What advice would you give your freshman self?
This March, UCLA will release first-year admissions decisions for the class of 2030. While we’ve all seen the dorm tours, figured out our favorite food spots and probably said, “next quarter I’ll finally have it all together” more than once, whether you’re stepping onto campus for the first time or already a seasoned Bruin, there are always things you wish you knew sooner.
We asked current UCLA students: what advice would you give your freshman self — and even your current self too? Here’s what they had to say.
“Freshman year, I wish I would’ve taken the time to reach out more to professors, TAs, and LAs when I needed help: there’s no shame in it, because they’re there to help, but you have to reach out first!” - fourth year data theory student
“My advice would be to have an on-campus job while you’re at UCLA. I think that a lot of people are often discouraged from working part-time while at UCLA if they feel that they don't need to, or if they want to focus solely on their studies. However, I believe that taking advantage of the job opportunities on campus is a super important way to prepare for post-grad, or even the summer internships, especially as it’s been becoming harder to find entry-level jobs after college! Even if a certain campus position isn’t directly related to your career goals, the soft skills you build can improve your career readiness for all industries.” - fourth year data theory student
“I took a minor that was more similar to my major but I wish I chose something in a completely different discipline that is more in line with my secondary interests, something in the humanities, like professional writing or film studies. I think that most STEM majors could benefit from also taking humanities classes (and also vice-versa, like taking a computing specialization as a non-stem major).” - fourth year data theory student
“I recommend that incoming freshmen take some time in fall quarter to research and try out all the study spaces on campus to see what works best for them; there’s more than just Powell! My personal recommendation is the Rosenfeld Library in Anderson.” - second year cognitive science student
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that no one at UCLA has everything perfectly together, even if it looks that way from the outside. Whether you have not yet arrived on campus or are starting another quarter, give yourself space to make mistakes, rethink your plans, and try again. Eventually, you will realize you have picked up more than you expected. And you might even have advice of your own to pass on.
