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Dear Future Bruin…

Hello Everyone!

My name is Gio (He/Him), and I am a 3rd year Psychology and Sociology major. I grew up here in Los Angeles and live less then 20 minutes from campus which is nice since I didn’t have to worry about traveling far from home to go to school. When arriving at my student orientation, I honestly did not know what to expect. The school already felt intimidating since I never attended a school that was so renowned. I was worried that if I did not make a good impression that it would affect my relationships in the future and gave me a lot of unnecessary anxiety about the entire thing.

When the day of my orientation finally came, I quickly realized that the worrying I was doing was so unnecessary. The first thing that immediately jumped to my attention was how inviting all the staff were. They seemed just as excited for me to be there as I was internally. Being able to experience the traditions and see the famous buildings all over campus made you really soak everything in. The one thing I found to be the most enjoyable was being able to talk to fellow students who were in my group. Since you are with these people for the entire day, you have time to talk to people who have completely different walks of life and it was nice learning about their dreams and aspirations. It made it easier for me to let go of the added stress and just focus on socializing with cool and unique people. When it came time to sign up for classes, it was comforting having an NSA help us enroll because the entire process can be pretty daunting if you are not used to it. My NSA was very helpful in telling me what are good ways to navigate my classes and help guide me in the right direction not just academically, but socially as well; helping with simple ways to get connected to those around me and resources that can help during the long school year. At the end of the day, eating dinner with everyone was an added bonus to a long and eventful day. Some of the people who I spent that dinner with are still people I talk to today.

If I had to pick a word to describe my orientation, it would be reassuring. Reassuring because all the anxieties I had before attending this school seemed so dumb in retrospect. Everyone here on campus are just people who want to make the most of their lives and the staff in charge of it all want nothing more than to see all of us succeed. I still think back to that day fondly because it was just a start of a wild journey that I would not trade anything in the world for.