How I Transferred to UCLA | My Community College Story

hey guys welcome back to my channel if this is the first time you're watching my channel welcome you may have clicked on this because you saw the title and you thought you know what's it like to go to Community College maybe your recent high school graduate who is considering Community College maybe you didn't get into any of the colleges you applied to maybe you can't afford to go to a four-year university student out of high school maybe you're a returning student not a traditional student coming straight from high school whatever the situation is I'm hoping that by sharing my personal experience going to community college it will help you kind of get some insight about what exactly it's all about because I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to go to Community College what it means to be a community college student and what it means to transfer so to just jump into the story basically to help you understand it fully I'm gonna take it all the way back to high school my whole life I went to private school for high school I went to a private all-girls college preparatory so there was a lot of focus placed on academics on your performance on being involved in the community being involved in mathletics leadership all that kind of stuff and the situation for me was that I was really excited to go to school here but things didn't really go exactly as I had planned because I was super super shy and I'm still shy but I mean I was like cripplingly shy like I couldn't even look people in the eye shy like I had so much social anxiety I had such a hard time maintaining conversations with people so it was really hard for me to make friends and because of that I had zero friends I would literally like sit every day in the library at lunch time instead of eating lunch I would just like go on my phone call on my laptop do homework basically avoid all other people and because of that I fell into a really bad place in my life I was really depressed my parents were really concerned about me I kind of would just come home from school go straight to sleep until it was time to get up the next day for school and my grades took a hit during that time period I started out with like AIDS in the first semester and then basically from my freshman year first semester until my second semester my Jr I was just not even not even there like I was there I was present in school but I was not like here I was not there and I think my GPA was like a 2.4 it was really really really bad I did not care I didn't put in any effort like any effort that I put in was minimal so that really is one of the main reasons that I did not go to a four-year university straight out of high school because when it came time to apply to University my transcript was not competitive enough it was pretty bad it was terrible in fact I mean a 2.4 compared to some of my classmates had like a 4.4 and they did this extracurricular and they did this and they did that and they knew brain surgery and they were a rocket scientist blah blah so I just could not even compete with those people and I was denied from every single school that I applied to and that really hurt because by the time that I had actually sent in my applications I was really like back into it I had gotten a job so I kind of started to pick myself up again I was doing really well in school I had always always I was like so excited to go to college I wanted to go to college and then it just wasn't happening for me and it was really hard coming from a private school to be like one of the handful of students who was going to a community college which is like a lot of people consider it a waste of time because I think for a lot of people it is a waste of time a lot of students who don't put in any effort go there and then drop out or whatever I was so embarrassed about it I didn't want to tell anybody that I was going to Community College when people would ask me about it and when I would tell them like I could literally see the disappointment in their face it was so embarrassing and that's when I decided that this wasn't going to be the last chance for me there had to be another way to get to see too you see so after accepting the fact that I had been denied from every single school that I applied to didn't really matter anyway because I couldn't afford it I decided to enroll I West Valley College which is one of the local community colleges in my area I think this before I live in San Jose California which is part of the San Francisco Bay Area and I don't even remember much about the orientation I think they did like a little speech about how like oh this is less value like weld in the West Valley and then you had to have a meeting with a counselor and I told the counselor this is what I want to do at the time I wanted to major in geology don't know why I wanted to major in geology because I'm really bad at math and I'm really bad at science and I told her that I wanted to go to a UC like ideally UCLA or UC Berkeley her exact words to me were don't bother applying to UCLA or to Berkeley you won't get in but I wasn't gonna let that deter me from even applying to the schools that kind of encouraged me a little bit more because it made me realize that I was on this I was in this alone I graduated high school in 2015 and summer of 2015 is when I started taking classes at West Valley so that summer I took the math requirement that I had to take I don't even remember what it was I think it was like pre calc or something like that I'm really bad at math so it was one of the lower level maths and I took English 1a which is your basic English and I did really well in those classes like I worked really hard I got a z' and then the next semester I took English 1b chemistry this is where things get a little I took chemistry I think I took calculus and oh I took an online class I took I took sociology so I was started off taking those four classes and um yeah I dropped out of chemistry and the math class that I was taking which was calculus and you know what it's just not for me that's what really made me realize because I walked into chemistry I think it was like the second or third day of class and she was already lecturing like she was going off she was going all in on the information and I just didn't understand what she was saying at all I literally started crying and I had to leave the class because I couldn't understand what was going on so that was the end of my geology major days I decided to change things up I didn't know what to do going forward but I knew that I had to get through the general education so I dropped out of those two classes so then at that point I was taking English and what did I say sociology sociology and then I picked up another late start class which started later in the semester and I think it was like art or something like that art appreciation and I got all A's in those classes and my school is on semester system and I took classes every semester and every winter in summer terms you're not required to take classes in the winter and summer terms to be considered full-time but I did because I just wanted to get in and get out when sir I took geography and I think I've got like a b-plus it was really boring the teacher was so boring and then spring 2016 is when things started to get a little bit crazy so I took econ and geography too and those classes were terrible and so because I wasn't really interested in my classes I wasn't really paying attention in school so basically I started to care less about school and more about like my social life I was partying every weekend drinking every weekend staying out to like 6:00 a.m. every weekend and I could not focus on school I was just so over it I was so focused on like having fun and I was just being a really irresponsible student basically and and then when I got my final grades for that semester I was mortified I passed but I had like a really low seat and for econ there's a lecture and there's a lab which is the online component so it was two seas on my transcript not just one and I also got like a really low B in geography that semester so my GPA dropped way way way below what it was supposed to be the interesting thing about that though is that semester it's also the same semester that I got invited to be part of the Honors Program because of my outstanding academic performance so once I got that notification combined with my terrible grades I was like are Isis like it's time so I really turned things around that semester summer 2016 I took anthropology in the summer term and I did really well in it anthropology was actually my major for a while and that's what led me to my current name major which is linguistics so I did really well in it that's when things started to turn around from there basically I was doing really well I got all A's I did end up taking three years in Community College rather than the regular two for multiple reasons number one because I really wasn't ready I wasn't ready to transfer to a UC I wasn't ready academically I wasn't ready personally to leave home like I love my family I love my friends I love the Bay Area and I just I couldn't see myself leaving and I'm really glad that I took 3 years actually I felt kind of bad about it at first because I'm like I'm taking so long I'm gonna be like such a stereotypical community college kid who like can't graduate but I'm really glad that I did because it gave me so many more opportunities that I would have had if I would have tried to do in two years because my GPA went way up I think my GPA now is like a 3.7 and fall 2017 is when I applied to UC I want to say that I started working on the application in this summer so that's when I started writing my essays so we're working on those got those finished way before September 1st which is when the application opens so that summer I finished my essays and I also participated in the Berkeley summer experience basically it's kind of like this little immersion trip at UC Berkeley got to stay in the dorms and they give you tips on your application they expose you to life at Berkeley and at a UC you stay in the dorms to eat the food the whole enchilada and that was a really good experience because it kind of gave me an idea of who my classmates were and who my competitors were and what it would be like to live there even though it was kind of different because it was during the summer so you're not really getting a feel of like what it's like during a bustling semester but still you got an idea and I got a lot of really good tips during that little trip so if you have access to something like that close to you I would highly recommend doing that there were students at Berkeley summer experience who are from LA in different parts of Southern California into the different parts of Northern California and not that many people take advantage of it you do have to apply and you do have to be accepted to the program but it was it was a really good experience I think it definitely helps me improve my application a lot and make it way more competitive so I did that I applied to transfer admission guarantee for UC Davis transfer admission guarantee are offered for community college students from participating colleges you get to choose from UC Davis UC Santa Barbara Riverside Irvine Merced there's probably another one but I'm forgetting it the schools that don't participate that and that would be the more competitive schools so UCLA Berkeley San Diego probably forgetting one once again but it's kind of nice because you just have to maintain a certain GPA and promise that you will take these classes that you list on the form in the next semester and you're guaranteed admission so it was nice to know that I was going to college like without any question I would there is somewhere there's a space for me next year to pursue a higher education so that was a really a big comforting fact for me and then I applied I don't even remember when the tag was due I want to say like September 15th and then the tag was accepted in December November 1st is when you can start submitting the application I submitted my application on the third and the first acceptance that I got was from UC Santa Barbara and that was in March it was really early that was pretty unexpected but I was super excited because I was just really encouraging that made me feel like okay maybe there's like a possibility that I'll get into UCLA or Berkeley or even San Diego because there's a pretty competitive schools as well and then the second acceptance I filmed for you guys so check out the video I will put the link somewhere here in this video to the college decision reaction video in that video I react to my UCLA acceptance San Diego and Berkeley so you can kind of see exactly what happens there but I was so happy to be accepted to UCLA because it gave me hope that I would get into Berkeley and Berkeley was my number one school as I've said in other videos so then I got the Berkeley acceptance you can view my reaction in that other video I was really taken aback by the fact that I was accepted for the spring term and not for the Fall and after careful deliberation I decided to go to UCLA and that pretty much brings us up to the present day I went from being rejected in high school from every single school that I applied to to being accepted in Community College to every single school I applied to so hopefully that gives you guys an idea of what it's like to be Community College student if they you have more specific questions if there are certain things that you want to know about just let me know down below in the comments or you know you can even request if I get enough requests from enough people maybe I'll make a video a little Q&A whatever but it's a pretty unique experience I think it's different for everybody I am ultimately very happy with my choice to go to Community College I think it's offered me so much more than I would have even been capable of if I would have went to Community College if I would have went to Fort your University out of high school so thank you so much for watching have a good one bye

Channel: Hailey Dollar

Views: 63,505

Rating: 4.9442577 out of 5

Keywords: how i transferred to ucla, college transfer experience, transfer experience, my community college story, community college advice, community college channel, how to transfer from community college to university, community college transfer to ucla, should i go to community college first, how to get into a uc with low gpa, how to transfer to ucla from community college, how to transfer to ucla, transferring to uc from community college

Id: 2dFo68LYVe8

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 04 2018