One of the things I enjoy about college counseling is connecting the realities that just as there are many varieties of perspectives that North Oconee students come from, there are that many (or more) college varieties to compliment a student as he or she seeks to grow during a college education. Yesterday, I enjoyed seeing a campus that is way outside of my familiarity. University of California Irvine hosted a counselor visit where I was introduced to this unique campus.
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| Student Fitness Center |
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| Main Thoroughfare Through Campus |
University of California Irvine, UC Irvine or just "UCI," is a member of the University of California system of campus which also include Berkley, San Diego, Santa Barbara, UCLA, and others. This beautiful campus is situated five miles off of the Pacific Coast in Irvine, California, a town named after the college in 1965. UC Irvine is a unique campus that just celebrated its 50th birthday, making it a relatively young campus. The campus is uniquely laid out in a circular format. http://www.uci.edu/campusmap/ At the center of campus is a 21 acre park where students congregate under shaded tree. 350 days of sunshine make the park a readily available meeting space and has made the need for an expansive student center obsolete. In fact, the student center that does exist is there to house the book store and a Starbucks. Apart from that, you won't find the normal accoutrements that would go into a student center at a school with a less-than-favorable climate. Of course, that does not mean that there is a lack of great facilities. Visible from the photographs above and below are the expansive fitness facility and comfortable dormitories.
All colleges tend to put a special spin on dorm life, and UCI is no different. A whole dormitory community is set up by themes, with each hall devoting get itself to a special interest or discipline. For example, there is an engineering hall for students in this major and a ecology themed hall for students who want to save the environment. The Resident Assistant builds activities and community service projects around these interests for the residents to participate in together. Dormitories are three stories or less and are built with communal living in mind, yet there is appropriate accommodations when a student wants to be alone.
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| Outside of a Typical Dormitory |
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| Interior |
UCI is a campus that boasts a very big (51.8%) "first generation" student enrollment. These students are the first in their families to go to college. They have the highest retention rate( 92%) of students returning for their sophomore year in the nation for this population. They were ranked 9th in the nation on US News and World Reports Top Puplic Universities. An important emphasis for each undergraduate, regardless of the major, is research. Over 90% of the 24,500 undergrads will have participated with research with a UCI professor before graduation. There are 93 majors offered in just about everything a student can imagine with a School of Engineering that has both a wind tunnel and earthquake simulator for students to use in testing out their engineering creations. Also, there is a great teaching hospital tied to UCI where nursing and other medical majors learn. This is a very academic environment where working with others is emphasized.
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| One of the Libraries on Campus |
Student life on campus is vibrant. UCI is a culturally diverse campus. The Asian and Latino population make up 73% of the total. This is different environment that offers a fresh perspective to prospective NOHS students, and subsequently opens up a huge variety of different campus student groups. This feature is guaranteed to expand a student's world exposure which can be valuable in surviving in the global society that shrinks daily.
UCI is a competitive school to gain admission to with over 66,000 applicants each year competing for just under 6000 spots. If you are thinking about UCI (or any other UC school mentioned earlier) you better take a fine art, It is required for admission. The middle 50th percentile SAT score for last year was 1040 to 1310.
The last detail about UCI that may make it attractive to students is the fact that it is located about 15 minutes from Disneyland. In fact, many of the students at UCI have a year long pass that they use when class is over. Not that this needs to be a selling point, however many of the opportunities that come with a huge conglomerate like Disney are a nice resource to have close by when thinking about internship possibilities.
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| Pool Outside of the Student Fitness Center |
The visit to UCI was indeed a pleasure. There were many things with which to walk away from this visit. I can definitely see why so many students matriculate here.
