University of California-Irvine Top Questions

If I could go back in time and tell my younger self anything, I would tell myself that no matter how hard or overwhelming things will get, keep working hard and give it your very best. There will be moments when you start to wonder "Is this really worth all the trouble?!" you may feel like you are riding a surfboard on top of a tsunami! It is during these "Wave riding moments" where you have no other choice but to hold on and try to keep balance. Sometimes though you can't hold yourself up and you need someone to lean on. This is when you need to rely on friends who can help support you when you get that sinking feeling. If you try to keep doing things by yourself you will have nobody there to catch you. College life is hard and even scary at times, but just know that that at the end of the tunnel is a light unlike anything you have ever seen before.

If I could go back and tell my high school self anything, I would tell her to not do anything differently. I did well in high school and had a great time. I have many memories there that I will never forget. I went to a community college afterwards, and I think that was the best decision of my life. It was a good transition to college, it was inexpensive, it was a small community, and I met my husband there. I became close to many people, professors, staff, and students, and I was given great opportunities there that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Choosing UC Irvine was another great decision I made. I love that school. I am even choosing to go to graduate school there. I met many people I will be friends with for the rest of my life, and I learned so much. I feel that I am not just a college graduate with a psychology degree, but a well-rounded person who knows more about people, education,money, friends, health, and life in general. If I could go and tell my high school self anything, it would be, "Do what you want to do."

there are many things that i would do different. i had my son as a senior in high school and that has made my life much harder than it was for many of my class mates in high school. i love my son with all of my heart but i know that i could have made some different choices to make things a little easier on my self. i am now 25 and in my first year of college. i now have two children and am a single parent and life is not easy. i think that if i had gone to college right after high school i would be almost done now. i have been a busy lady with working full time and going to school full time. so i am taking a little of my own advice and trying to make things a little easier for myself and my children and applying for some scholarships so that i won't have to work so much and i can focus on my children and school. thank you for your time and i hope that you concider me for this scholarship.

The popular phrase, there is no sight like hindsight is more than applicable to the college transition process. When looking back, the two most significant aspects I would stress to myself would be research and discipline. I would emphasize research as it applies to different campuses, majors, future occupations, even clubs on campus and scholarship opportunities. My campus plays host to over 500 organizations and I wish I had taken advantage of these organizations and getting involved during my integration into college. They provide balance to the academic stresses of college and serve as an outlet to get involved in the college community and more effectively network. I would also stress researching counseling opportunities. In college, campuses usually have phenomenal counseling options including career, academic, financial aid, and therapuetic counseling. However, in college it is the student's responsibility to seek out these helpful options. I would advise myself to fully research these options and take full advantage of them. Last but not least, I would advise myself to remain determined and disciplined. It is easy to lose sight of what you're working toward at a four year university but it is more than worth it in the end.

I would call myself on my 18th birthday. "Don't talk. Just listen. This is you from the future. Get a paper and pencil. Don't believe me? You have a crush on your spanish teacher and you don't want anybody to know. First, call your family every week during college." I never realized until well after my first year as a college student how much family can support and ease the transition. "You are not as smart as you think. Your GPA will drop to 2.7 before you realize that you need to study much more than you are. Start now." As a high school student, I had passed my classes with ease; I never spent much time studying yet did extraordinarly well. This is not the case with college where everybody was just as intelligent, if not more, than I was. "And - listen well - you will find a lot of inspiration and friendship in community service." Some of my favorite moments as a college students were times me and other like-minded individuals donated our time to help a cause we all believed in. An interesting question: would I have listened to my own advice?

If I could go back in time and talk to myself as a high school senior, the advice I would give myself is simple."Major not in what will pay more, but in what you have a passion for".,is what I would tell myself. At my freshmen orientation,I found myself hearing students talk about how they wanted to major in dance ,but their parents stressed them into majoring in law or engineering. This becomes a problem for the student in many ways. Not interested in a topic study results into slacking off and puts the student behind and away from the path they really do want to walk on. Its hard to know what one finds an interest in even I found myself changing my mind now and then. Since a student is still finding who they are in college,what a students likes (music,dancing,cooking,reading ,swimming ect.) never changes! With that being said don't worry about the money,if you do what you love the money will come in later!

I would tell myself to study harder for all my AP classes and take more AP classes because if I had taken it more seriously, I would have gotten more units for college and is more capable of doing better in all my classes.

I would have told myself that the hard part about the transition is the emotional one, not the educational one. I moved nine hours away from my home and I have always been very family-oriented, so not being able to see them for months at a time was very hard. Unlike a lot of people who go to UC Irvine, I did not have a lot of friends from high school there, so it was slightly harder for me to make new friends, and living with a stranger was very hard as well. I had always thought the schooling would be the hard part about college, but my high school education had prepared me for that. For me, it was the emotional transition that was the most difficult.

When I was attending high school my goal was to get accepted to Stanford. Even though I had a high gpa and was involved in a plethora of extracurricular activites, Stanford rejected me. I believe my inability to attend this university was due to my mediocre SAT scores. I did not make time to adequately prepare for this exam, which may have cost me an acceptance to my top college choice. Looking back, I wish I would have spent more time studying for the SAT. If I could give my high school senior self advice, I would tell myself to study as much as I can for the SAT. I have learned my lesson and I have decided not to make the same mistake. I am planning on taking the MCAT in a few years and I will not fail to adequately prepare for this exam like I did with the SAT.

Work as much as you can before school starts because job and school do not mix. And, you do not want to be broke. Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. Put everything you got into what your doing. Give 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c}.