When I arrived on campus to begin my first year as a UCLA student, I was not sure what to expect. I have seen movies and heard stories of other peoples' college experiences, but I felt as though my experience would not match those. I was nervous for the difficulty level of the classes I would be taking, and I was even more nervous about having to make completely new friends. Another factor that worried me was being away from my parents and living on my own. All of these worries constantly filled my head in the days leading up to my arrival, so when I finally finished moving in I was completely scared. .
Thankfully, I had met a few other incoming freshman at an admitted student program and at orientation, so I had the telephone numbers of a few girls, which I used right away. I have always been a quiet person, but one of my goals was to open up more and become more talkative. Surprisingly, I was able to do this about halfway through my first quarter, and I was surrounded by friends that were extremely driven as well as supportive. During the first quarter I created bonds with people and established relationships, most of which lasted the entire school year. It helped that the people I became friends with were also involved in activities that I was interested in. We would attend Afrikan Student Union meetings together, or walk together to Tuesday night Bible study. Some weekends we would take the bus to the mall or to the beach, and no matter what we did we had a good time with each other. .
My friends shared extra-curricular interests with me, but only one of them is pursuing a science based major, so academically they could not always relate to what I was going through. As a Biochemistry major the freshman year classes get progressively difficult, so I found myself spending more and more time in the library as the year went on. It was challenging to not have friends in my science classes that I could study with, and the other students in the class would not even sit by me! I was forced to study alone for the majority of the school year, which I think was personally more productive than a study group, but not having that option was disheartening.
