EPTI’m not sure what the root cause of my feelings are right now. I’m going to class. I’m doing better than class average but not as well as I’d like. I get back to the dorm, and talk to some people, and go and eat some food which provides sustenance, and then I sleep, and then I repeat. I joined some student orgs, I go to meetings, I participate in activities, I return. I’ve gone to office hours a couple times and had some good discussions with faculty.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LrZRJz6l.jpg)
Walking to class and I see this. I don't know if it's supposed to be spirited, I hope not.
I wasn’t having a great time but I figured “well, this is college, I’ll just plow through the work and get out and have a job and yay.”
I always had a bit of a feeling that UCSD is a bit of a strange school. Although in many ways the pragmatic focus on academics and research probably helps the ridiculously good placement for CS, med school, PhD programs, etc, I feel like the school lacks any sort of character, and any sort of enthusiasm.
I was never one for high school sports. To me it seemed like there was too much hype for what it was, and in the end academics are more important. But at least it gave the school something to rally around, in loose terms. When I applied to UCSD one thing I did think was that i wouldn’t mind the lack of sports: in highschool I always thought they were much more petty. But everything seems so disjointed here I wish we had something to bind the school.
Last week I went to a school strategic planning meeting. It’s a UC so there are cuts, and the student transit budget is in trouble. They want to cut services and charge more for those who want them. People were angry about the school and what they percieved as a lack of social activity or liveliness. Other people shared my concern that the six college system fractured the school. Although the sampling they had wasn’t representative (most people were either student government or Humanities or Social Science Majors in a school where they make up under 40%) the concerns were somewhat symmetrical to mine.
Sure, there were people there making irrational demands (JUST LOWER TUITION AND RAISE SERVICES DOI), as well as simply increasing services beyond what they are now even when we have budget shortfalls. On the whole it seemed fairly reasonable however.
The primary concerns were primarily about the climate of the school and not about academics. While pragmatically its apparent that a university should mostly be about education the overwhelming issue people took with the school was school spirit and lack of social activity. Neither of these really directly impact research, but they are the grievances of this group of students.
Then I went to UCLA. It was a bit of an eye opening experience. Things don’t have to be this way. UCSD is not normal and has a lot of deficiencies in comparison. There is a good reason why UCLA is so much more attended and coveted. And then I return to witness this decoration for "spirit week". It is not a joke. It was real. It happened here. And I was sad.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/G92q6Fal.jpg)
Today I had to go to another one as a member of an honors seminar. I expressed my concerns about the college system. Some people had similar concerns. Others attributed the college system to their success. But they were all RAs, and that is something which I really have no interest in. Even some RAs said the system wasn’t good.I am really frustrated as to why I chose to go here.
I really ought to be more positive: in many ways the CS program here is top notch. In terms of end career results I might be better off here than at UCLA. Then again, I really don’t want to do software dev for the big tech firms people talk about. I feel like you really aren’t accomplishing anything, and it’s all just consumerist junk. Which again is a bit off but has reasoning behind it. Maybe I just don’t want to do cs. I feel some sort of cheesy commitment to society to do STEM. I have interests elsewhere, but my internal logic says “but so do we all, just suck it up and be a man” which isn’t hte most effective way to go about it, at least in my mind.
The last two weeks have been poor. I’m not sure whether it’s me making them worse than they are, or if it’s just bad. It’s sort of the culmination of 15 weeks of general meh. Everything just seems to be bad. Even theoretically fun activities aren’t that good. I really ought to be more positive but I feel like I finally figured out that I just need to make my own independent decisions but a bit too late.
I went to a transfer event at UCLA. Why would I do that. Odds of me gettting in are low. Program here is good. Odds of me being able to get the requisite GPA to transfer between the two programs is negligible. If I switched to something I’d prefer to CS it’s too late to transfer. I just start coveting (my) neighbor etc.
![[image loading]](http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/ucla/facilities/tennis-courts2-lg.jpg)
This is the best facility at UCSD. Oh, wait, it's UCLA's tennis courts.
I feel like I don’t fit in well here. I fit in better at UCLA. Probably would fit in better at davis, or heck even SB. I was told this by my HS teachers when making a decision. I ignored them despite thinking the same thing. I just listened to a spiel from a department in which I had limited interest in any case. I knew this was a path I didn’t really want to take but I talked myself into it to my detriment. Just as I applied CS at UCLA but didn’t really have a huge interest, which probaby botched my odds.
I am taking classes at UCSD, but feel like I’m not attending the school. I am a CS major, but I feel like I’m just writing code to stay on the treadmill.
Every day I wake up and go "what posessed me to go here." The answer is a program which I wasn't actually that excited about and falsely perceived parental pressure.
I should probably be more positive. But I don't know what to be positive about and am stuck in a rut.. What to change. How to decide. How to create a positive change. How to assess what to do and why I'm in this position.
) will make you happier if you're like me.
It is undeniably very nice though.
