<p>yea, thank you mr. obvious lol</p>
<p>My major is cultural geography, a social science.</p>
<p>My mid-term report re first semester @ Cal experience: I would say that the amount of reading I've done in the past 2 months has been comparable to about 1 year at CCSF. Yup, looking at my bookshelf, I would say that's about right. I've read 6 novels/books and at least 50 articles (from 2-50 pages each), plus about 10 excerpts from various textbooks. I'm probably leaving something out...</p>
<p>I've had 3 midterms, and will have another on Monday. My history professor provided us with 50 terms/names/locations to know, only 7 short-answer questions were on the exam, plus a geography quiz. We also had a take-home essay question. My geography class basically gives us about 5 different themes that we've been focusing on, each with lots of different sub-themes, that <em>might</em> be on the exam. Out of the five themes, only three questions were asked. But let me tell you, it is really NOT easy to answer two essay questions and one 2-3 paragraph "short" answer question in 80 minutes. The essay questions could easily be 7-15 page papers if one had proper time. (The trick is to write as much as you know as fast as possible while trying not to hold your breath and answering the question properly - analyzing if asked, describing if asked, providing your opinion <em>only</em> if asked, etc.) For me, the biggest change has been this crunch-time exam style. I'm dreading the final for this class. I have 1 midterm left, two 5-7 page papers to write, and two finals. One of my classes is technical in nature, so my final will be a map project (I also have seemingly never-ending assignments to work on for this class.) None of my classes are graded on curves, but I know there are some in the social sciences that are. It seems like almost everyone is nice and willing to help each other out, even if it's just a small consolation of "oh, man, I feel for ya" on exam day. </p>
<p>Cal really is as hard and as much work as everyone says. I know it is harder for some majors and some people than for others, but you must be prepared to <em>work</em> for good grades in any major. It is extremely rewarding to be a student here. Your professors, your books and readers, and of course your peers, will challenge you to do better than you've ever done before. I freaking love it and wouldn't change my mind about picking this school if given the chance. Go Bears! </p>
<p>Good luck new transfer students, I hope you get into the school of your dreams.</p>
<p>Philosophy at UCLA:</p>
<p>I guess this is my "midterm" report, but I feel like this is pretty much the philosophy experience at UCLA and it won't change since we tend to NOT have formal finals.</p>
<p>100's of pages of reading of incredibly dense material is a great way to start this story. It's not like Descartes' "Meditations" or "Leviathan" by Hobbes, it is much more thick and time consuming. I am currently reading Rawls (easy, dry, but long), Frankfurt (easy but long), Frege (crazy and complicated) and Russell's "On Denoting" (i don't even want to talk about it). Everyone quickly learns that if you're stuck reading Plato and Aristotle for a quarter, you have no right to complain, unless you're reading "De Anima" then just suck it up and read about the mules and bees. Reading "The Apology" or any piece of work like that is a blessing in disguise because it's one of the easiest things you'll be reading at UCLA.</p>
<p>I just turned in a paper that is worth 60% of my grade. Bonus to that high percentage is that I have no midterm and no final, I just have two homework assignments (lambda calculus and typed l-c) and participation in class/discussion.</p>
<p>My other phil class is very different and we have many more papers to turn in; no midterm but we do have a final. Also we get marked down if we don't attend class, the upper division philosophy classes tend to be like this. The TA is supposed to keep an eye out and notice if anyone has not attended for some time and they will mark you down for missing discussion. It's impossible to get an 'A' in that class without going to every discussion.</p>
<p>As for the TA's? Not the most helpful people in the world. They will grade and correct your essay within an inch of its metaphorical life, but they may not lead the best sections in the world. I have one TA who is absolutely amazing and deserves to have his own class, but HE WILL NOT REPLY TO E-MAILS. Very irritating, especially when the professor will reply to you within 3 hours and the TA has yet to send back even a "yes" or "no" and it's been a week and a half.</p>
<p>The Professors at UCLA are different from what I expected. These crazy-smart people are really welcoming and patient. As long as you keep in mind that they have something better to do than listen to you whine/stress out. My young professor, was just added to the faculty this year, is incredibly helpful and earnest. It's really cool when you're walking down the hall and you pass David Kaplan!</p>
<p>All in all? I love it here. I'm really glad I picked a school that studies analytic philosophy and am constantly challenged. I have found a new love, Philosophy of Language with emphasis on semantics and semiotics. Speaking of which, it is now time to read.</p>
<p>Good luck with your applications! I hope you all get into the school of your choice and LOVE what you study. Philosophia!</p>
<p>My copied and pasted essay:</p>
<p>Well, I was dreaming of this stage of my life for all eternity. Dreaming of moving away from the *<strong><em>hole I grew up in. Dreaming of moving into a cool, intellectual, cosmopolitan, urban environment. Dreaming of freedom to start structuring my life the way I wanted. Dreaming of starting and joining clubs, making friends, getting a girlfriend for the first time in my life. I chose a campus specifically for all these things. So I am sitting here in my campus apartment now, thinking, "What the *</em></strong>?! Well, that was anticlimactic."</p>
<p>I have not had a happy life at all. Being a high-functioning autistic child in the rural community that my parents coveted was a recipe for failure. When you live in one of those little <strong><em>hole redneck towns, there's no arcades, no malls, no theatres, etc, so all you have for amusement is going and hanging out with other people. We autistics don't do that *</em></strong>. We demand specific activities to join others around, or we tune it all out entirely. It's all worse when you also factor in that those redneck ******s hate those who differ and thus bully them in school. Grade School is still the worst phase of my life I've known, but after you get wounded enough, you get a callous. That is, school sucked all horse dick, but at least I didn't expect otherwise.</p>
<p>So when I finally graduated, declining to attend my graduation ceremony because graduation ceremonies also suck, I started community college, and things started to look up for me. I still lived with my parents in that ****ty country town, and the city the community college was in wasn't great either, plus I never did make any more friends there than I had in Grade School, but there was a key advantage in that the schedule was flexible. There were general education requirements, but students were not shoehorned into classes in assurance that they were churned out with a standard education; rather, I took all the classes I needed as I saw fit, and as few at a time as I saw fit. </p>
<p>This actually had a markedly positive effect on my studies, because I wasn't overly-busy, as I always felt in High School. I began to not only succeed, but excel in nearly all my classes. While one will argue that any student who takes a lessened load of classes will perform better in those classes that he does take, I took especial advantage of the situation in a way that many others wouldn't. I selected classes from subjects I loved, mainly Social Science and Writing, and threw myself into them wholeheartedly with a passion few students matched. </p>
<p>What is more, in my spare time, I did not simply slack, but rather, spent time bettering myself in ways that I chose. I began to exercise to get myself into better physical shape, for the first significant time in my life. I began learning to draw, and learning to play guitar. I would make trips to the bookstore, and began developing my literary skills while passively entertaining myself by reading. I had impressed all of my teachers who saw what I had written, and I was deciding upon a career in writing novels. I still lacked friends, however, and still never had a girlfriend in my whole life. I figured, however, that with how relatively-great community college had been, the University would be even better. So I chose a campus that I thought would suit me the best, and departed with high hopes.</p>
<p>Here I sit now, with said hopes dashed. I am in a cool urban environment. There are many clubs to join on campus. There are intellectual students just like myself, who could likely be my friends. There are many attractive girls, with whom to form a relationship. There is a great library, which I could rent books from and use to do research for writing my own. Yet all of this is rendered moot, because this University's rigid, extensive homework policy leaves me with no ****ing time for any of it. It isn't as though I don't like learning. I did away with that thought in community college, and I actually like the classes I'm taking. While I consider myself an aspiring intellectual, however, my mind, though active and creative, has never been industrious. I can only exert it so much on so many things that take effort, and now I have three glaring things to exert it to in the form of my classes, and their time-monopolizing course readings. </p>
<p>So with what little spare time I have, I have no more effort left anymore to play guitar, or to draw, or to do any other things that involve effort; I just loaf. Hell, even my homework readings cease to be coherent after a point; it just all drones together after a while. I've come to dread tests, finals, a whole *<strong><em>ing rat-race of intellectual imprisonment, so I lock myself in my room with my books, and torture myself for the grade. I could be devoting myself to studies of academics on the one hand, and strengthening my creative mind on the other, as well as building a social life. For me, the last two are more important, because I've been learning all my life, mostly ahead of the level of my peers, but I've never had a social life before. Most people my age have had many girlfriends; I've had none, and few friends either. Here I figured I'd be in an environment that, with the vast amount of activities it offered, afforded me the opportunity to make that change. It still would, if I had the *</em></strong>ing time. I don't. It's a bit like having your favorite food being placed directly in front of you, and then seeing an iron door slammed between you and that food. So while this is still technically better than High School was, it's the worst disappointment of any educational institution in my whole life. I have so many opportunities for self-betterment, but no time for any of them.</p>
<p>All this might be a necessary evil for a normal person, but I'm not him. A normal guy generally has more fun in High School, because simply being around other guys makes him happy. A normal guy also isn't scapegoated. A normal guy gets a girlfriend in High School, usually one who doesn't last long, but he outlives the breakup and moves on, chin-up. A normal guy has enjoyed himself a considerable amount by the time he enrolls in a University, and can stand a bit of work. Finally, a normal guy aspires to simply a respectable, eight-hour white-collar career when he's done, and can expect to get one when he's educated. I, meanwhile, have had a ****ing miserable time growing up, with nothing but a lot of unrewarding intellectual development all my life, and I want to be a writer, a man who structures his life as he sees fit, and spends hours in front of the computer, pounding away on the keys until the money rolls in. Im not opposed to getting a standard white-collar career in the meantime, but it is strictly a means to an end; a way to make money until I get a best-seller, and no longer need it. I was advancing well along my way to becoming a writer when I was in community college, reading books voraciously, and typing essays here on Deviantart. Now, I am occupied with a workload that is structured specifically to give people a degree so they can get hired.</p>
<p>It gets worse. Winter Break is also much shorter than the one I got in community college, and when I told my parents that I wanted to take a lessened course-load next Quarter, they were jerks and said they would withdraw funding if I did. I feel that a such light workload is what I need in order to develop myself into the talented man I want to be, and I feel that I wont go anywhere if I dont have the time to start writing a book while Im still here, because who knows how much time I will actually have when I am working?</p>
<p>There are other gripes with this campus as well, but in general, its a much better environment than community college, and certainly better than High School. Yet for all its assets, I might as well be in prison, sans rape, because I have little time for anything but work, eating, and sleeping. I should be having the time of my life, going to zoos, aquariums, and museums, going on dates, joining clubs, and developing talents, but thanks to the heavy workload, none of that is possible. I thought Id love University life, but I find that instead, I truly hate what my life has become here, and I really dont know what the **** to do at this point.</p>
<p>Advice?</p>
<p>geezus. i don't know what else to say other than normal people worry and go through the same thing you do.</p>
<p>Advice: Grow up. There are people who have it worse than you do. You're not entitled to college funding by your parent. </p>
<p>Either find a way to fund yourself so you can be as free as you want, or deal with the life that you have. If you choose to find a way to fund yourself, you'll shortly see afterwards how lucky you are to even be able to hate your university life.</p>
<p>Noone likes negative stories without any positive twist that comes from it. All I can say is welcome to college, where everyone goes to get an Education. To put it bluntly not everyone parties all the time, if they do they figure partying or social life is more important than their grades. If that's what you want then do it, don't feel guilty for letting your grades get hit because that's what you wanted. Everything has a tradeoff, so if you want good grades, sacrifice some social life. If anything you could have both study groups are great ways to meet people and learn at the same time. Noone said studying had to be some tedious, mind-wrecking process. Oh and take a moment and see how fortunate you really are, your parents are paying for your education, and even though you have to take harder classes, so be it, its their money. If you want change, get a job but then you'll find yourself in a worse position then before.</p>
<p>You need to come to terms with reality. If you want to do all those fun things, you can do so once you're done. I think that you're feeling betrayed by this preconceived notion that you had of college which never fit into your expectations, and you are still naively holding on to that notion. Let it go; and as someone else said, grow up.</p>
<p>Many people confuse "atypical and frank" for "spoiled", including many on CC. I do sympathize.</p>
<p>If you're expecting a best seller, well, no comment... time and market forces alone will determine that. What matters is if you're (and you sound like you are) itching to write. I would follow a path that allows you to do this, even if that means calling your parents' bluff and dropping out. Your parents dangling you by their purse strings is absolutely not OK; you're an adult in college. They need to trust you to decide what courses to take when, not live your life for you.</p>
<p>UC Irvine's okay, but I'm leaving after this quarter. I don't feel like I can accomplish much here and the area is pretty boring. Plus, I don't have any family here or a car, and family is a really big deal with the filipino people. I'm surprised that a lot of people just want to pass; they don't strive for anything more. This place is too laid back, in my opinion.</p>
<p>^ what's your major and where are you considering going?</p>
<p>I am business econ, i'll transfer to community college and i am considering UCSD, UCLA, and UCB. i dont think i ever wanna go to uci again, but maybe</p>
<p>Cal sucks, don't transfer there if you are planning to do an impacted major or engineering.</p>
<p>If ya don't believe me, have fun hahaha.</p>
<p>Can you be more descriptive as to why "Cal sucks"? We all know it's cutthroat and competitive, but that's not really a valid reason.</p>
<p>seriously, you probably have a negative view of Cal because you can't take the work, getting ready to give up, or you have no life and no friends there. don't be posting your woes here because no one cares.</p>
<p>Just got my grades for my first quarter at UC Davis. I'm an English major, and against the advice of the entire planet i decided to take 4 english courses this quarter. 3 of them were upperdivision. Ended up with an A-, 2 B+'s, and a B-. Not too bad considering the extreme amount of reading and writing that was demanded. I expect to do much better next quarter.</p>
<p>Those of you who may be initially intimidated as i was, don't be. Chances are, you'll be just as capable as anybody else...there's a reason you were admitted and others weren't. While it's definitely different than CC, it's not anything unmanageable. If you devote your time and effort it should be pretty easy IMO.</p>
<p>wow 4 english courses! i can't even imagine the piled up amounts of reading and writing.. geezus. good job</p>
<p>Coming from UCSC and transferring to Cal, I have two stories of UC first semester/quarter experiences.</p>
<p>I loved UCSC. it was laid-back, relaxed, and I didn't have to work very hard to get good grades. I had lots of time to be social.</p>
<p>Not much there education-wise. I also had trouble finding labs to work in.</p>
<p>As for Cal, I like it here. I have to work hard to do well, but I feel like I deserve the A's more than in UCSC. I'm less social since I have to work so hard, but I think there is a tradeoff between good grades and how social you are. More time with you books equals less time socializing. Kind of obvious, but oh well.</p>
<p>I went from a rural, low density campus to an urban, high campus. Which was hard, but I got used to it. I prefer the low density campus, but that's just personal habits.</p>
<p>disengage, I want to hear why you think Cal sucks. Would you like to elaborate? Not trying to start a high tension debate, just want to hear a different perspective.</p>
<p>IMO, Cal has it's pros and cons, but I think the pros definitely weigh out the cons. I'm an MCB major, and despite competing with pre-Meds left and right, I actually have fun learning. I even had fun taking midterms ad finals (less on finals though). I know, kind of weird. But I studied really hard, and maybe that's why. </p>
<p>Cal has a lot of opportunities for research. I'm pre-PhD, and came b/c there are so many labs that you can get into. I got into one, and I love it.</p>
<p>All in all, I think I like Cal b/c I'm surrounding by people as driven as I am. Feels good, and challenging. I don't know if that's good, but I like it. Makes me work harder.</p>
<p>It IS hard. But it's not going to get any easier. I might as well learn how to suck it up now and be able to handle it before I get to grad school.</p>
<p>Go bears. But I am still a banana slug. It's where I came from, you know?</p>
<p>Hey passionate, great advice</p>
<p>First Semester at Cal:</p>
<p>So my first midterm is tomorrow and I need a break from studying...so I'll post up about Berkeley!</p>
<p>As a Spring transfer, coming to Berkeley in late January was intimidating to say the least. I was in the "last" batch of people to be admitted to Berkeley so to speak--even the Fall transfers had an idea of what was going on by this point. While I was a bit shell shocked, I did have a bunch of very close friends (including my roommate) who were extremely helpful and resourceful during my acclimation process. I partied pretty hard (yes, there are some VERY decent parties that happen at berkeley) my first 2-3 weeks and didn't pay much attention to school, but even now I would say it was totally worth it. </p>
<p>My fourth and fifth weeks were when my coursework began hitting me pretty hard. Problem sets and other miscellaneous assignments had me scrabbling to grasp concepts. I would have sunk right then and there if it weren't for Office Hours. Fellow transfers, if I can offer you one piece of advice: your GSI's will be Golden. Learn from them. They are brilliant--with a decent amount of them also being pedagogical geniuses. Office hours are what helped me catch up with my material, and now in the 6th week I feel like the material I'm learning is blowing my mind (in a good way). Also remember this: the stuff you learn here will really fascinate you if you let it. </p>
<p>As far as the overall climate: nothing beats Berkeley. If you want people to chill with it, Berkeley has them. If you want people to discuss academics with, Berkeley has them too. There's a lot of variety, and there's always something going on on campus. As far as housing goes--I got lucky. My apartment is way baller, and it's cheaper than most.</p>
<p>Now for some downsides to Berkeley:
- yes classes are big. you just have to deal with that. for a week i absolutely could not stay awake in my econ class. my solution was to sit in the very first row, and that's working out pretty great for me. so be creative in terms of dealing with large class size. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>you do have to study. and when i say study i don't mean it in the community college sense, in that memorizing and regurgitating is not acceptable at berkeley. at the JC level i remember all i would have to do would be to regurgitate facts, analysis, etc and I could pull off an A. The key at berkeley is that you must understand the material in a very intuitive way. in fact I would say that in my classes so far, intuition and conceptual learning is highly emphasized. but I would say that as soon as you make the adjustment in terms of how you learn the material, studying does become easier. </p></li>
<li><p>you will have to spend time studying. simple fact. I make it a point to get 3 hours of studying in every day at 100% focus, and about 3 hours at 50-60% focus. I'll let you know how that works out after my midterms haha. </p></li>
<li><p>oh another annoying thing about big classes: people talk in class. a lot. solution: sit up front where people know how to shut the f up. it weirded me out and it still weirds me out that people talk in class and the prof pretends like it just isn't happening. </p></li>
<li><p>berkeley food: i don't care what people say about berkeley food being delicious (admittedly a lot of it doesn't taste bad). it is unhealthy and MASSIVELY overpriced. eat from your own stockpile and do so often. </p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>so yeah that was my fairly incoherent summary of how berkeley is going. people here are great and you will love it as long as you are willing to be challenged. also, the student body is pretty attractive overall...i don't know what people were talking about with the whole berkeley goggles thing...</p>
<p>oh yeah i'm an econ major.</p>