We know high school is first but time flies and before you know it you are looking and applying for colleges or Universities. It might sound scary, trust me we have been through that but the experience is worth branching out and trying new things. 

We are students from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Some of us had to move far from home to attend this school and at first it sounded terrifying but once you get here everything just seems fun and new. 

Attending a new school is always hard because you wonder if you will find friends or if you’ll get home sick. You might have many questions about the college experience and we will try to answer some of the important ones.

We hope you look forward to listening to our experiences, and maybe find it a little helpful or encouraging. We are really excited to share Our insight of our college experience with you!

We also built a short photo album of our experience in our first quarter here, we hope you like it! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12hikOTwtCgGlcI3CfLbgQV7GlodIcdDbcNT8qOIdFK4/edit?usp=sharing

Our experience:

Lissette:

Hi! My name is Lissette, and I am a first year Global Studies major at UCSB. I am a local, so I did not move out like most people or am dorming. It has been a hell of a journey. 

I actually didn’t get accepted into UCSB outright, I was waitlisted and I didn’t think I was going to get off. Only one of all my classmates had been able to get in, and I was one of two waitlisted. At least I thought so, until my graduation day, when I was sitting in my graduation gown, and I received a notification, congratulating me on getting into UCSB.

I had always wanted to leave, but when I opened the email to confetti popping up on my phone’s screen, everything changed, I had a sudden urge and realized that this was my school. 

 I had a pretty rough start into college, and don’t have much social experience because I don’t dorm and have two jobs, so my experience is a bit limited in that sense, but I am excited for what is to come. 

When you hear and research about your future and universities in high school it is very exciting to think about what is to come and you try to imagine it, and think are familiar with the idea the more you learn about it; but oh being in college makes you realize how much different and exactly it is to what you thought, a very scary but refreshing feeling. 

When I came to my orientation I actually had only slept about three hours and so I was half awake, struggling to keep myself awake and as they explained what a section was and how it worked and how it was different compared to a lecture. 

I was very confused and I stuck to the schedule decided the day of orientation, practically all the leftovers, as all the classes were full by the time I tried adding them, but it actually wasn’t too bad. 

All my classes weren’t very hard. It was definitely a lot of work, and you are forced to be independent. I took a math class and a communications one, so it was all up to me to get the work done, and keep myself where I am supposed to be, unlike high school, where you are told what to do and expected to do it.

The nice thing about being a local/off campus, is that you go to school and come back like normal, so when you have free time, it is really nice. You have a lot of freedom, and  I am constantly exploring new things with my time. 

Some advice from my experience:

1. Take advantage of all your resources! But don’t overdo it!!! You guys are on a good path, you guys are taking AVID which ideally means you guys want to go to college. Take advantage of it, I was an AVID student myself, and it built a community for me. There is a lot of help out there, you just have to look for it 🙂 But also don’t commit to just academics, sometimes you get so sucked in it takes over your whole life.
2. Build study skills!!! You know how in AVID they make you take notes. It’s no joke, because of it, it is really easy for me to pay attention in lecture because I know how to follow along. In college you won’t have as much time to figure out how to study, because you will be more busy with other things. So i really suggest you guys find the way you guys work best earlier, what times work better for you, how do you keep yourself organized, how do you take notes or learn best?
3. Enjoy yourself!!! I’m not trying to scare you, but high school goes by super fast! I still remember my first day, and boy it went by in the blink of an eye. I wish i knew how fast before, but really I hope you can take advantage of your time, and take with you many experiences. Have fun, and do as much of what you like to do, four years will pass in no time!!

Demetrio: 

Hi, I’m Demetrio. I am a first year political science major at UCSB! I moved here from the Central Valley. Now that I am in college and have finished high school, I was looking back at my high school experience and thought about how you guys will soon be starting this exciting new chapter in life, so I thought it would be beneficial to give you some advice for what’s to come!

1. Don’t stretch yourself out too thin. When I was in high school, I wanted to take all the hard advanced courses my school had to offer because I thought that it would make my college applications stand out more, and even though that’s true, I wish I had taken a second and thought about what I could handle and what was ideal for me to take.
2. Try to find your passion in life early! High school is the time where you can explore freely what you want to do in life. Even though you still have time after high school to explore your future career options, knowing what you want to do ahead of time makes it a lot easier when it comes to trying to decide what colleges to apply to, the college application process, and deciding what classes you need to take in college. 
3. Cherish the high school days, they go by fast. If you haven’t already heard this a ton, you’re definitely going to hear once you actually start high school. I remember my teachers, parents, and even the highschool upperclassmen would always tell us to make the most of high school and be involved because before you know it, it’s going to be over! Looking back at that now, it is 100% true about how fast it went. So when you go to high school just remember to make the most of it, become involved, and have fun!

Now that I gave you my advice on highschool, I thought I would write about how my first year of college at UCSB has gone so far. 

The college transition was hard, going from living with your family all your life to moving to a new school all alone is tough. As time goes on though, slowly but surely you learn how to become more independent. Then with the more time you spend here you start to get more comfortable with the college life as you make more friends and start to explore your interests

. 

One of the bigger things  I noticed in college was how independent we have to be in our studies. In highschool and middle school, if you slack off you have a teacher who will encourage you to get back on track, but in college that is a different story. No one here is going to bug you to turn in that assignment or push you to do better. It is pretty much up to you to want to learn and push yourself to do better. 

Overall, I am glad that I moved away for college. It is a new and exciting experience anyone can benefit from!

Jayleen:

Hello, My name is Jayleen and I am a first year Pre-Bio student at Ucsb. I am 18 years old and I moved here from El centro,California, my hometown is 6 hours south from here. When I first started looking for colleges to attend, I knew I wanted to leave home and go far to explore on my own. Don’t get me wrong, staying home and  attending community college was one of my options but I knew I wanted to challenge myself and the major I wanted to study was not available there. 

I got very lucky with the financial help I got and my parents were very supportive and helped me pay the fees. Being a Hispanic and going to a school farther up scared me because I have always been surrounded with people with similar backgrounds as me. Move-in day was hectic, lots of new faces moving in and meeting your roommates. Week 0 was so much fun the school had lots of activities and it gave us a chance to make friends. 

The diversity in this school is so much bigger than I imagined. I meet so many people that are hispanic and other people with different backgrounds that I am friends with. Two things that I learned so far was that there  is always time for everything and also don’t expect everything to come out perfect. A mistake I made was not focusing too much on classes in the first quarter because I was trying to make friends and socialize but I think I’m getting the hang of it, to balance life with school. I can’t say that you will come in and do okay because everyone’s experience is different, just go with the flow and if you do make a mistake learn from it. 

How to Balance School and Life

(Balance, by David.svg) 

Balancing school with extracurricular activities or life in general can be a difficult task. The video below offers one of the many ways that we can balance our schedules. Writing things down helps me the most because it offers me a physical reminder of what I need to do.  If I know I need to study for a test or go out for a run I write it down on a to do list. This increases the odds of me doing the task. Even in college I still use this method to get work done. It never hurts to make a schedule so try it out. I do this often ahead of a big week as I know things can get really hectic. This allows for a clear path forward so I know what to expect and not be surprised when the week arrives.

A little bit of advice for a successful social life in high school

I want to start off by saying that not everyone’s high school experience is going to be the same, but you’re all in it together and the next four years are really going to determine your future so make it worth it. All of you are in 8th grade right now and planning ahead might not be your thing, but consider changing some aspects in your life.

If you’re introverted be sure to step out of your comfort zone and make friendships that will last forever, most importantly stay in contact with your teachers; they can really help with your college application process your junior year. If you’re an extrovert keep doing what you’re doing, but be sure you’re being responsible by completing your tasks because being too extroverted can get you distracted from your responsibilities and goals. 

Don’t stress about being the most popular kid in high school, it won’t matter to anyone after you’re out of there so just be yourself. If you get to be your true self then you will have time to explore what you like and don’t like, but if you’re trying to fit in with the crowd then you’ll never know your real identity because you will be too busy being what other people want you to be. 

Furthermore, let me briefly tell you about my experience. I went into high school being really social, a lot of people knew me and I knew a lot of people. Most of these people were college bound, but they put partying and other things as their priorities and they didn’t end up going away to college. Thankfully way before all of that happened I noticed that they weren’t the best crowd so I stopped talking to them and surrounded myself with more responsible people and now I’m here at UCSB…THRIVING. My point is don’t be afraid of being yourself and surround yourself with good people and your high school experience will be super smooth! Now, I understand this might be too overwhelming and scary for some you guys so this is what Ricardo, has to say about mental health.

Mind lunch for thought

Mental Health, the mind, the brains of the operation, your brain, tu cerebro. We all think, or at least I hope everybody does. You’re now going into an environment where you’re going to need to be thinking on maximum overdrive. Or so it feels that way. You might think it’s complicated, but in reality it’s as complicated as you make it for yourself.

You can have all the energy within you to perform. But about that… your energy can go in any way. Panicked, you’re capable of maximizing how intense you might feel in a stressful situation. That or you’ll have enough energy to focus on avoiding what you have to do. 

The all mighty magic, “You can’t live without it” solution is mindfulness; the bare bones definition for is maintaining awareness with your conscious self, not acting on it, but realizing where it’s at.(Berkeley,Greater Good Magazine)It’s essentially the feeling of complete relief, like how the last day of school feels. That’s what results from practicing mindfulness. Things might not be the best of situations, but you are the best you can be (Berkeley, Greater Good Magazine). The only catch is getting there.

For some it’s as simple as 1, 2, and 3. For others, it’s as complicated as 4, 8, and 29. I’ll make it a bit easy, to get in a state of mindfulness, you need to understand how you act when you’re stressed. Under stress, you’re likely breathing faster than you normally would be. It’s almost habitual for that to happen(Harvard Health Publishing). But not everyday is a fight for your life, you can pace your breathing to pace away from frenzied thinking. (Harvard Health Publishing). It might not be the end of your problems, but it’s constructive.

You’ll get somewhere that way, and if it feels like you’re not getting any better. But you are, you tried, that’s the first step of it all. It helps keep you in control (There’s also a whole pile of benefits to health(Kane)), and it’ll allow you to decide what you want to make out of high school. It beats the latter of letting defense mechanisms like anxiety or procrastination take control, trust me when I say that, that was me in high school. Now I’m sitting here in college regretting feeling like that, try your best not to copy me in that sense.

Now get out there and be mindful! Or don’t be, your choice… either way, have a good one, you reader person…

(Here’s some videos if you hate reading, are dyslexic, dislike reading, or just don’t feel like going through this portion of your regularly scheduled program, there’s options, you can go to cool math games and listen to this so you don’t get destroyed by your teachers when they ask you questions) (Also quick tip, learn to enjoy reading, it’ll make college that much easier, and you’ll be ready for AP classes in high school, leaving you enough leisure in college to maximize your experience)

Citations:

Berkeley , Greater Good Magazine. “Mindfulness Definition: What Is Mindfulness.” Greater    Good, greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/mindfulness/definition.

Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Health Publishing. “Relaxation Techniques: Breath       Control Helps Quell Errant Stress Response.” Harvard Health, www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/relaxation-techniques-breath-control-helps-quell-errant-stress-response.

Image- Troll.me