@iamthe1batman There are hundreds of opportunities to get involved here, and while classes are challenging, they’re definitely not all-consuming! A lot of people are on the same pre-med track as you, and everyone’s more or less able to maintain the balance between school, extracurriculars, and fun. To answer each part of your question:
Opportunities to excel: You can definitely take the initiative to stand out. For example, even outside the classroom, it’s not difficult to establish a relationship with a professor. Notably, they’re very accessible during office hours and many students are able to develop relationships with them early on. Also, if your GPA and SAT score qualify you for the Revelle Honors Program (3.8 and above a 700 on each section), you can enroll in the Revelle Honors Seminar, where you get to interact closely with Provost Yu and his selected guest speaker in an intimate discussion environment (around 20 people). There are also Revelle 50 Mondays, where you can get coffee in the commuter lounge on Monday mornings with the provost and some professors. Finally, Revelle and most colleges offer the Dine-with-a-Prof program, which pays for a meal with a professor of your choosing at the Faculty Club or Zanzibar Café.
You can also excel academically, of course. In addition to a variety of peer tutoring options and support services that you can find at https://students.ucsd.edu/academics/advising/academic-success/index.html, there are also several academically oriented organizations on campus where you can socialize with equally driven classmates.
Doing research: research budget over $1 billion (fifth in the nation), and a lot of that trickles down to undergraduates. A lot of my friends have already secured long-term lab assistantships, and with a medical school right on campus and one of the nation’s most active biology programs, research options abound for general biology majors. Professors are always looking for new undergraduates, and there are multiple lab expos throughout the year where researchers introduce themselves and their work to the student body. If you do decide to attend, the only thing stopping you from researching would be you.
Getting involved in an organization: There are hundreds of student organizations on campus, and at least some of those students have to be from Revelle! Classes are hard and the GEs are abundant, but that doesn’t stop anyone from pursuing their interests. I’m a board member on one organization and involved in a couple of others, but there are Revelle students who juggle even six orgs without their grades suffering. Again, you can be as involved as you want!
That might have been too long without telling you very much. tl;dr yes you can get involved all you have to do is want to