Triton Voices

I developed so many hobbies that I never could have before in my hometown, like I started hiking, there's so many places you can go to hike. I started surfing. I bought my own board, my own wetsuit. And it’s easy to surf. You keep your board in your car, you go after class, you drive down to La Jolla shores – it’s like the best place to surf for beginners. And if you drive out to Julian, there's Devil's Punchbowl to hike...honestly, this is the best place for wilderness and developing new hobbies.

When I was trying to pick between a couple of universities I’d been accepted to, I knew I wanted to study either political science or government and so I emailed professors in those departments. I heard back from professors in the UC San Diego political science department who said they can give me, you know, 10-15 minutes of their time just to talk to me a little bit about the program. So when I visited the campus, I got to meet with them and it was actually a really good experience because it gave me that much more insight into what the program here had to offer.

The best resource that UCSD offers you is the Career Services Center for anything that you want involving your future profession and your future studies and goals, so graduate school, law school, med school, pharmacy school, all those amazing things and goals that you have, our Career Services Center is here to cater to just that.

I am pre-law bound, and so I knew that I wanted to set up a meeting with Career Services Center, because I was nervous and I wanted to know every single detail possible. Once I met with that advisor who was willing to listen to me and help me, he helped me lay out my timeline and get everything planned, so. I'm not nervous now. I'm ready and I'm focused and I know exactly what I want to do! And that's mainly due to the help that the Career Services Center happily, happily provides you.

If you’re looking for what do I want to do with my life after college, there’s always workshops and job fairs on campus. Go to them, ask questions. Price Center has lots of flyers. We get emails every week. PortTriton is amazing for getting jobs and internships. Lots of people are doing great things and they want to share those experiences – talking to alumni is really helpful because you know they were once exactly where you are."

"There are so many things that UCSD has but many students don't know because they don't actively look and search for it. You know we get letters every week, emails every week. Read them. I take those little pieces of paper on Library Walk. If I'm interested then I'll go, because I actually learn a lot. There are college students who are in the same position as you and they're doing great things and they want to share those experiences.

San Diego is such a mecca for outdoor opportunities, I mean, we're close to Mexico, we're close to the ocean, we're close to the mountainsl it's one of the beauties of being in California. UCSD Outback Adventures has this program called Wilderness Orientation and they offer week-long kayaking, backpacking, and horseback riding trips. They have a week-long surfing trip. You have this great experience outdoors, you meet 8 to 10 bew freshmen just like you who might have the same interests as you if you're both out there backpackingor kayaking — it really was an experience of a lifetime for me.

So coming from a really small school of about 300 per class, I freaked out when I came here, just because there are so many students and so many different things to be involved in and so much to do on campus. But I definitely think the six-college system helped me to adjust. Not only do you get the big university feel, but you also go that intimate, close-knit bond with people in your college. Now I feel like Marshall College is my home. Most of my friends are from Marshall, so it's a great place to go and really think of it more as my home base here on campus.

I have been involved with the initiatives for diversity on campus and sat on a lot of different committees with faculty and staff to develop the diversity requirement, which is now campus-wide. We have meetings to update chancellors and administration about how they can support the needs of students that have worked in SPACES, the Student Promoted Access Center for Education and Service, so we do retention and access for a lot of students. It was my job as director of that center to relay those concerns and the experiences of our students to the administration, how they can better support us, better fund our programs, help us expand the work that we're doing on campus.

It is a challenge in that it consumes a lot of my time and my energy, but it's something that I'm passionate about doing, about helping change the campus, to improve it, to make it better, to make it more welcoming and open for students, to provide more reseources for incoming students as well.

Every Sunday night, I am part of the KSDT Radio station and I have my own radio show, and it's a crazy radio show, so we call it Cradio! And that's amazing because you know even if I have all this stuff to do for midterms or finals, every Sunday night for an hour, I'm required to go in there, and just listen to music, put the music out through the airwaves, talk about silly things that happened in my week. We have Cray Person of the Week, so this is the craziest person we saw that week, and we have Cray World News, the craziest thing that happened around the world, and we only have Cray music, so you know, crazy dance music. So even if you're stressed out, it requires you to chill out for an hour.

At UCSD, we have a great international program where not only you can go abroad but abroad is brought to you. We have an International House, where a bunch of international students come to UCSD and they live there, and it’s a great mix of California students and international students all living together. And so I’ve gone there before to hang out, and it’s so fun because you walk down the aisle, it’s like a long walkway, and there’s all these apartments and you hear British accents, French, German! Oh my god, all these different accents all over the place. It’s really fun, and sometimes I’ll hear that little spark of a British accent...and I’m like, I think I heard someone that sounds like me!

I definitely think the residential college system helped me adjust. It was actually a part of the reason that I came here. So starting off in Muir and getting really involved in there, that helped me introduce myself to other forms of government like AS. It really helped me get involved. I think it’s a lot easier to get adjusted to college. Instead of being thrown into the campus at a whole, getting into a smaller group of people where you can meet people a lot more easily and get to know them a lot better.

My major has been an interesting journey because it’s such a different perspective than pure political science and history like I’ve been doing before – there’s a lot of overlap between the three subjects. I’ll often find that I’m taking classes in the different areas, so I’ll take an econ class, political science and history, but they’ll all overlap in some way and I’ll be applying topics from econ to history, history to political science, and it’s just created a really interesting well-rounded academic experience for me.

I’m involved in a lot of programs here. Some of them are useful for us to get more used to UCSD, like the Access Program and Students Beyond Borders from the I-Center, and others are for improving our communication and leadership skills, like the Center for Communication and Leadership – I love that so much. We have a special program called Triton International Leadership where we have a specific leader help us overcome our problems. There are a lot of similar programs.

I live off campus but it's close by our school, so it just takes 7 minutes on the bus. Sometimes I take less time than my friends who live on campus, because they walk and I just take the bus!

I got to spend an entire summer, 30 hours a week, doing work with Calit2 and interacting with other students who were doing great, different projects and really honing my own project as well. From there, they helped me publish a poster board. I even got filmed. My research got published on YouTube. Then after that, shortly after a year or two of more work, my abstract got published in a dermatology magazine, so it was and still is a really great opportunity, and I think this school, if anything, really promotes research.

I first took my engineering courses for my major requirements during the summer after I switched my major. It turned out that my first course was actually with the Dean of the School of Engineering, who is a structural engineer. So that was a great experience to have, to talk to him and to be able to learn more about structural engineering and what the field is all about. I heard that he only teaches like every six years and so I was really lucky to have him as my teacher.

The colleges, I would say, are really your extracurricular interests. So you might have these academics, what you want to study, what you want to major in, but then since the colleges are based on the classes you take outside of your major, you have to make sure that the college has classes you would want to take for fun and still get credit for them.

So I try to tell people that you really need to first consider why you want to go to college, and just what are your reasons for getting higher education, and then you match the colleges’ academic philosophy to your own. So you find the one that fits the best with you, and then with that comes the classes. Sixth College is all about the 21st-century scholar and moving into the future, and that’s really what I try to do, so that really matched my own personal philosophy.

I was a transfer student and I didn’t know anybody, so every day I made it a point when I got on the shuttle to meet a new person. So I’d sit down and you know, I was that annoying kid on the shuttle that’s like hey! Let’s have a conversation! When you don’t want to talk. But it’s just one of those things – if you extend yourself like that, you’re not going to get turned down. People are very receptive. Out of those relationships, I not only made new friends but at the same time, it’s also networking, you’re figuring out these opportunities that you never would have had if you didn’t say hi.

The beauty of being here at UC San Diego is that through opportunities for extracurriculars, it’s really opened new paths that I never really saw before. I’ve realized that one of the greatest tools or things that I’ve learned here at UCSD is the idea of student empowerment. What I mean by that is knowing that I own my college experience, and whatever I want it to be, I can make it. Even though you may have expectations of what college should be, once you get here at UCSD, you’ll find that that path and that road is entirely up to you and that UCSD is ready to help you get there.

I’m getting a lot of different exposure to a lot of different dances, going to dance classes where I actually have to move, try ballet, try jazz, try contemporary dancing, and I learn about dance choreography and dance history. So that’s really fun. I’m also on a competitive hip-hop team called Ascension. We compete all around Southern California and do a lot of random performances on campus. It’s been really fun.

And there’s a lot of other kinds of dancing available. You can always take a rec class, there’s hula dancing, there’s swing dancing, partner dancing, there’s a dance sport team that you can join. The UCSD dance team, performs at the basketball games and things like that. And there’s just like a lot of clubs that you can dance with, a lot of free events, like free Salsa Night.

One of the things that helped me connect to people was that I-Center holds a lot of events, involving a lot of international students and local students too. Another thing I found pretty useful is orientation, the orientation was held particularly for international students. They go over all the resources you can get at the I-Center, the library, then how to register for classes, how to register for your first quarter.

We live in one of the most beautiful cities in California, so if people think it's socially dead, I don’t really know where they get that perception from because there’s so many things to do, whether it’s going to the beach or the zoo. For sports, we have Qualcomm stadium here, we have Petco Park… whether you’re a sports fan, whether you’re an arts fan. It’s really up to you to go and find these things to do. But I mean, there’s always so many people, there are always about 20 other kids who want to go out and have fun just like you.

The long-distance family – half a world away

When Holly told her parents she wanted to go to UC San Diego, she didn’t expect them to be too surprised. After all, she’d done her homework when it came to choosing a university. This one, though, is almost 6,000 miles from home.

Wendi and Graham enthusiastically supported their daughter’s decision. “She initiated the process, and we said Go for it!”

Home is a town near Oxford in the UK, and Holly wanted a different culture. “I’ll have a much broader education because of the GEs and the liberal arts focus—that’s not something I could get at home.”

Wendi points out that friends and neighbors asked why on earth Holly would go so far away, to a school in the US. “We just ask Why not?” Holly nods: “People assume something’s wrong, but it’s not about getting away from home.”

Before visiting, the whole family tried to work out UC San Diego’s undergraduate college system. “We read everything,” explains Holly, “but it’s still a little confusing.” Living near Oxford has its advantages, though. “By equating it with the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, that idea really helped us understand what it would be like.”

Next step was to visit the campus. Holly and her parents found a strong support network in place. They sought out staff in the Admissions office and spoke with college deans. “Seeing the type of support here, that really helped,” said Wendi.

Graham points out that there are no parallels in the UK for the kind of involvement and support they found here. “You’d never see parents wandering around a campus there. He also says, “Thank heavens for Skype! Talking to her is the same as if she’s just down the road.”

They all found the campus very inviting—and they agree that the weather is fantastic!

Holly’s younger sister Olivia says she’s under a bit more scrutiny at home now. “Mum always wants to know where I’m going now!” She also says it’s boring with Holly gone, no one really around to talk to or socialize with. Would she consider going to college outside the country? “Oh yeah!”

Graham says “the whole family attitude on campus is fabulous.” And Wendi adds, “UC San Diego is such a fantastic opportunity for her.”

Holly agrees. “I wake up every day and know I made the right decision.”

Off to College… Times 2!

Is it easier to have both your college-age kids at the same school? The Johnston family of southern California says “Absolutely yes!”

Gary remembers “all the pieces just falling into place” when he was deciding where to go to college. He’d narrowed it down to Irvine and San Diego. “They were both about the same distance away, so I knew I could come back to see Kevin’s high school games,” he says. “That way, I still was connected to home but I could be far enough away to be on my own.”

It was a family effort to help choose the college, though the final decisions were up to the boys themselves. Between the great weather and highly ranked academic programs, “the choice of UCSD was a no-brainer!”

Kevin is close to his older brother, but UCSD was at the bottom of his list of schools simply because Gary was already there. “It was just time to establish myself on my own.” But his view started to change as he got further along in the application process. “I remember hearing all the conversations Mom and Dad were having with Gary when he was doing this, and then we took a road trip to all the different UCs… UCSD is really beautiful, and I love the beach, just like Gary does, so that was part of it.”

Susan and David Johnston point out that because their sons have very different personalities, they knew their university experiences would be different, too. Kevin says, “When I sat down and looked at class schedules with my Dad, really went over all the different courses offered, UCSD started to look like the best choice. It all fell into place for me, too. And then when I got into Sixth College, that was perfect, because even on the same campus, it’s just about the farthest point possible away from Gary!”

“We have this space – it’s a comfortable distance,” adds Gary. “We both play intramural sports each quarter, a lot of times on the same teams. So we only run into each other on campus occasionally.” Kevin says, “It’s still nice to know he’s there.”

“Both boys have benefited so much from their experiences at UCSD,” explains Susan Johnston. “They’ve made steps to become more independent. They still have our financial and emotional support, of course, but going away to college, that’s the first step to making it on their own.” She feels it’s a plus that “UCSD has a good support base to help incoming freshmen succeed.”

David says that, as parents, he and Susan had already been through the getting-ready process with Gary, so when it was Kevin’s turn, they had “a better understanding of what was needed – from gathering bedding and personal supplies to setting up checking accounts and getting cell phones.”

Staying in touch is important for everyone in the family. Gary and Kevin say that the communication between their parents is so good, not only is it an inspiration, it can ruin the “surprise factor.” Kevin explains: “I’ll text my Mom to tell her I’ve done well on an exam or something, and then I call my Dad in the afternoon, but he already knows!” Susan has taken up text messaging this past year. “For quick communication, it has been wonderful.” Gary falls more into the category of phone calls a couple times a week, but Kevin’s friends are astonished at how fast his mom can text.

Susan and David, when asked what advice they would give to other parents who have two or three kids in high school, replied “With the six different colleges, they can all go to the same university but live in their separate colleges and really become individuals. So send them to UC San Diego!”

Parents’ Perspective

Carissa Chu is a freshman in UC San Diego’s Medical Scholars Program. Her parents, Sandy Chun and Jeffrey Chu, live in northern California, where they attended graduate school at UCSF and UC Berkeley. Here are their stories about adjusting this first year.

Dad: We were involved with Carissa’s choice of UC San Diego to the extent of sharing our experiences as opposed to telling her what to do. But the competitive nature of college admission is a lot more intense, more socially and politically complex than when Sandy and I were going to college.

Mom: Also we are from a different kind of background than Carissa. We are both immigrants, and I think that as an American-Chinese, she has very different needs and goals.

Carissa: The main reason I’m here is the Medical Scholars Program, the 8-year medical program with conditional acceptance to medical school. That was a really strong selling point, because it completely changes the dynamics of my undergraduate years. I developed an interest in public health when I attended a talk here on campus about global health issues, and it really inspired me. It’s not just strict science science science, you know – it’s more networking, talking to people. I’m a little outside my comfort zone, so I’ve had the opportunity to develop skills I didn’t know I had.

Mom: When she left for college, the main challenge for the whole family was the physical separation. But we maintained a good and tight emotional connection.

Dad: I guess from my perspective as the dad – somebody should have warned me about this! – I didn’t realize how difficult it was to let go. Knowing she’s not going to be home every day of the week and knowing she’s living in a dorm room with a bunch of strangers, that’s very hard. But after a while, it’s refreshing – almost overwhelming – to find how well she’s adjusted, and the dimensions she’s able to explore. Not just academically, but her social and personal development. I think that more than compensates for the purely emotional, raw feeling of sending her off to college.

Carissa: Even though it’s time to be a little independent, it’s very challenging, because my whole family’s really close. I don’t have my parents always there to tell me what’s the best thing to do, even though we talk all the time. But I’ve really found my groove and what kinds of things motivate me. And, I think my parents trust that I will be okay.

Mom: We talk on the phone several times a week, and we get to see her about once a month – that helps!

Dad: I think part of the educational experience itself is getting a sense of reality. That’s not always the case with a large university. The real world doesn’t give you these things – you have to seek out, you have to knock on doors. And that’s something for both parents and the student to keep in mind when looking at colleges. At UC San Diego, if you seek, it will open its arms to you.

In the middle – coping with changes

Casey Jane is the textbook definition of “the middle child.” Her family in Thousand Oaks, California (near Los Angeles) is quite a bit like millions of families the world over. When her parents divorced, she was eight years old, and for the next ten years she would live two weeks with her mother, then two weeks with her father. Good news for everybody is the homes were only ten minutes apart, and both parents continued to take an active part in the lives of Casey and her “very social older brother and very independent, intelligent younger sister.” When she was accepted at the US Air Force Academy, both parents were supportive and proud. Once there, quickly realizing that this was not the path for her, Casey returned to California. That’s when things took an interesting turn.

Terri Barrett Marcus and John Barrett reflect the concerns of many parents as they talk about their middle daughter’s college journey.

Terri: It has been surprisingly easy to watch Casey grow up and mature.
John: It’s been great!
Terri: I know that UC San Diego has been a huge factor in Casey’s growing confidence and that, to me, is how I know she will succeed in life.

John: She had to deal with two sets of blended families and step siblings/parents. It’s easy for someone who is very accommodating and easygoing to get lost. She always had the same qualities as her brother and sister, but didn’t show it.
Casey: In high school, I don’t think I was as independent as I am now. I would always do what my parents would suggest – I’d just go with it.
Terri: Casey was the very smart, obedient, quiet girl as a child. She had confidence, but no voice. That was something I originally was a little worried about for her.

Casey: Both parents were supportive when I went to the Academy, but when I wanted to change, it was tough. There were a lot of reasons, not just one thing. Difficult to put into a sentence.
John: It was the one and only time we ever had arguments with Casey.
Terri: It was a little shocking when she told us of her plans and at first, I didn’t want her to leave something that she hadn’t finished. But when she told us boldly and confidently that she knew this was the right thing to do, I knew that it must be. I could tell in her voice that she wanted this.

Casey: By the time I’d been going to community college and making plans to transfer to a university, both parents were involved. Then they were both on board when I picked UC San Diego. I’d decided to transfer to a school in Colorado, but I came on a campus tour here, and on that day, I was convinced. That shocked me! But it only took about five minutes – it was a vibe, a feeling. I felt happy here.

Terri: Only she could be the one to really know what was right for her—and that’s something that I also needed to accept and understand. I think it was the engineering program and the opportunities within that program that really stood out to me. I knew it was ranked high and that she was going to get an excellent education.
John: Casey had her own identity there rather than using other people’s influence in her decisions as she made all the calls on where to go, where to live, what to do while at school. And she has done that extremely well…I am very proud of her on how that transition has taken place.
Terri: The truly amazing aspect was that her professors have all been approachable and extremely helpful with not only the school work, but for career development as well. Their helpfulness and genuine care for the students really helped her thrive as a student, as an engineer and as an adult.

John: I think she is a role model for her step siblings and they look up to her and admire what she has done, even though they may not admit it. She has demonstrated that getting a college education, adapting to change, being independent, and being well balanced in life is important and can be done. I think her initiative in seeking out the Campus Tour job is a great example of this… it requires social confidence, ability to speak in front of a group, time management, and a positive and confident attitude that really shows how much she has grown.
Terri: It was important for me to know that she would get a great education, obviously, but to also have fun, as that is an important part of the whole college experience as well.

Both parents summed it up in pretty much the same way.

John: “UC San Diego has meant the world to Casey and her growth as a young adult. I have seen her blossom in the three years she has been there—academically, socially and personally. The academics have been challenging to her but she managed them effectively and developed persistence and a determination to succeed as result that I have not seen before.”
Terri agreed. “Within her first quarter, the change I saw in her confidence level and voice was something that, to this day, is so unbelievable to me, and I am so thankful to UC San Diego for that.”

What do you do when your family’s already on campus?

Rhyan Ghosh wasn’t interested in UC San Diego. After all, his father is on the faculty here. Sure, it was one of his top-five choices, but he was much more inclined toward Johns Hopkins. Dr. Anirvan Ghosh deals with UCSD students all day long in classes and in his research lab. But being involved in his oldest son’s choice of college required a different perspective.

After admission decisions came out, the family made return visits to the campuses Rhyan was considering. The possibilities narrowed down to two: one university on the east coast, and surprisingly, one on the west coast as his interest in UC San Diego grew stronger.

These post-admission campus visits were important. “You start to focus on different things than the first time you visit a campus, which is a more general look.” Being able to sit in on some classes in areas of study Rhyan was interested in was immensely helpful. From his faculty perspective, Dr. Ghosh is equally enthusiastic about the opportunity for prospective students to visit classes. “It’s important to get a feel for how the interaction is going. When students visit my classes, I always try to find out a bit about them and introduce them to the class.” It was crucial to the Ghosh family that Rhyan be able to enjoy a full college experience—not just academics to the exclusion of everything else—no matter where he went. They knew a student’s life on campus is completely different from what the family has been accustomed to before, and decided they would treat this as if he were off somewhere else, even if he stayed in San Diego. The family schedules a get-together for dinner about once a month, which is more often than would happen if he were 3,000 miles away; and he’s able to establish his own life and circle of friends on campus. It helps, Dr. Ghosh acknowledges, that he and his son are based in different departments.

He already knows there’s a great strength here at UC San Diego for research opportunities for first- and second-year students and encourages students to seek them out. Doing something for fun and enrichment instead of a hundred-percent academics, was something he didn’t know. When Rhyan when was interested in a painting class, he found the perfect match through UCSD Extension because he was looking more for how-to than for history-of. “I’m discovering along with him all the things that happen on campus.”

The Ghosh family feels it’s a great idea for the student to live on campus if at all possible, and they were impressed with the amount of thought behind the design of freshman housing here at UC San Diego. Up to a dozen students share a suite, rather than being isolated in twos or threes in a long hallway. “ That forces the interaction, if you will—you can’t stay isolated.”

Otherwise, Rhyan’s parents worried about the same things all parents think about: questions of independence, managing discretionary money, health and well-being, classes, friends, happiness, laundry. With a laugh, Dr. Ghosh said that it’s all “turned out much better than I’d expected.”

As it happens, their son doesn’t eat pizza three times a day. He works out at the gym, only a short distance from his residence hall, and he volunteers at a downtown homeless shelter, teaching classes there. “I see him becoming more independent each time he visits home.”