The University of California San Diego

Date: Apr 27 2009
Major: Unknown (This Major's Salary over time)
I'm the daughter of two liberal Asian parents, but they naturally perked up when they thought of my chances as a pre-med student at UCSD back in 2003. Back in 2003, UCSD was just emerging as something other than a back-up school, and, disappointed by my rejections from Cal, UCLA, Wellesley etc., my parents perked up at the thoughts that I could "redeem" myself by declaring myself Pre-med and raise myself out of my Undecided stupor. Luckily, I had too much healthy selfishness to play along with these unrealistic hopes. I soon branched out without restraints to try out different Social Science and Humanities departments—Anthropology, Psychology, Spanish Literature—before I settled on International Studies (INTL), a truly unique way of theoretically educating yourself to become a cosmopolitan student of critical thinking. This led me to my first Communications class, and I was sold. After hearing the word "Semiotics" for the first time, I declared a double-major… in junior year. I finished in time with an extra semester to spare, which I used to study abroad in Madrid, Spain. When I consider my education at UCSD, I admit that the Soc. Sci/Hum departments are not always at the forefront of novel thought, but the organization of the whole university is made to allow students to experiment and "find themselves". Overall, I managed to have a quintessential college experience without ever having to rely on the crutch of any sorority or lame-ass college propaganda clubs.