Everything freshmen at UC Davis now know

The campus is unbeatable

We have seen the campus move through the seasons, and learned that UC Davis is one of the most beautiful campuses on earth, and looks beautiful year-round.

 No matter the weather or the season, UC Davis is as serene and beautiful as it gets, with blazing orange leaves on every tree in autumn, and blooming white flowers all around as winter transitions into spring, it is truly a stunning place to call home. (Even though the white flowers on the trees smell vaguely of semen).

UC Davis is even beautiful in the winter time when the trees are bare. 

This photo was taken in the cuarto dorms parking lot during winter

The people at Davis are actually fantastic

People are here are insanely friendly, and they will help you with anything from finding where a class is, to walking you home after a party to make sure you make it home safely.  

They’ll even hold doors open for you and smile at you- craziness!

Cute photo of me and two of the most fantastic people in Davis, and because davis is full of fantastic people, these two are probably some of the most fantastic in the world

The friends you make at Davis make the entire college experience one hundred times better

The friends I have met at Davis feel like people i have known a lifetime, despite only having met them six months ago, and I already know we will be friends for years to come. My friends have saved my life on more than one occasion (literally).

The friends you make at UC Davis will help you with everything from relieving stress by making you laugh, to holding your hair back while you puke in the rite aid parking lot at one in the morning.  

They also make the thirty minute bus ride to Target fun, and if I didn’t have my best friends to eat french toast with and laugh too loudly with, I might truly lose my mind.

This is one of the many pictures of some of the wonderful friends I have made at Davis, I am lucky enough to live with these ones

They really weren’t joking when they said the quarter system moves fast, and college really is hard, like, super hard

The Quarter system genuinely moves at hyperspeed.  One minute you’re excited about a new quarter beginning and then the next you’re up all night studying for midterms and crying because you have three papers to write by Friday, and you already spent all your aggie cash for the quarter so you can’t afford to fuel your Starbucks addiction anymore.

This is around the same time you’ll realize that getting an A in a class is a lot harder than it was in high school and that all you really want to do is sit in bed and watch the new season of House of Cards.

Davis sunsets are the bestYou still need to call home every once in awhile and have a good cry, because being a grown up is hard

 I like to view myself as mature and independent at this age, especially since I now live 400 miles away from my family, but I quickly learned that sometimes when I’m stressed the only thing that helps is calling my mom and crying and warning her that I gained the freshmen 15 from stress eating chocolate and asking her if she will still love me if I fail all of my classes. (She says she will and hopefully we won’t ever have to find out if she’s telling the truth)  

Unlimited access to french fries and soda in the DC is a dangerous thing

I thought the freshman 15 couldn’t exist at Davis because of all the walking and biking required to get around campus (so much walking and biking, too much walking and biking, someone should have warned me), but then I went home for Spring break and my mom gave me a self help book on how to lose weight and I realized that maybe eating french fries everyday was starting to have an adverse effect on me.  

If fries in the DC weren’t enough, you can also find all types of good food all around Davis; they sell this great corn on the street corner by my dorm

Having balance is essential to dealing with the chaos of college life

It is extremely hard to balance time for studying and classes, friends, physical health, work, and also find time to actually relax every once in a while- but it is crucial.  Time for sleep and for fun and for maintaining friendships is just as important as time spent studying.

It is easy to neglect mental health in the pursuit of academic success, but your brain and body need rest sometimes! Its okay to spend an hour watching TV with your roommate every once in a while, necessary even!

Spending time with my wonderful friends is my favorite way to relax

Living on your own is really, really expensive

Thanks to my part time job in high school I had some concept of money going into college, but never really realized how much everything (granola bars, laundry detergent, etc.) really cost.  And how much is sucks to spend money on boring things like deodorant that my parents used to provide for me.  I nearly cried when I had  spend 15 dollars buying tide pods, 15 dollars I would have much rather spent buying fun socks and make up and body sprays.

It is for the best though, because I have truly learned how to budget, and how to be thankful for any small amount of money I do have when I have it, plus, I have learned a bunch of different ways to be thrifty and save money; I totally understand why extreme couponers do what they do now.

The arboretum is actually the best place ever

It’s a perfect place for studying, going on peaceful walks, and of course a perfect setting for  instagram photoshoots; the arboretum is one of the best places to go when you need to escape from the pains of adulting.