Let me tell you about my first day of college. I mistakenly took a night class the fall quarter of my freshman year. Classes always start on the Thursday of week 0, the half week before the first full week. I had just one class on Thursdays, English 10. Class started at 6:30PM, so I had plenty of time during the day to get ready. I’m sure I was very productive, with doing random things. Tik Tok was not a “thing” to me back then, so I am sure all of my social media attention was towards Instagram. I had met a few people in the days after moving in, but most of them lived on campus whereas I lived in the dorm that was a 20 minute walk from campus. But I had a plan. I would get to class extra early, sit in the front, and introduce myself to the people sitting next to me.
It hit 5:45PM and the plan was ready. I got ready and walked to the bus stop just outside of my dorm. By 6:05PM, I had arrived at campus and swiftly got off the bus to walk to the infamous CHEM 1179. I did not know it at the time, but that was the lecture hall many of the chemistry classes were taught at, including everyone’s favorite: the intro series. I walked straight to the classroom by 6:15PM, and there were already other students waiting outside. A few minutes passed, and the students from the previous class all zoomed out of the classroom as the English 10 students got ready to walk in. I did just as I planned, I sat in the front row, but on the right side, so that it was not too close to the professor. To the left of me sat someone I did not know, so I decided to introduce myself. After exchanging names, I asked her what year she was. Immediately after hearing my question, she laughed a little. She proceeded to tell me that she was a graduate student and a TA for the class. I quickly explained I was a first year student and just wanted to introduce myself to my classmates since it was the first day.
The confusion and embarrassment did not stop there. Moments later, the professor introduced herself. She then opened a PowerPoint where the first slide had a poem on it. I don’t remember the title nor the author. But I do remember watermelon being a metaphor for pregnancy. After an attempt at a quick scan of the poem, the professor asked us what we thought about it, giving us about 10 seconds to read what felt like hundreds of words. She then added if anyone was crashing the class, aka waitlisted for the class but still going for now, had any difficulties accessing the Gauchospace website for the class. I sat there in confusion. What is Gauchospace? Was I supposed to read this poem before class? These were just a few of the questions running through my head. I should add that while there were some first years in this class, many of the students were seniors finishing the general education requirements. So, I thought to myself: maybe this website is something only continuing students know. But as soon as I opened up my laptop and looked up Gauchospace, I recognized it. During orientation over the summer, all students were required to use Gauchospace to familiarize themselves with UCSB. The rest of class went smoothly, and, well, I graduated from UCSB in June of 2022, so the rest of my college career was a success.
The background photo for this story was actually taken by me during the first few days I had been at UCSB. In the background is Santa Catalina, my amazing off campus dorm (in a sarcastic tone). I loved part of it but it being off campus was definitely the biggest con of living there.