<p>Big-picture items – this is about taking the larger view of getting the most out of your ucla years instead of the day-to-day mechanics</p>
<p>1) Take charge of your life. ucla can be a large impersonal school, so you need to get involved to make it an enjoyable place. There are an almost uncountable number of options for you to do. Whether you participate in the greek system, student government, join some clubs, write for the Daily Bruin, work as a tutor or volunteer, go with friends to concerts or to watch teams compete, there are just so many ways to be active. But there is one key thing. Nobody is going to call you and ask/beg you to join their group. If you’re the person who waits for someone else to make the first move you might want to consider changing this approach, because it just won’t work for you at ucla. The opportunities are there galore, but you have to take the first step to discover them.</p>
<p>2) For better or worse, you are attending a large state college. You just aren’t going to get the personal attention and focus that comes without effort to those at a small LAC. There are resources out there that can help (profs, counselors, tutors, advisors, etc) but you’re going to have to go to them. People care, really they do, but they don’t go around stopping people at random on bruin walk and asking how they can help. You have to go to them. You don’t have to be obnoxious (this isn’t NYC!), but you do have to be persistent and a self-starter. If you have questions, figure out who can help you answer them and then go see that person. If you don’t know who can help you answer them, start by finding <em>that</em> answer. Your RA is a good source of advice on pointing you in the right direction. </p>
<p>3) get to know some of your profs. For one thing you may need recs for grad school or an employer, and they mean more if the person actually knows you. Once again, profs aren’t going to invite you to stop by for a chat or to come over to dinner the way they might at a LAC. But they hold office hours, and you’d be surprised how many people <em>never</em> attend one except to argue about the grading on a midterm. And a prof who’s seen students come and go can be a good source of advice in choosing a major, preparing for a career, etc.</p>
<p>4) its never too early to start thinking about what you’ll do after ucla. Sure, plenty of people <em>think</em> they know what they want. But stats show that only about 1/2 of the people who enter as engineers, for example, end up getting an engineering degree. Most students who enter college with the idea of being a pre-med don’t go to med school. And sometimes people who enter a field not understanding it well end up regretting it; for example Forbes reported that 38% of the lawyers they surveyed regretted their career choice. So if you think you know what you want to do start testing that idea right away to make sure its a good fit for you. You can take career testing, talk with alums in the field, get a part-time job or volunteer, do an internship. ucla has lots of resources to help you do all of this, but (have you heard this before?) you’re going to have to make the effort to investigate.</p>
<p>5) get an internship. This is probably the single most important thing you can do to prepare yourself for a job after college! Internships leap out at companies reviewing resumes because it shows you have real-world experience in the area and know what you’re getting into. Even in the tightest job market, a company that is hiring at all will almost always extend offers to those who have worked as interns. In a tight job market you’d probably have better luck finding a job with a 3.2GPA and an internship than a 3.7 with nothing on your resume but a list of classes. This brings me to the 2nd book everyone should own; its called Major in Success by Patrick Combs. Written in a casual tone, it offers example after example of how students parlayed internships and volunteer work into great jobs.</p>
<p>6) approach school (and life) with an optimistic attitude. Studies have shown that the best predictor of success in so many fields is attitude. This is based on the work by Seligman and others, names you will learn in psych classes. Want to predict which new salespeople will do best? Which 1st-year students at the US Army Military Academy will survive plebe year? An optimistic attitude is the key, and the good news is you can change yours if it isn’t one of optimism. See, for example, <a href=“http://www.ihhp.com/positive_think.htm[/url]”>http://www.ihhp.com/positive_think.htm</a> At a large school like ucla you’re going to have the same disappoinments at college students anywhere, but without the tight-knit community you might find at a smaller college. Help is out there if you look for it, but you can do a lot yourself by monitoring how you handle bad (and good) news.</p>