The Girl Who Lived Freshman Year Twice
Everyone obsesses over college rankings, and they’re the reason I ended up transferring from UC Irvine to UCLA. After I transferred, however, I realized that I had left something precious behind, something even more important than number rankings, something that I had first discovered when I was at Irvine and would never be able to find again anywhere else even if I started freshman year all over again.
In my junior year at UC Irvine, my parents talked me into transferring to UCLA in pursuit of “aiming higher” and obtaining a degree from a “more prestigious” school. Now, having finished my first quarter at UCLA, I think back to the life I had and could have continued to have in Irvine.
My first two years at UCI were when I truly learned about myself and my living habits: that I was a night person, needed noise-canceling headphones for my shared dorm, had to keep track of my food intake before learning to cook on my own when I moved to an off-campus apartment. And while these experiences certainly aren’t unique to UCI, the memories of learning American slang and cultural references, texting the way everyone else does, and throwing myself out of my comfort zone so I could spend more time with my college friends are ultimately memories that happened there, and so UCI always felt like a second home to me.
And it’s not like it was all sunshine and rainbows there. I had plenty of negative experiences. A Chinese international student initiated a conversation with me asking where I was from, and when I replied “Taiwan” he kept referring to my hometown as “Chinese Taipei.” Also, an apartment lease I signed with my friends started in summer when I was having my break in Taiwan and so I had to pay rent even when I wasn’t there, but later I found out that one of my closest friends took advantage of my absence and actually stayed in my room without letting me know. Yet, these frustrating events actually spurred me to learn how to stand up for myself when it matters. Undaunted, I continued saying “Taiwan” to that Chinese student in our conversation, and I asked my friend to pay a portion of the rent, and when angrily refused I asked her to find another place to stay.
Irvine isn’t just where I developed as a person, though. It’s also where I really began to find my calling. I volunteered for an organization that mentors middle school students in math, became an advisor in Girls Inc. to help high school girls with their college essays, and even applied for my first job at Kumon as a cram school instructor. I’ve always been passionate about education, but now I was finally getting to walk this career path.
UCLA isn’t bad or terrible or anything, but walking through the streets of LA and carefully stepping past all the homeless people right in my neighborhood while nervously fondling the pepper spray on my lanyard is sure to raise anyone’s anxiety levels which aren’t helped by all the deafening sounds of busy traffic. UCI, with its bigger and more nature-oriented campus, is where I often set up picnics with my friends and, when we had time, lay on our backs and gazed at the stars above. Irvine is where I desperately FaceTimed my parents and begged them to teach me what groceries to buy and how to cook the dishes I loved. It’s where I made my life-long friends that I continue to think about, often with guilt as I make new bonds with students at UCLA.
Because at the end of the day, what’s important isn’t what college you end up committing to but the sense of belonging that you discover. Even more lucky than getting into UCLA was having the opportunity to make all those precious memories in my very first freshman year at UC Irvine.
Annie Kuo
Annie Kuo is currently a junior at UCLA studying Education and Social Transformation. She spent her first two years of college at UC Irvine majoring in Education Sciences. Ever since she was a child, she has been passionate about the education field and hopes to become a teacher in the future. She is always happy to share her college experiences and provide guidance to any and all students.