Hi, I am a student who is intending to major in mathematics at UCLA. I will be freshmen beginning Fall 2016, and I had a few questions about preparing for UCLA undergrad study.
First, do you believe that learning how to speed read would benefit me greatly? My parent thinks so, but at present I do not. (My reading speed is average, between 200 and 250 words per minute. )The main reason that I think this way is that I will be a math major. While my parent agrees that speed reading won’t make me understand linear algebra or number theory better, my parent argues that I need to speed read for other classes that require comprehending large volume of written texts (such as history or english). Would you recommend learning how to speed read? Please consider that if I choose to learn how to speed read, that would require me to put in many hours during this summer.
Secondly, is there any times in which I have to give a presentation as an assignment/test? My parent insist that I must learn how to present effectively, and while I agree that such is a good lifetime skill, I was wondering whether there are any presentation that I must make in such a huge school as UCLA. Besides, I rate myself farely good at making presentations.
Also, what General education courses would you recommend for me to take? I am part of the College of Arts and Sciences. I am looking for any “interesting” or academically invigorating classes that won’t kill me time and effortwise. I am less inclined to take classes in politics, rock or pop music stuff, and chemistry (though I don’t hate to take them). However, any classes that you find at least modestly interesting are welcome. What are the relatively easy classes? What classes would you recommend? I already looked at the course listing but I cannot decide which ones to take.
Thank you!
These are all good skills to have in the future for your career, albeit I wouldn’t say they’re important for your classes at UCLA. College is the place to develop your skills for your career, and I would say that learning to develop the said skills would definitely help you.
The only classes where reading skills would come into play are the worse gen eds. I’ve heard that some classes make you read up to 100 pages per week. This could ultimately become a major player when you have a job and need to read through documentation.
As for presentation skills, if you’re thinking of going into a field or job where you may need to present ideas to your managers or the board, then developing those skills will definitely help.
As for gen eds, I’ve heard that Stats 10 is a good one to take. There’s a class of 2020 Facebook group run by to-be sophomores (so they’ve been in the field for a year) where there are some useful links; I would check there.