My Exchange at The University of California Irvine (UCI)
On December 25th, 2015, I got a present shaped like a brick. Ripping open neon red wrapping paper, I held a complete boxset of the Percy Jackson books. I didn’t really know what they were about, hadn’t really heard of satyrs or cenetaurs or Medusas, but Mum and Dad knew I liked to read. And so, without knowing what I was getting myself into, I started them that night.
As the new Disney Plus series has reminded us all, the first book is about an adventure to LA. Percy, Annabeth and Grover are sent on a quest to retrieve Zeus’ master bolt, and on their way must fight monsters and overcome the challenges of adolescence and etc etc etc. Anyway, I’ve only got so many characters remaining for this report, so I can’t synopsise the whole plot. But, there’s something about America, and speciffically LA, that has always stuck with me as a sort of center of things. Even though I knew there weren’t any mythological creatures flying by the Hollywood stars or the Disneyland castle, there just seems to be something grand and magical about the city.
And so, as a third-year, it was kinda cool to zip up my suitcases (one empty, for things to bring back) and step onto the flight to LAX. It was nice to teleport from Auckland winter to California summer, to wait for an Uber under a rideshare accident attorney’s billboard, and to start my exchange at the University of California, Irvine.
UCI is lesser known than, say, UCLA. And by “lesser known”, I mean that the only people who know it in New Zealand are probably fellow 360 International alumni who spent a sem there. It’s kind of like that really beautiful beach up North that your uncle introduced you and your family to, and it feels like no one knows about it except you.
UCI definitely feels like a hidden gem in that sort of way. Despite no one knowing where it is when they ask you where you’re going on exchange to (I ended up just saying southern LA, a categorisation the locals will passionately deny), it’s only 50 min from central LA. And even though your Uber driver will tell you that you’ve never seen traffic like this, and they’ll swim in their self-pity that they have to spend every afternoon stuck between Ferraris and Teslas, you’ll secretly think to yourself you have, indeed, seen traffic like this; every weekday at 6pm across the Harbour Bridge. They’ve got lots of lanes. Like, seven on each side of the motorway. It really dilutes the, like, ten million people or whatever.
My first time meeting people was the international picnic, like a day before move-in. I’ve got social anxiety, so I was just pacing around my hotel room over and over and over again trying to psyche myself up to go. After I spent, like, half-an-hour gaslighting myself into some state of semi-calm, I just went. I was dropped off in between these two flagpoles (Americans love their flags – red white and blue baby), and walked up these concrete stairs (Americans love a lot less their stairs – car culture baby), and found myself looking over this sprawling, bubbling, emerald park. It’s called Aldrich Park; it’s, like, the center of campus and is the most amazing place to spend your hours between class. There were so many people there, I was shocked. Like, an event like this in Auckland would get about ten people turning up, and seven of them would be running it. But this gave me festival vibes, it was crazy. I felt kind of overwhelmed by it all, so I lowkey just sat on the grass for a while, watching everyone buzz around. Then, I forced myself to switch on extrovert mode, tried to stand straight and smile and got a wristband for the foodtrucks. The first few people I talked to I didn’t really vibe with, and I wanted to go join a group, but a lot of them weren’t speaking English. I didn’t want to force them to all switch to English for my sake, so I kept walking. Eventually, I overheard a group talking in English, took a breath, and asked them if that seat was taken.
Here, I met two postgrad students (Italian and Dutch-Iranian) who I never spoke to again, a Japanese girl who is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met but couldn’t click with, and the English girl who would become one of my best friends.
I won’t say her name, for privacy reasons, but I’m so glad the universe sent us to the same uni. We ended up walking to our morning classes together everyday, we ended up meeting eachother’s partners, we ended up watching movies in the common room all the time (she showed me Hot Fuzz, I showed her Hunt for the Wilderpeople). And I never would’ve met her if not for this exchange.
We were both living in the International House, which is full of other exchange students. I met her, and so many cool people from around the world. I also made a decision about halfway through to be real active with making American friends, and so met heaps of really nice people outside the International House also. I would describe them all, but I’m down to 1000 characters remaining ahhh. Everyone always talks about how amazing it is to make friends while travelling, but no one ever talks about how sad it is to leave them. So, if you do go on exchange, be mindful that it will come to an end, and appreicate every moment with the people there!
Growing up, I was always told that university would be the time of my life. But, to be brutally honest, everything before my exchange felt a step below what I thought university could be. American colleges do it right. Everyone there actually goes to class, not just relying on lecture recordings. And I signed up to the Psychology Club, which had two hundred people show up every week. Often, I’d be on campus from 10am-10pm, just living life, and walk back excited for the next day. (Irvine is the safest city in the US, so night walks are fine!)
Going to UCI was the adventure that I wanted. Even with the downsides of missing home, it was still the best time of my life. I didn’t run into any satyrs, but it was still the magical adventure of a lifetime to Southern LA.
Q&A
What were some of the highlights of the academic experience at your host university?
The lecturers are a really high quality. Like, you’ll be reading (or skimming) the textbook and see their name, which is just wild. Especially in a field like Psychology, which I was over there for, where the subject is very America-centric, it’s a really high standard of teaching.
It also made me realise that the standard of education at the University of Auckland is quite high. Like, UCI is a top academic school in the States, but I felt more than prepared in terms of the workload there. I took four courses, which they say is quite a lot for the ten week semester over there, but it was honestly fine. Similar workload to UoA.
Would you recommend any particular activity/activities unique to your host country or university?
Something unique to American universities, I’ve found, is the energy on campus. Like, there’s a real vibe on campus. Like I said, all the time I would just spend all day on campus and have a great time. My room kind of became just a recharging port for me, haha. Just catching up with people, eating at the cafeterias, doing work or reading or playing chess in the unlimited nice places they have to chill indoors in.
Another thing different to New Zealand is that everyone is extroverted in America (okay, that’s not true, but it certainly felt like it sometimes!). I found that if I there was someone cool I wanted to maybe be friends with, they were always happy to give you their Instagram. And, if you just reach out to them and be honest that you’re trying to be more active in your friend-making, they’d always be down to hang out.
What are your top 3 tips for future students attending your host university or going on exchange to your host country?
1. Stay in the International House at Arroyo Vista! It’s easy to make friends in the International House, because everyone is in the exact same shoes as you and wants to make friends too. Unlike first-year halls at UoA, where some people knew eachother from high school, this is a completely fresh slate for everyone.
2. Just ask people for their Instagrams, and then message them asking to hang out! I’m kind of a shy person, so I didn’t really do this for the first half of the exchange. But then I realised I only had made international friends, so I was determined to be active in friendmaking outside of the International House. Everyone was really nice that I started reaching out to, and I met some really cool people. Plus, Americans love New Zealanders, so it’s kind of easier for us haha.
3. Just go to everything you can in those first few weeks! Of course, if you’re really burnt out, take a break. But things do slow down a bit as the semester crawls on, so roll with the momentum of those first few weeks and just ball. Who knows the amazing person you never would have met if you didn’t go to that cringe speed-friending event, haha (true story).
How much did you budget for your exchange? Was this enough? Were there any lessons learned that would help future students budget for their own exchange?
I heard from someone that I’d only need 10 grand. I say “only”, not because 10 grand is a small amount of money, but because I kinda dropped 15 grand in the end. Rip. All good, I’m broke now, but the memories are forever haha. No, on a serious note, it was worth every freaking cent, but I probably could have spent less if I really wanted. I got the unlimited cafeteria visit pass for about 4 grand NZD, and while it was nice not to be worried about food, I also probably could’ve got away with the 120 meal pass (which was a lot cheaper). I also could’ve spent less money on fun stuff, but, like, you’re only on exchange at an American uni once, right? So, in my opinion, worth every cent. But be prepared to spend a bit more than you might’ve anticipated!!
What are your most significant takeaways from your experience abroad?
Going on exchange actually really helped my social anxiety, just because I had to overcome it again and again and again meeting new people. Not that I don’t struggle with it anymore, but it gave me more opportunities to get better with it, I guess.
Do you want to share anything about travels you did outside your host city/country?
I actually didn’t leave Irvine/LA! I was completely happy just on campus actually, haha. Even Arroyo Vista felt like its own suburb, and you had everything you needed on campus (a Target, a cinema that had seats like Gold Class, a library with desks attached to treadmills).
Final Comments
Appreciate every moment of it. When you’re on your first day, it feels like the end will never come. But it still feels like that even halfway through, even three-quarters through. But then you land back in New Zealand, and you kinda realise that you’ll only see those friends you made in Irvine a handful of more times in your life, and that too is in the way distant future. So, yeah, enjoy it all, and be deliberately present. This time you spend with them now will be the majority of time you spend with them in your life. Kind of sad, yeah. But I guess it’s a beautiful thing to meet such beautiful people in the first place, right?
Tags: 2023, Psychology, Report