to the interview stage). Most people would prefer the former, so I'm hoping this thread can be used to pass on tips for success at ucla.</p>

<p>Here are some tips divided into 2 parts, near-term and big-picture.</p>

<p>1) attend orientation. You get a much higher chance of getting the classes you want, you'll get tours of campus, and lots of information on the resources available at ucla. It will cover the stuff I have below and you'll have experienced students running the session who can answer your questions.</p>

<p>2) buy your books early. For an extra $4 the student store will pull all the required books and have them waiting for you. Or if you want to save some money and buy used books get there early to get the best selection. "Early" means prior to the weekend before classes begin. The place is a zoo the weekend before classes start, and if you want until classes start some books will sell out. To save lots of money on textbooks, consider ordering from Europe and having them shipped. Believe it or not, the very same book that costs $100 here sells for about half that in Europe via amazon.co.uk An article about this in the NY Times is at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/85mfu%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://tinyurl.com/85mfu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>3) walk to all your classes before the term begins so you know where they are. New students often aren't sure even where their buildings are, and the room numbering scheme in a building can be confusing. You don't want to be rushing around and end up 10 minutes late for a class and end up sitting on the floor because all the seats are taken.</p>

<p>4) learn to take good notes. Ideally for all your classes you'd have a grad student in that discipline attend class and take notes, then you'd compare notes with theirs. Guess what? You can do just that in many classes!! ASUCLA sells notes for the most popular lower-division and some upper-division classes, usually taken by a grad student working for the prof teaching the class. You will probably be surprised by the speed at which material is delivered. Eventually you want to be able to take those quality notes on your own so keep in mind what they are -- a learning tool, not a substitute for your own efforts.</p>

<p>5) don't tape record lectures. Some profs allow this, but it's a bad crutch. First you're doing more work than the other people, listening to the same material twice. Second, as you move on to smaller classes far fewer profs will permit it. And in the working world you never see people taping meetings (except for maybe criminal investigators, and you don't want to be in those kind of meetings!). Bite the bullet and learn to take good notes, with the assistance of the ASUCLA lecture notes.</p>

<p>6) introduce yourself to lots of people. They're new, too, and they are probably just as anxious as you are. Just because someone looks calm and assured doesn't mean they feel that way inside; it may be just their "game" face. At the start of the year everyone's in the same boat, knowing few if any people and really willing to make new friends. The start of the year is not the time to immerse yourself in computer games or surfing the net, its the time to get to know fellow students. Get off of this board!</p>

<p>7) its natural to be nervous about college, so don't let yourself get intimidated by others who seem self-assured and act like ucla is going to be a breeze. I remember a chem class my very first quarter in which a few people who knew each other and were sitting near me were looking over the syllabus and loudly remarking how their chem class in HS had covered all the material, how this class was one for sure they'd ace, and so on. My HS was not that strong academically, and I just knew I was screwed. Although discouraged I tried hard and got an A on the first midterm and in the class. The guys sitting near me? Many of them dropped, and the rest got B's and C's.</p>

<p>8) Learn to study better. There is a book I recommend every student should own, and you should buy it now before school starts. Its called What Smart Students Know by Adam Robinson, written by one of the founders of the test prep service Princeton Review. I have never seen a better explanation of the steps you need to follow to really <em>learn</em> the material for all types of classes (sciences, liberal arts, etc), and if you've learned it well you will have no trouble with grades. The UC system selects from the top 12.5% HS students and ucla is even tougher than that. For most people in this range they were never really challenged in HS. Now everyone is as smart as you. You will have to step it up a notch at ucla, and instead of learning it by trial-and-error why not read this book over the summer and come in prepared?</p>

<p>9) hit the ground running in your classes. The pace on the quarter system is quick, and you'll be having miderms before you know it. You simply can't afford to fall behind. The usual expectation for a college class is that for every hour in class you'll spend 3 hours outside of class with studying and homework, so plan your time accordingly. Those "week-at-a-glance" planners are very useful. A wall-type academic year caldendar is useful for marking dates of tests, papers due, etc. Also keep in mind the lectures are intended to explain material you've already been studying, not present it for the first time. That's why they pass out the syllabus the first day of class; you are expected to do the reading for each lecture BEFORE class.</p>

<p>10) Optionally, read other books about preparing for college, such as The Everything College Survival Book. Books such as these will give you tips on dealing with money, roomates, social life, and so on. You've probably heard a lot of this in orientation, but its good to refresh your memory.</p>

<p>11) discuss "ground rules" up front with your new roomates. Your RA will probably talk about this in a floor meeting, and its a good idea. Most people aren't used to sharing their room at home with someone else, let alone 1 or 2 strangers. Talking up front about various situations such as parties, drinking, having a date sleep over, etc. may feel awkward but its better than just remaining silent and hoping things will work out. You don't need to etch rules in stone but at least talking about them sets a precedent for discussion so you can bring revisit topics or talk about new issues. And keep in mind you don't have to be best friends with your roomates. What is important is that you all treat each other with respect.</p>

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<p>Big-picture items -- this is about taking the larger view of getting the most out of your ucla years instead of the day-to-day mechanics</p>

<p>1) Take charge of your life. ucla can be a large impersonal school, so you need to get involved to make it an enjoyable place. There are an almost uncountable number of options. Whether you participate in the greek system, student government, join some clubs, write for the Daily Bruin, work as a tutor or volunteer, go with friends to concerts or to watch teams compete, there are just so many ways to be active. But there is one key thing. Nobody is going to call you and ask/beg you to join their group. If you're the person who waits for someone else to make the first move you might want to consider changing this approach, because it just won't work for you at ucla. The opportunities are there galore, but you have to take the first step to discover them.</p>

<p>2) Reach out for help when needed. For better or worse, you are attending a large state U. You just aren't going to get the personal attention and focus that comes as part of the package at a small LAC. There are resources out there that can help (profs, counselors, tutors, advisors, etc) but you're going to have to go to them. People care, really they do, but they don't go around stopping people at random on bruin walk and asking how they can help. You have to go to them. You don't have to be obnoxious (this isn't NYC!), but you do have to be persistent and a self-starter. If you have questions, figure out who can help you answer them and then go see that person. If you don't know who can help you answer them, start by finding <em>that</em> answer. Your RA is a good source of advice on pointing you in the right direction. So for example if you're not sure of what you want to do when you graduate, the folks at the career center are happy to help but you can wait until a usc diploma is worth a nickel for them to call you (in other words, ain't gonna happen).</p>

<p>3) get to know some of your profs. For one thing you may need recs for grad school or an employer, and they help more if the person actually knows more about you than just the grade you got in their class. Once again, profs aren't going to invite you to stop by for a chat or to come over to dinner the way they might at a LAC. But they hold office hours, and you'd be surprised how many people NEVER go except to argue about the grading on a midterm. Plus a prof who's seen students come and go can be a good source of advice in choosing a major, preparing for a career, choosing a graduate school and getting in (they have friends from <em>their</em> grad school days at other U's), etc.</p>

<p>4) its never too early to start thinking about what you'll do after ucla. Sure, plenty of people <em>think</em> they know what they want. But stats show that only about 1/2 of the people who enter as engineers, for example, end up getting an engineering degree. Most students who enter college with the idea of being a pre-med don't go to med school. And sometimes people enter a field with little knowledge of what they're getting into and regret it; for example Forbes reported that 38% of the lawyers they surveyed regretted their career choice. So if you think you know what you want to do start testing that idea right away, and if you don't begin exploring some areas. You can take career testing, talk with alums in the field, get a part-time job or volunteer, do an internship, to name just a few ways. ucla has lots of resources to help you do all of this, but (have you heard this before?) you're going to have to make the effort to investigate.</p>

<p>5) get an internship. This is probably the single most important thing you can do to prepare yourself for a job after college! Yes, you read that correctly. Internships leap out at companies reviewing resumes because you have real-world experience in the area and know what you're getting into. Even in the tightest job market, a company that is hiring at all will almost always extend offers to those who have worked as interns. Think of it this way: if you interview on campus and then at the company, you've spent maybe 10 hours tops with them. An intern spends a month or a summer. Who do they know better, who do they want to take a chance on? In a tight job market you'd probably have better luck finding a job with a 3.2GPA and an internship than a 3.7 with nothing on your resume but a list of classes. There's another book I recommend -- its called Major in Success by Patrick Combs. Written in a casual tone, it offers example after example of how students parlayed internships and volunteer work into great jobs.</p>

<p>6) approach school (and life) with an optimistic attitude. Studies have shown that the best predictor of success in so many fields is attitude. This is based on the work by Seligman and others, names you will learn in psych classes. Want to predict which new salespeople will do best? Which 1st-year students at the US Army Military Academy will survive plebe year? An optimistic attitude is the key, and the good news is you can change yours if it isn't one of optimism. See, for example, <a href="http://www.ihhp.com/positive_think.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ihhp.com/positive_think.htm&lt;/a> At a large school like ucla you're going to have the same disappoinments at college students anywhere, but without the tight-knit community you might find at a smaller college. Help is out there if you look for it, but you can do a lot yourself by monitoring how you handle bad (and good) news.</p>

<p>Well, that's enough from me. I hope others can add tips on both succeeding in the day-to-day business of being a student, as well as the big-picture items of how to get where you want to go.</p>

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<p>Wonderful post...very helpful!!</p>

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<p>yes thank you mikemac! This information is very good to know, especially before school starts. :)</p>

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<p>Very well put; thank you.</p>

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<p>I thank you</p>

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<p>I thank you too. I read this advice before I went to UCLA last year and it looks like I'm doing okay! Thanks mikemac again!</p>

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<p>incredible post, thanks</p>

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<p>lovin you for this ;)</p>

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<p>new for the 2005 edition, a pair of tips.</p>

<p>be an active learner. Its easy to fall into the rut of doing schoolwork almost mechanically while writing up a lab, reading a chapter, solving problem-sets, etc. After you complete each homework assignment or chapter the next 5 minutes you spend is actually the MOST important. Ask yourself what you've just learned. Put it in your own words, as if you were summarizing it to a friend. I found this to be a most useful technique. And occasionally when you have idle time (walking to class, etc) imagine explaining something you've learned in class to a friend. For example, if you're taking econ 1 describe what happens if the demand curve shifts to the right or changes its slope, and what factors could produce these changes. It cements the concept your mind. And if you find yourself stumbling, you know what you need to go back and review. Active learning is at the heart of the book I mentioned in (8).</p>

<p>broaden your horizons One of the rewards of attending a premier university like ucla is the amazing diversity of events, opinions, and people surrounding you. So step out of your comfort zone -- that's what college is for! As a student you get low-cost or free admission to so many things. If you've never seen ballet, attended a play, or listened to classical music, give it a shot -- you might like it. See foreign films, see student films (maybe you'll see one from someone who'll end up famous), attend talks on campus. If you're a die-hard conservative this means talks by liberals or leftists to at least learn how they view the world, and vice-versa if you're on the left. Become acquainted with people who are completely different from your HS crowd; maybe they won't become you're best friends, but you grow by breaking out of your bubble. And consider a quarter abroad -- everyone who does it says its one of their most treasured college experiences.</p>

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<p>Bravo to the "broaden your horizons" ^^</p>

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<p>good tips i think these tips can be universally applied to any university. maybe except BJU.</p>

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<p>hey mike mac!:)</p>

<p>i'm going premed and so I registered during orientation to take chem this fall. I read what you wrote:
"My HS was not that strong academically, and I just knew I was screwed. Although discouraged I tried hard and got an A on the first midterm and in the class."</p>

<p>my school is not academically strong either and I feel nervous just like you had. but chem class isn't going to be that bad after all huh? ...even if I don't have a strong background behind the subject? just work hard and i'll be fine? </p>

<p>thanks</p>

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<p>gracias! :)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
kaligirl87 writes: my school is not academically strong either and I feel nervous just like you had. but chem class isn't going to be that bad after all huh? ...even if I don't have a strong background behind the subject? just work hard and i'll be fine?

[/quote]
Well, I won't promise it will be easy because it probably won't be; wasn't for me anyway :( But its certainly do-able. Those other guys assumed that because they had gone to a good HS they knew everything already and could skate, even though this was a college class. Wrong! </p>

<p>They will cover everything you need to know in the class, starting from ground zero. If you keep up with the work and take advantage of the resources out there (prof & TA office hours, maybe buy a study-guide that has worked examples, form a study group, get the asucla lecture notes if offered, etc) then you will learn the material and do well in class.</p>

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<p>an aquaintance of mine from UCLA says college its more about SELF DISCIPLINE rather than how smart u are. sorry to those who think not reading the book and studying will get them A's like in HiGh School. and this is not meant to scare anyone but the first quarter will be the toughest.</p>

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<p>Learn to hate USC? I'm guessing this is an important one.</p>

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<p>lol, that's funny</p>