Hi UC Davis Community! For everyone who doesn’t know me, let me introduce myself. I’m Sasha, the Chief of Staff for the Executive Office of ASUCD. I’m also a first generation transfer and re-entry student. Before coming to UC Davis, I attended three community colleges, tried out a few different career paths, and changed my major several times!
I want to share some of my experiences and what led me to UC Davis. Hopefully I can help any potential transfer students make their decision!
The main reasons why I came to UC Davis are:
- The location
- The academics
- The culture
I’ll start with my last bullet point first! UC Davis is known as being a friendly campus, and I have definitely experienced that. People are willing to talk and collaborate with classmates. We don’t have quite the cutthroat student reputation that some schools have (at least in Social Sciences! I can’t speak for STEM). This camaraderie has really helped me feel like a part of the community, even if I only talk to some of these people in class, it has really helped me not feel alone when I’m struggling with an assignment, or I don’t enjoy a professor.
Outside of class, I have also found people to be very friendly. Students in extracurriculars I have joined have been very welcoming, I have found people to be open to making new friends or even just having a chat and being social on campus. Being able to create these networks is so important to any student’s success, but as a transfer and re-entry student, finding other students who are older like me, or have had diverse experiences has been integral to feeling like I belong on this campus.
I am a Political Science major, and a Human Rights minor, so academics really came into play with my choice of college! The UC Davis Human Rights Department is the first of its kind in the UC system. And when I was looking to transfer, I read the descriptions of the classes and the Rate My Professor pages which sold me on the Human Rights minor. The Political Science classes were also very diverse when I was browsing them before transferring. Some of the classes had more of an environmental focus, some economic, and of course, there were the classic international relations, comparative politics, and American government ones. I can’t recommend enough browsing through your major course selections and professor reviews before deciding on a school. Knowing about my specific major at UC Davis – the classes, the professors – was really one of the things that sold me on UCD!
As I said before, I’m a Political Science major, so a college close to Sacramento (the state capitol) was a bonus! It makes it so much easier to travel to the capitol for an internship, job, or a protest compared to the other UCs. There are also a lot of other opportunities in diverse industries, so make sure to check out what those opportunities look like before choosing a school.
I also just love Northern California, you have access to cities, mountains, beach, forest, and other rural landscapes. The UC Davis campus is very green, there are so many trees and lawns that people can hang out on. Having access to this much green space really helps my mental health, and is also a great motivator to just get outside. This environment, coupled with all the unique Aggie experiences (like taking tractor driving class) really makes this a fun campus to be on and encourages you to appreciate your surroundings.
These are just some of the many reasons that I chose to come to UC Davis, and I must say I am so happy I did!
Additional Links:
- The UC Davis Transfer and Reentry Center offers a host of services to help the campus transfer and reentry student population. Check out their website here.
- Click here for the UC Davis Transfer and Reentry Center Instagram.
- Click here for the ASUCD Transfer Student Representative (TSR) Instagram. The TSR office is ASUCD’s official representative for all transfer student affairs.
- Check out the Student Recruitment and Retention Center’s COLLECTIVE program, which empowers transfer, re-entry, parent, and all non-traditional students to succeed in higher education.
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Contributor
Writer: Sasha Lyons