what I wish I knew about college...THE TRUTH ABOUT UCLA

and that's the deal that hey guys welcome back to my channel in today's video I'll be listing the things that I wish I knew about UCLA before I came this is gonna be part one of a series where I describe the pros and cons of UCLA so this video is gonna be more the cons and like things I wish I knew and then the pros video will be coming very soon so make sure you subscribe so that you'll get notified when that goes up this video will be split into two different parts so the first half is going to be like all about classes and enrollments and like grades and stuff and then the second half is going to be more social living housing what it's like to live as a student UCLA if you want to skip to the second half I'll leave the timestamp down below in the description but definitely stay around for the whole video and really try to make this specific to UCLA yes there are some things that apply to all colleges but I did try to make this specific to UCLA so I really hope this helps you guys out just some general background information on me I am a freshman I'm currently in my third quarter at UCLA and I'm a pretty bestest economics major I'm from Seattle Washington so I'm an out-of-state student of course I just want to leave a disclaimer at the beginning all these opinions are my own there might be another student I UCLA who has a completely different experience and disagrees with everything I say I did get some of my friends opinions when I was making this video so I want to give you guys a well-rounded kind of point of view and bringing some different viewpoints but yeah for the most part of my friends and I all agree all these things so yeah without further ado let's get on to the video okay so as I said the first half is gonna be about classes grades enrollment more like the academic side of UCLA first thing is if you're looking at UCLA something really important to know is that our academic system is a quarter system so some schools have quarter systems and some have semester systems obviously there are pros and cons to both of them but some things I wish I'd known about the quarter system is one it is very very fast our quarters are made up of ten weeks and generally each class will have one to two midterms throughout the quarter and then a final during week 10 or finals week finals week is a week right after week 10 so with that I always felt like there was a midterm or final writer corner I always felt like I had something I need to study for because I kind of did the classic example is my math class so I had two midterms one during week three one during week seven and then a final during finals week so pretty much week one and two you're preparing for the first midterm and then once you don't that you're like okay I got that done and then week four you know kind of like chilling a little bit and then the next week week five six you're preparing for week seven midterm then week seven midterm is done and then you know you're chillin for week eight oh really we can nine and 10 are dot start and that's when you're preparing for the final so it really feels like you don't really have that much of a break you're always working towards that midterm or final and you know it can be stressful especially since those are the majority of your grade honestly the only time that I felt like I really could chill and relax was during like weeks one and two before everything really started rolling so that's definitely a negative part of a quarter system that I'm not a huge fan of but on the other hand I guess you could say a pro the quarter system is because it's so jam-packed and because the midterms and finals are so close together you really retain the information so I would say I don't have to study as hard it's like maybe some well in the semester system does because the information is so fresh in my mind because I literally just had a test on it so since there's not that much time between the tests you retain the information a lot more when it comes to enrollment make sure you take that time very seriously and choose classes that first of all you're interested in and second are easy because your time outside of class will largely be dependent on how difficult the classes so there's this website called brand walk and basically everyone goes that during enrollment period and there's reviews of all the professors and all the classes rating each class on difficulty how well a professor is able of teaching material and just generally ranking the classes there are lot of GES that you as a UCLA student need to fulfill so I mean if I were you and what I'm doing is taking the easiest G's that came impossible because I want to raise my GPA as much as I can so really looking at brain walk and researching find out what those AC classes are there are some classes that are notorious for being super easy so those include like Scandinavian 50 don't ask me why but yeah it's pretty common knowledge around a CLA by the Scandinavian classes are really easy I took test my 8 which is the design media histories course that was really really easy honestly I literally slept during every lecture and the midterm and final would take home so you literally just wrote a take-home essay I've heard poli-sci 10 is pretty easy but yeah there are a lot of really easy courses that are available to you if you go out and research about them but at the same time there are also hard courses so yeah overall I would just say before enrollment make sure that you really look into the courses know this is where the whole big school thing really comes into play when you're trying to get those easy classes because let me tell you enrollment is a stressful period for UCLA students because it's literally the Hunger Games everyone has a specific enrollment time over the course of like a few days so it's literally by the hour for example my enrollment I'm last quarter first of all is sucked it was like 10:00 p.m. on the last day so ton of the good classes like all the eats of classes were long gone there are people who have priority enrollment so that will include athletes and Regents colors and also priority goes to upperclassmen so that's a first year you really are at the bottom of the ranking for enrollment and with so many students trying to get the easy classes or the good classes yeah it is very difficult to get those classes so just let you know yes there are easy classes out there but don't get your hopes up too high because it is very difficult to get them something that I really really stress is that you want to make sure you have a ton of backups available during enrollment because once it's your time to enroll if you want to like go go go if the class I gave planned to enroll in is taken you want to make sure you have a backup so that you can just enroll in that backup right away because you don't want to spend that time trying to find another course because in the meantime other people will swipe up the courses so make sure you're definitely prepared and you have lots of backups for me personally I always made sure that I had at least like three backups for each class another thing when it comes to academics this is more generally in college but which I know that my entire grade was basically gonna be made up of midterms and finals like participation and homework grades barely counts for anything in college and this would have changed my college decision like which college I chose because pretty much all colleges are like this but yeah I just wish I known that because I'm not the strongest of test takers and when your whole grade is basically like 40% of your midterm and like 50% of your final and 10% participation in homework you know it can really stress a gal out so that's definitely something I wish I'd known this next point goes towards freshmen only so if your transfer student this doesn't apply to you but basically freshmen are offered this I guess like you could say program where you can knock out four GES for the price of one that's like how they advertise it these are called the cluster programs and they really really sell these hard during orientation and just general freshmen enrollment unlike a typical class which lasts for one quarter the cluster classes are year-long the first two quarters fall and winter quarter are just like a typical lecture and discussion you have your midterms or finals and then the third quarter I don't know if this goes for all the clusters but for most of them I've heard you have kind of a seminar style I think the statistics say that around like 30 percent of freshmen do clusters I personally took a cluster I was in the mind over matter clusters so that was a lot of psychology and neuroscience but it was really well-rounded it wasn't just like the biology or like the chemistry of like neuroscience or something like that there was a lot of history involved as well there were multiple professors multiple TAS but yes basically how the cluster works is so you take the class for three quarters so typically for classes you get like three credits worth because it's three quarters but for the cluster class even though it's a year long three quarters you get four credits done so one extra credit and you also get you're writing to your requirement done so I guess that's like another credit in a sense so obviously during orientation I was like wow this is you know really getting a bang for my buck like why not and yes it's great that you get those extra credits well something I wish I known is that it wasn't necessarily worth it like I'm not definitely gonna say that I would never take the closer course or that I would for sure take the class of course like it's really mixed in my opinion if I were a refreshment would I take it again honestly I probably wouldn't but of course it depends on what cluster you take for me I took the mind-over-matter one and I was really interested in psychology but not neuroscience like I'm not a huge science II person at all so that was definitely something I struggled with and with the clusters because it get those extra credits the classes are typically more difficult than your average class there are ton of different options for clusters so if you're going to take one just make sure that you choose a subject that you're genuinely passionate about and interested in and you're willing to put in the work for if you're willing to do that then I think it's a great bang for your buck third quarter with those seminars it's definitely a lot more chill but first a second quarter I would definitely say my cluster course was of course I have the most work in the most stress about I don't know if this goes for all cluster courses but for the mind-over-matter one we had a quiz every week and none of my other classes had quizzes at all I'm not gonna lie I strongly strongly considered dropping my cluster course before second quarter because how it works is during first quarter you get your one credit and then you have to continue from there if you drop it after the first quarter you just get the one credit but if you drop it after the second quarter you don't like it a second credit you just get the one credit so it's kind of hard to explain but basically if you're gonna do it go all in if you don't want to do it don't do it that's just something I wish I'd known because I dedicated a lot of time to it and it was definitely you my hardest course the next thing I want to talk about it is that obviously UCLA is a very very big College there are so many undergrads so this might apply to other large schools as well but with a large school you're going to have ginormous class sizes so you know those typical 200-250 size lecture halls and with that you're not gonna give the same sort of relationship with the professor as you may have with your high school teacher this is definitely important to know going in and I'm sure you've probably heard of this like applying to a large school you're not gonna get a close-knit relationship with the faculty as much you really have to go out of your way and make sure you're like introducing yourself and like like going to office hours if you want to get to know a professor and if you want them to remember you so that can be difficult if you want like letters of rec but also coming from a small high school like literally in my class nights in high school there was 80 people total in my grade and then each class was about like 15 people so you're really close with all of your teachers so in that sense I think it was easier to get individual attention and individual help in high school whereas ie CLA especially like before midterms or finals if you go to the professor's office hours don't expect that you're gonna be one of the few people there because it gets packed I mean obviously it depends on what class it is but for my bigger classes like math and science classes before the midterms and finals there would be at least like 20 people in the office hours so it can't always really expect that you're gonna get all your individual questions answer so that's definitely a con in my opinion the next thing I want to talk about is TAS obviously I'm not trying to talk bad about cheese or anything so don't take this the wrong way TAS are graduate students so they're just like us they're students or you know busy with their own work and they're just trying to make some money and like teach students but honestly I haven't had that great experience like learning from TAS I mean I really liked getting to know my cheese like they're really friendly people but in terms of learning like they haven't really helped me that much and I think this is a pretty important point when it comes to academics because your professors they're only holding office hours like once or twice a week and those office hours can get pretty busy depending on what class it is so you really rely on the TA to be the one who teaches you your success in the class will really depend on how knowledgeable a TA is and how well they're able to explain the material so can be really hit or miss I've had some classes where the TAS were super helpful for example my math class in winter quarter the TA was very helpful and like teaching us all the material we need to know whereas my friend who was in a different lecture for the exact same math course so it was math 31b she was like she had a different TA she was telling me that her TA was not helpful at all so even though we were taking the same course we got drastically different amounts of help from our TA and as a result different grades not gonna lie I've literally had TAS several times before when I've gone into their office hours and ask for help like hey what does this mean or like what does this concept mean I'm kind of confused they'll be like oh that's a good question let's google it and I'm like oh I could have googled this myself in my dorm I don't need your help googling things so yeah again I'm not trying to bash TAS or anything like that remember there's students as well and they're just trying to get through college to just don't always rely on the TA to be able to help you because in my case I haven't always found that to be true honestly the most helpful thing for me and understanding all the material for my classes has either been one Khan Academy to course hero or three just hiring an outside tutor which I know not everyone has a means to have so if you're struggling of course I highly recommend checking out like online resources because those are free for the most part and I think they explain things really clearly next I'm going to be going into more social housing living just generally what it's like to live as a student at UCLA so one thing that's kind of a con but I guess is also a secret Pro because it keeps you in shape is that there is a lot of walking at UCLA I'm not exaggerating this at all but if I were to walk to and from my class I would say I could take up to two hours everyday walking for my classes because I live at the very top of the hill the hill is where all the dorms are so I basically live on one end of campus and then my classes are on the other side of campus so if I'm walking to a class I'll be thirty minutes and then if I want to walk back to my dorm they'll be thirty minutes and then if I have a second class later that day and you know I did decide to go back to my dorm so I would have to walk to my second class I'll be thirty minutes and then back to my dorm another thirty minutes so see what I mean how it can add up to two hours like it is crazy how much walking there is now in reality I would say maybe the first couple of weeks I did that where I walked back and forth but it got tiring real fast so I learned to either just like stay on campus like where the classes are I'm just chillin like a cafeteria or a library or something so I would have to go back and forth or I would use a bird or like a lift scooter which is basically those like electric scooters where you just pay by the minute so that definitely saved a lot of time but yes there is a lot of walking at UCLA and also UCLA is not a flat campus I have a lot of friends who are in college and they're also like oh yeah like there's a lot of walking in my college but my college is a flat campus ya know UCLA have many many Hills the place where dorms are is literally called the hill so there's a lot of incline as I said there's a GoPro you'll get a lot of steps in and it'll definitely keep you in shape which I mean is probably good thing because the dining hall food is really good I mean that is why they call UCLA the University of calcium I thirst memory card so second memory card here we go but back to what I was saying um yeah I think I just explained there's a lot of walking I said earlier the food I you see LA is top-notch it's really good in fact we ranked number one on Miche for college with the best dining halls if you want an in-depth video of an explanation of our meal plans and all the different dining halls and eating places on campus I actually have a video on that I'll leave it in the description bar down below or you can just go over to my channel so I will definitely mention the food in my pros video but something I did want to bring up with the cons video is that sometimes you're gonna be waiting a long long time for your food this isn't so much when it comes to dining halls because dining halls you can just swipe in and they just go and get whatever you want but especially for takeout places specifically there's a place called the study where people pick up sandwiches and salads and then there's a pickup spot called run day which is also really popular they have Mexican takeout or Asian take out those places especially during common meal time so like around noon for lunch or around like 6 7 p.m. for dinner they can get really really crowded there's always some sort of wine I have legit had to wait for a salad from the study for 30 minutes before so if you're in a rush like your girls got places to go this isn't always super reliable for getting your food on time another thing to know about general like living I UCLA is the washing machines suck and hydric some but I mean I friends who live like in all sorts of different buildings on the hill and everyone agrees that the washing machines just suck they have the same brand of washing machine in every single dorm building pretty much so across the board you're gonna get the same experience no matter what dorm you live it they just don't wash your clothes very well and something I am willing the hard way is that you can't even stuff the washing machine over like half full if you fill the washing machine even halfway with clothes some of the clothes and the bottom will even get wet so what I did is I would just use multiple washing machines at a time in order to get all my clothes done in like one go but obviously that's just more money because you're charged for each time he's a washing machine so I guess another con I would say for me is that I just wish more of my stuff was like spread out and not clumped together in terms of workload because I would find that during certain weeks especially like week 3 or 5 or 7 like during those typical midterm speaks like all my classes would have midterms on the same week and I was still had all the different organizations and clubs as a part of like we would still have meetings and stuff and again this is speaking personally for me I was really involved on campus I was part of a sorority I was part of three different clubs and organizations I was also a maple in college ambassador and that took a lot of time as well so yeah I had a lot on my plate in terms of extracurriculars but obviously all things I love doing but with that I just found I could get really overwhelmed and have a lot of work during those typical midterms weeks so I just had to learn how to manage my time well and really effectively use my weekends what I would do is during the weekends I get as much homework as like had done so that during the weekdays when I had like my club meetings and my sorority meetings and the classes that I wouldn't feel too overwhelmed so I get to take away from that is I just wish things are more spread out across the board and not everything was clumped together but I mean it it out is so you just kind of have to learn how to deal with it and manage your time well with UCLA being a big school something that I wish I known is that you really have to go out of your way and advocate for yourself if you want something as I said I came from a small high school so I would say that the teachers they're really not like held your hand but they made sure that you're cared for and they made sure you are always on track so for example like enrolling classes and make sure that your requirements were all met but I UCLA the college counselor is not just gonna watch you and like make sure that you're fulfilling all your requirements you have to make sure that you're doing that yourself so you don't really get any individual attention or anything like that there just to my students so you definitely have to be proactive you know make those college counseling appointments go to your TAS and professors office hours just advocating for yourself and making sure that you are using your voice to get what you need and to get what you want that's definitely an important skill that I learned here at UCLA in terms of clubs and organizations because it is a big school there are a ton of clubs organizations things to find your niche there are such a big variety of opportunities and that's something I love about UCLA I'll go more into during my pros video but because there are so many students some of the clubs or organizations can be really competitive and hard to get into for the most part most of the clubs are if you want to go the weekly meetings you just show up well there are some different groups that you have to apply for and because I've so many students it's not like you're gonna get into every single organization that you apply into I remember first quarter I was really disappointed because there was a club I really wanted to be a part of but there was legit like 500 students that applied and there were only taking like 70 peoples so I didn't get a spot and I was pretty sad about that but I mean I did find my other clubs and organizations that I'm super happy to be in but that's just something to keep in mind because I know during high school like every club that you sign up for you are immediately in in terms of social life and like making friends something that's really interesting that I found at UCLA is that most of my friends were not people that I met in my classes they're rather like during orientation or for my sorority different clubs and organizations as a part of people on my floor like in my dorm building for me personally I really like made friends in my classes because during classes you just like sit there and listen to the lecture that the professor was giving so not really opportunity to talk and also they're just a huge range of people in each class so there could be seniors in your class and like you're a freshman I mean not that like seniors and freshmen can't be friends they know I'm saying it's just I found most of my friends weren't actually even like people I met in my classes this isn't necessarily con it's just something that I wish that I knew going in so I didn't have like expectations or anything like that however I will say for my clustered course I did make a lot of friends in that class and I would probably credit that to the fact that the cluster courses are a year long so they're not just one quarter and then also the cluster courses are strictly freshmen only so that's just another opportunity to meet more first years and in terms of parties um some of my guy friends said that I should probably include this in this video so here's I guess like a con that some of my guy friends feel like you're a guy and you're not in affright you can't go to the frat parties whereas if you're a girl and you're not in a sorority you can still go to the frat parties so for my guy friends who are in fats they you know like go to the frat parties but for my guy friends who are not in frats they have to find other ways to mingle and like have a social life it's all that's difficult or anything like there are a lot of guys that don't rush fats but a lot of my guy friends just say that they wish they had known that they said that it wouldn't change whether they rushed your frat or not but it would just have been nice and they'll like you'd have to go out of your way and like find other parties but there are definitely other parties to go find like kick backs or just like people from your classes clubs organizations stuff like that but if you're a guy and you're willing to partisan I'd probably suggest rushing your frat or at least just checking it out so that you have that opportunity and lastly the last column I'm gonna say in terms of social kind of things is that for the most part our sports teams are really good but there are a couple sports teams no shade or anything but our football team isn't that strong but the football games are still really fun the tailgates the kickbacks just going out to the game is a really fun way to spend time with your friends but it's not like the type of thing where you get really hyped about winning because our full team did not perform very very well just last year again and no hate no shade or anything like that to people on the football team like you guys Rock I'm sure that's opposed very hard and difficult but if you're looking for a team that performs athletically really well a lot of our teams do just not our football team you know if this next year I'm sure we're gonna do really great looking real for to the games bang but yeah that is it for today's video I really hope that this video helped you guys out I know that UCLA admissions recently came out so if your minute congratulations that is so exciting I'm here to answer any questions that you guys may have so feel free to leave them in the comments below watch out for part two of this video where I talk about all the pros of UCLA and all the things I love about UCLA even though I talked about the cons in this video and things I wish I'd known going to UCLA I really really want to stress that I absolutely love my school so much and it is a great fit for me and I wouldn't trade UCLA for any other college so you know I'm mentioning some cons here there's gonna be constant every college but yeah I just want to say the things that I wish I know going into UCLA so that I can better form you for those of you guys who are making a college decision and yeah if you found this video helpful make sure you like it down below and subscribe for more videos I have any whole UCLA videos playlist so you can go ahead and check that out it's on my channel and until next time I will see you guys later bye [Music]

Channel: lifeofmeili

Views: 33,294

Rating: 4.9472079 out of 5

Keywords: ucla, college, what i wish i knew, the truth about college, college advice, college freshman, transfer student, ucla academics, ucla social, ucla parties, ucla dorm, college dorm, college parties, ucla classes, ucla orientation, dining, ucla day in life, ucla review, day in life, college application, common application, ucla application, usc, stanford, ivy league

Id: 3XLVDGbGTuo

Length: 25min 17sec (1517 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020