MY TOP 5 COLLEGE REGRETS - UCLA Graduate

hey guys so like most videos I've been wanting to make this video for a really long time but I wanted to give it some thought before I went ahead and hastily film did so I'm here to tell you guys after it's almost been it's been about six months almost since I've graduated I'm here to tell you guys my top five regrets during undergrad at UCLA and I'm sharing them with you guys in hopes that you guys won't make these same mistakes so you guys will never have to regret the things that I've regretted and I know a lot of you guys just got into UCLA because it is admission season it's about March 27th when I'm filming this so I know admissions came out just a few days ago so I thought this would be a nice video to film for any future baby ruins out there who are looking to not make the same mistakes and really like take advantage of their time at college so without further ado let's get right into the video before this video gets started if you guys could do me a huge favor and give it a like that would be amazing to show me that you guys like this college related content that you guys like videos like this and if you guys are watching this and you are current college students go ahead and leave it in the comments below any regrets that you guys have so all the people who are watching this who are not yet in college can see them and maybe fix it so they won't have to make the same mistakes in college so guys I wrote them down and they're not in any particular order so I would say my very first regret at UCLA was not making sure I hit the ground running with a strong GPA slash looking not looking into grad school earlier I made an entire video about this and it actually did pretty well and I will go ahead and link that in the downbar below and it is all about how C's get degrees but they don't go to graduate school and that whole concept and how great their super important so if you guys want more on that topic go ahead and watch that video but basically all I have to say is that from the very beginning I highly highly recommend that you get a strong GPA and I will get more into this later with some of my other regrets because if you don't hit the ground running it's kind of like a snowball effect and if you don't really fix the reasons why you're not getting good grades right away it's really going to compound and cause you a lot more harm than good later on in your undergraduate career likely so I would just say make sure your GPA is as strong as possible from the very beginning and to do that I would say a lot of freshmen get really excited when they get to the new University and because they especially if it's like a more prestigious one they take like a million one classes right and they take they want to take like the full course load and all the hard science classes because they took seven AP classes at the same time in high school but I'm here to tell you high school is not the same as undergrad and you may think you'll be able to handle that workload but with all the things that are new and all the transitions and getting used to things and finding your classes and getting used to studying for college not high school I highly recommend you make your course load just a regular one starting out and definitely make it a schedule that's doable for you and also when it comes to making a schedule that's doable for you when it comes to early morning classes I would definitely tread with caution with that because getting up for an eight am in college is a lot different than getting up for high school and I will tell you guys that firsthand and that is why I avoided early classes at any cost when I was going to UCLA and yes I highly recommend that although eventually I ended up having to take early classes because that's all that was left just a fair warning make your schedule so it's something that you'll actually go to the classes for and don't skip your classes guys I know it's really tempting because no one's babysitting you now but I highly recommend you go to all your classes and don't skip out on anything to make sure your GPA is as high as possible okay guys and with that my second regret is not taking advantage of clubs / finding a mentor early on so if you guys know this at UCLA there are a million in one clubs if you are a freshman there and like pretty much at any major university you go to there's no need to be it like a club for everything but when you're freshmen there during zero week they have this big like fair and you go and you look at all the clubs and I remember getting so many flyers but I kind of just never followed up with it because it was one of those things that I was like oh I'll just figure it out later an undergrad like my first year I'm just gonna have fun whatever but I would say think about it maybe maybe your first year I would say maybe you have a past we're not joining any clubs but your second year definitely join something because a lot of it's kind of like applying for colleges all over again when you go to grad school they want to see that you have commitment to something even if even if it's something not related to your actual field of study they want to see that you're able to be committed and maybe have a leadership role in something which I did I wasn't residential life for three years and I did have a leadership role in that so that was one of the good things that I did do and I don't regret at all but I would say I wish that I was in sort of some sort of like Medical Club and instead of joining just a regular Greek sorority which is what I joined my freshman year I wish I would have joined pre-med fraternity because I know a lot of them have really good connections hookups mentorship and I would say the biggest thing there is I should have found a mentor early on in one of these clubs so someone to guide me because I really didn't have any sort of like guidance or mentor figure for my career path and I know in those clubs that's a really good way to find one another way which I'll talk about in a minute it's the research but so I wish I would have joined these clubs and looked into something that was related to something I enjoy and with that a lot of the clubs on campus that are more of the selective clubs or more of the selective groups they actually select based on your GPA and I didn't know that until like later when I tried to join clubs third year a lot of them will actually select you based on like people who have really high GPAs like there was one of them that was like gosh I forgot I think it's Emre something like that was like some sort of stroke Club and weird on the street is that they were only accepting people with like 3.5 GPA is like really high GPAs because they want to be like a really strong group of individuals there was also some internship clubs for the hospital that I tried joining but I don't think I got into those clubs and I think it was probably because my GPA wasn't high enough so once again that's why the GPA thing is kind of a regret because if I would have had the really great GPA from the beginning and then I wouldn't have had trouble getting into these like really exclusive clubs I have really great connections and really good seminars and all of this kind of stuff so find something you identify with and join that Club highly recommend because mentorship is super important and then I would say my next regret is not getting into research this is huge this is probably my number one regret from undergrad because I went to UCLA which is a huge research in just institution and the fact that I don't have any research is just kind of pathetic to say the least so I really wish I would have gotten to research earlier I remember later in my undergraduate career I was applying to labs but pretty much no I would say I would say 50% of the lab that I was looking into but we're looking for people who are either sophomore or junior standing someone who would be able to commit to several years of research and I think that is something that I didn't really quite understand because I didn't try applying to research until like my fourth year of college which is really silly on my part just to try and like check a list you know but yeah I should have gone into a lot earlier and there are definitely ways you can get into that look I go to your Career Center I know there's like research portals at certain universities so go ahead and look into that sooner rather than later and I remember I got I was really happy to work in a fish lab that was like I was so excited to even get that job that was my first interview and I ended up getting that job and I was really happy about it but I was really stressed and that caused me a lot of unneeded and unnecessary stress to not have any research on my transcript and also that's where you can find a really good mentor and if you're trying to get a letter of recommendation after college and then getting one from your Pi which is like the principal investigator of the research that you're conducting getting one from them could be a really really strong letter of recommendation it could make your application really stand out especially if you've been doing research for multiple years at a time so I definitely regret not getting into research please get into research especially if you're trying to go into the healthcare field because it's really important for your application not everywhere but it is something that they like to see okay guys so my fourth regret on my list is not looking into scholarship opportunities and I think this was a big flaw once again scholarships and college are pretty hard to get because Wow shocker your GPA is a big part of the scholarship review I regret now looking into more early on I did do a good job I think in high school of getting scholarships before college but I regret actively during college not looking into like internship things or like contests or like a lot of scholarship opportunities because I know there's a bit there's opportunities available out there and I just kind of like didn't look into it just because I out of pure laziness and it just wasn't concrete until I graduated how much money that college costs and how much money I was going to eventually owe because I didn't want to look into scholarship opportunities and thinking about it now that's pretty silly so if you guys are still in college definitely look into some of the scholarships that are out there and look into like research grants stuff like that and I would say my last regret is not fixing my study skills early on because the study skills are a huge part of getting good grades and if you're having trouble getting good grades there's really no one to blame but yourself and you need to look inwards and realize where you're messing up is it the fact that you don't have a regular routine is it the fact that you're not doing the homework are you're not going to class you need to figure out what it is that's messing you up and you need to fix it and for me I think early on it was just not knowing to study for those particular classes and not knowing that you need me you need to be consistent with these topics and you can't just like skip some topics to learn some that's kind of what I was doing in the beginning and that was really messing me up and I was just focusing on like small amounts of information instead of looking at the big picture and trying to pick out the really important information and I also didn't realize that how important flashcards now I use them for like everything if you guys watch my blogs you know that I'm a big flashcard person love Anki so these are just kinds of the things you can look into there's a lot of really good YouTube videos about like study skills and like ways that people memorize stop definitely look into that definitely create like a study schedule for yourself and stick with it and I think you will thank yourself in the long run so thank you guys so much for watching this video I hope you guys learned some pretty valuable information and you guys learn from my mistakes and don't make the same ones during your undergraduate career let me know in the comments below any videos you guys want to see that I haven't filmed yet and I would love to do that for you so I will see you guys in my next video and thanks so much for watching bye you

Channel: Amanda Magana

Views: 25,371

Rating: 4.9207134 out of 5

Keywords: top 5 regrets, undergraduate regrets, UCLA regrets, UCLA pros and cons, was my degree worth it, biology degree, STEM, USC, stanford, harvard, amanda magana, UCLA vlog, ucla tour, ucla dorm tour, ucla bruin day, move in vlog, how to study in college, how to do well in college, university, first generation, los angeles, degree in biology, how to get into medical school, premed, how to get into research, how to get As, how to get As in college, college regrets, college mistakes

Id: jPdTMA4avjE

Length: 10min 4sec (604 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2019