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25 Things

We Wish We Had Known

As Freshmen
Brought to you by Pilipinos for Community Health @ UCLA Compiled and edited by Tyrone Johnson, Member Relations Co-Director Celebrating 25 Years of PCH
Theres always quite a bit of inherent uncertainty in your first year of college. UCLA is a massive institution with many opportunities, services, and challenges to offer, and youll have a lot to discover from day one. (Come across the Bruinwalk website yet? If so, youre off to a good start! Still using trays at the dining hall?... Hehehe.) We put our heads together and came up with a list of what we wish we had known from the get-go, to try to spare you from trying to find everything out the hard way! Hey, even if youre no longer a first-year, there just might be something in here you still dont know. ______________________________________________________________________________
1. Tip for academic success: Become acquainted with your major/departmental counselor as soon as possible. You dont have to be an upperclassman to meet with your department counselor! On the contrary, we recommend you do so as soon as you can. While you general counselor can be useful when it comes to general academic questions or questions about general graduation requirements, when it comes to class planning and classes concerning your major (including your pre-requisite classes), your departmental counselor is THE ultimate and authoritative source for guidance. Seek them out now, and meet with them often! Even if youre undeclared, talking to a departmental counselor of a major relative to your interests can be a huge help! Didnt get into a class you needed? DO NOT give up! This is a very common mistake we see made by first (and second) year students all the time. Simply put: try, try, again! Effort is rewarded. People WILL drop out of the class in significant numbers during Week 1 of the quarter, allowing you to slip in (see the additional note below). Something else that also gives you a great shot: e-mailing the professor, or better yet, talking to them directly either after class or during office hours. If they know you are concerned about enrolling into their class, they will try their best to get you in (and usually, they succeed). Didnt get into a chem lab? Show up on time anyways to the first meeting of your desired lab section and sit tight. There will almost always be no-shows who will immediately be dropped, giving you a great shot at filling their spot. On a further note: classscanner.com is a great UCLA-oriented site that will text you when a class youre waiting for opens up. Check it out. 3. Tons of potential scholarships go unclaimed every year, because not enough students apply. Apply, apply, apply! There are few things worse than leaving free money on the table. A quick Google search of UCLA Scholarships will take you everywhere you need to go. AAP-eligible students: applying to AAP will give you access to further scholarships, many of which are also unclaimed!

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Want to avoid massive lines for textbooks? Get there early! Theres almost no line at the Bookstore before 9AM, so if you want to save an hour (or two) buying your textbooks, set your alarm a little early! Tip for academic success: Its very useful to have upperclassmen friends (especially those with the same major as you). By our third year, we have a pretty good grasp on the ins-and-outs of UCLA life. While were not a replacement for your departmental counselor, we can often point you in the right direction when it comes to course planning, especially if youre wondering about course content, the difficulty of a class (we know whats easy, and whats damn hard), and the merit of certain professors. By this time, we are usually also heavily involved in extracurriculars such as research and campus organizations, and we have a lot of background knowledge about opportunities available on campus, including some possible connections. Would you like to take a look at old tests and labs? We can help you out. Maybe most importantly, we all have a list of mistakes, regrets, and bad decisions that wed love to share with you (really) so you wont have to make them too. The best part of all? We really enjoy helping you out! PCH offers a mentorship program in which all members are paired with an older student based on similar majors and interests. If youve always wanted to try something new, nows the time to do it. Interested in a cappella, dance, surfing, archery, poetry? Quidditch??? UCLA offers the opportunity to get involved in almost anything you can think of. The John Wooden Center has a multitude of classes you can sign up for, including yoga and martial arts, for a reasonable fee. Consider getting out of your comfort zone. You may just discover your next passion! Need to get around LA? The bus can get you where you need to go. Want to get downtown? The Metro 20 and 720 Rapid bus lines run along Wilshire all the way from Santa Monica to Downtown, passing by popular destinations such as LACMA and the La Brea Tar Pits. The closest stop to UCLA is at the corner of Wilshire and Westwood. If you just want to get to the beach, the Big Blue Bus Lines 1, 2, and 3 run from UCLA to Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The bus stop for these buses is in front of the P2 Parking Garage. Other bus routes can be found online at www.metro.net. Science major and enrolled in a GE cluster? You may want to reconsider. Thinking about getting all your GE classes out of the way early? Probably a bad idea. It may sound like a great deal, but there are multiple things to be cautious of when it comes to GE Clusters. For one, clusters are usually significantly more work-intensive than normal GE classes, which is bad, because you want your GEs to be as easy as possible! Also, clusters are time-locked and inflexible, which may present problems in your course planning for Winter and Spring. Finally, while 4-credits-for-3-classes sounds like a good bargain, let us let you in on the know: you want to save at least some of your GE classes for your 3rd and 4th years. Why? Because as bad as taking three prerequisite courses a quarter sounds, absolutely nobody wants to take three upper-division science classes at one time. Delaying your GE requirements will allow you to balance your schedule later on, when it really counts. Hungry/thirsty and looking for a great selection of snacks and drinks at the lowest prices available at UCLA? Look no further than SEAS Caf! With coffee, tea, and snacks available for at or under a dollar, SEAS Caf, located at 5800 Boelter Hall, is the place to go for a filling study break. It's a hidden gem here on campus, so stop by sometime!

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10. Key to academic success: Have fun in moderation. Everybody has an academic and social balance; find it! Dont forget that your classes should be your sole priority, but its also important to make friends and get involved here at UCLA. Contrary to what Tumblr says, you CAN balance academic success, a social life, and sleep you just have to be focused, efficient, and well aware of your commitments and deadlines.

11. Want to use the potty in luxury? Check out the restrooms in the Physics and Astronomy Building (PAB). The 3rd floor ones are absolutely pristine if you have time to make it up there. 12. Key to academic success: Adapt to the quarter system. Quickly. The pace of the quarter system is unlike anything youve ever seen before. Expect your first midterms from around the end of 3rd week to 5th week at the latest. Guess what? Your first (or only) midterm is almost always the easiest test, so you want to do very well on it. This will not be possible if you wait until a couple days before to start going through the material. You simply cannot afford to fall behind. We know you guys will want to party it up (figuratively and/or literally) during Week 1 and maybe even Week 2, but you really need to set some time aside to tackle your coursework, or youre going to have an avalanche to deal with. 13. Interested in receiving 3 free AMC or Westwood movie theater tickets, or 3 free UCLA food vouchers while making a difference? Donate platelets at the UCLA Blood and Platelet Center! If youre running shorter on time (platelet donations take approximately two hours, but you get to choose a movie to watch during the process) then you can still receive one free movie ticket or voucher for donating blood. Either way, youll also get to chow down on free cookies, fruit, and sports drinks, and sometimes youll receive a free shirt! 14. Want access to the fastest Internet speeds UCLA has to offer? Invest in an Ethernet cable! Dont get us wrong; UCLA Wi-Fi is pretty darn fast. But if youre, say, a gamer, or like to stream TV shows and movies, or would just like to have plain faster speed, then purchasing an Ethernet cable will let you connect to UCLAs ultra-fast wired network. All dorm rooms and libraries are equipped with Ethernet ports. 15. Key to academic success: Sometimes, getting the grade you want in a class will require going to office hours. (Beware: Math 3C, LS4, Chem 14BL & 14CL, Math 32B, Chem 30B, 30BL, 30C, Chem 153L, and any class where the material just doesn't click for you.) Eventually, you will encounter material which you find excessively difficult (or in the case of chem lab, pre-and-post lab questions of which you are uncomfortably uncertain you did correctly), and you will have a choice to make: either go and request extra help, or attempt to wing it. Don't be lazy! Making a wholehearted effort to meet your professors and/or TAs and ask them questions will almost always result in a better grade in the course. Do not be intimidated by your professors! They have chosen to teach to college undergrads for a reason, and the vast majority of them are truly concerned about your success. You will likely feel very awkward the first time you decide to go to their office, but you will quickly become comfortable with seeking help from them. Regularly attending a professor's office hours is also a great way to obtain a letter of recommendation! 16. Need a cure for homesickness? Make friends and get involved! There will never be anywhere quite like home. However, if you find yourself severely missing it, the best way to cope is to just get out there! Loneliness is a big trigger for homesickness. Developing relationships and getting involved is a great way to adapt to being in a brand new environment, and as time passes by, you will hopefully begin to find that UCLA has truly become a home away from home. 17. Start thinking about what you want to do with your future, now! Its reasonable if you currently have no idea what youd like to do career-wise once you graduate. However, its good to make a concerted effort to at least pinpoint areas of interest so that, at the very least, youll have baseline list to work with as you get closer to your cap-and-gown. You dont want to graduate without having some kind of plan, or at least some solid options of what you would like to do after UCLA! For all you pre-health students, PCH offers quarterly pre-health panels in which we invite health professionals (including MDs) to come have intimate small-group discussions with you concerning their experiences, your career goals, and much more!

18. Life science majors, the hard truth is: Chem 14A is relatively easy compared to the rest of your prerequisite science courses, regardless of subject area. Your performance in this course is an excellent indicator of whether you are approaching UCLA-caliber science material well, or whether you need to improve on your work ethic and/or study habits. It only gets harder from here, although not too much harder. The amount of effort required to do well in 14A is representative of the effort required to do well in all of your other science courses, and some courses will require even more. It's extremely important to start developing good study habits now. If you find yourself doing well in 14A, then you likely have the appropriate mindset to succeed in the rest of your science curriculum (but there's always room for improvement!). Likewise, if you are struggling, we recommend that you take the time to evaluate what you need to change: Do you need to spend more time reading and doing practice problems? Are you waiting too late to begin preparing for exams? Do you need to go to office hours for extra help?... and etc. 19. Live in a res hall? Your lounge is a great place to be social and usually a horrible place to study. If you feel like you cant get things done in your room, simply walking down the hall probably will not turn out well either. Lets face it hall lounges are great places to hang out, which makes them highly distracting if youre trying to get work done. If youre really interested in being productive, seek out the library, study rooms, or a relatively quieter place on campus somewhere without too many people you know. 20. Tip for academic success: Save your midterms and tests so you can use them to access the Test Bank in the SAC. There is a Test Bank on campus! In order to retrieve tests from it, you must contribute at least one of your own tests to the bank every quarter. The Bank is located at 105 SAC. Achieving Active Membership in PCH will grant you access to our own online Test Bank, which has been steadily growing every year. 21. Dont bust your printing budget! SAC offers you 100 free pages of printing per quarter! Have your own printer? You should have an option to decrease the amount (volume) of ink the printer uses while printing documents, whether color or black. This can more than double the amount of pages you can print from your personal printer. 22. Need an iClicker for a class? DONT buy the app. From experience, the iClicker phone app often presents more problems than its worth. For peace of mind, purchase the physical clicker just dont forget to bring it to class! 23. Sleepy and struggling on that final study grind? Free coffee is available in Kerckhoff Coffee House after 9PM during 10th and Finals weeks. Free coffee. Free coffee! 24. Are you eligible for AAP (Academic Achievement Program)? If you are, you need to join! Its very easy to enroll in AAP, and once youre in, youre in until graduation, even if you dont make heavy use of their services (although we encourage you to do so). AAP provides free course tutoring, specialized counseling, and mentorship, along with access to programs and scholarships available only to AAP students. You may find what they have to offer very useful, or you may not, but at the very least, enrolling will allow you to access their services at your discretion. 25. (2) Keys to academic success: Read the book, and go to lecture!!! This may seem extremely obvious, but there will be some of you who will consider skimping out one or both of these fundamental habits. Be diligent! There are no pre-requisite courses in which reading the book will not help you better grasp the concepts, and ultimately get a better grade. Tempted to watch lectures on Bruincast instead of attending in person? You will comprehend and retain the material better if you're present and attentive in lecture. Remember this rule of thumb for college life: Any decision made out of laziness will usually not bode well!

We hope you gleaned some useful information from all this! Best, PCH Staff

About PCH
PCH is a community volunteer organization under the Community Service Commission at UCLA. Our focus is on educating and providing health services to the disadvantaged populations of the Greater Los Angeles area, while simultaneous striving to provide members with valuable educational experiences, academic support, and a warm and welcoming environment. We provide our members with a range of opportunities to gain hands-on experience by serving the health of the LA community.

You do not need to be pre-health, nor Pilipino to join!


Service opportunities: Get trained to manually take blood pressure readings, and screen clients for hypertension at weekly sites Participate as a volunteer in a health fair, where health professionals come together to contribute health services (such as cholesterol and glucose level screens, mammograms, pap smears, dental, hypertension, and bone density) at absolutely no cost to disadvantaged communities. Go on a medical mission to the Philippines, delivering medical supplies and providing health services to impoverished populations Volunteer in the Senior Smiles program, where you are paired with a senior citizen and provide social company along with teaching assistance (we are currently the only UCLA undergrad org that does anything like this!) Member Support Programs Pre-Health Panels o events in which we invite health professionals (including MDs, nurses, and pharmacists) to come have intimate small-group discussions with you concerning their experiences, your career goals, and much more! PCH Mentorship Program PCH Test Bank MR Scholarship o Offered every Spring, the MR Scholarship awards two monetary prizes along with a 50% discount to a Princeton Review MCAT Ultimate Review Course (a savings valued at $1150!) For more information about joining the PCH family, please contact us: Email: pch@ucla.edu Website: pchatucla.weebly.com FB: facebook.com/pilipinosforcommunityhealth This document is an advice column representing the expressed opinions of PCH Staff. In no way does this document attempt to represent the views of UCLA, its faculty, or staff.

Celebrating 25 Years of PCH

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