theatlantic:

The Best Career Advice You’ll Never Hear in a Graduation Speech

“Follow your passion” is the stupidest career advice I’ve ever heard. Why? Because my passion in life is for singing bad karaoke. My friend Dodgy Dave’s passion is for dealing crack cocaine. Some of my friends have many passions. Most of my friends have none.

“Do what you’re good at” is better, but still stupid. It gets things the wrong way around. For almost all activities, being “good at” something is the result of thousands of hours of practice and learning (pdf). In choosing a career, you’re almost always making the decision about what to become good at, not the other way around.

How, then, should you find a job you’ll love?

Here’s my slogan: ”Do something valuable.”

Read more. [Image: Getty]

fishclouds:

fuckyescalifornia:

“America’s Finest Timelapse” by XOXO Wedding Studio

An absolutely gorgeous timelapse video capturing various parts of San Diego, California as it transitions from day to night. You kind of get a taste of traveling throughout America’s Finest City in the span of a few minutes! The video is only 5 minutes long, it’s definitely a must watch!

Sometimes I forget how beautiful SD is and I am lucky to be here.

(Source: vimeo.com)

(Source: cosplaygirl, via cableplant)

(via broadcast)

Continuing from this post: http://vsin.tumblr.com/post/46002297911/uc-san-diego

Academia and Academic Probation

Computer Science is a fun major. It also comes with challenges that you need to balance out over your four years. Some kids are beast and will take 3 of the hardest classes in one quarter and Ace them all. It takes a lot of willpower and hard work. Some times, you fall short because you don’t take your classes seriously enough.

This happened to me my sophomore year. I took Calculus, Logic, and two programming classes that I underestimated and got kicked into Academic Probation. Luckily, my college was cool enough to see that I had just gotten a job and just needed to better balance my work and school schedule. I was able to get my GPA back up and eventually graduated.

GPA

Don’t let anyone tell you GPA is not important. Sadly, one of the first things any employer will look at is your GPA. It’s an easy indicator of how hard you work so put work in. I graduated with a 3.1 and a lot of employers really liked my resume but saw my GPA and passed for the 3.4+ kids.

Internships

Do internships. Work in the field you plan on pursuing. I know tons of Biology, Psychology, and Sociology majors who all graduated with ZERO experience in their field and are sitting at home now. Don’t be like them. The ones that volunteered at hospitals, did research with professors, and worked at internships for pharmaceuticals all are off to medical school or working in research.

This is even more important for Computer Science majors. Get two internships under your belt and you won’t have to stress as much come graduation.

You Will Change

College will change you, at least hopefully it will. Embrace the change and you will grow and become more versatile and happy. My parents lived a six hour drive north which is pretty close but I never went home unless it was a holiday. I spent that time bonding with friends. It made the holidays that much more enjoyable and the time spent at school also.

A lot of my friends went back home every weekend or hung on to people instead of embracing their new environments. Some of them fared well and eventually broke through and grew. Others didn’t and are now graduated just to go back home to live with their parents and hang out with the same old people.

To be continued…again…maybe

(Source: aheartofalion)

tearevor:

Missing Baja mornings

(via patagonia)

I just graduated in January from UCSD, Sixth College, and am working as a programmer in San Diego. I want to give a good perspective on what college was like for me to maybe help out the kids out there who have just got accepted. I know, like a lot of good advice, that people will want to take it in but it still won’t make a difference because everyone has to make their own mistakes before truly understanding. I just hope this helps.

Applying

I graduated from a small town in the middle of California in between Fresno and Bakersfield. I was pretty smart at school but I didn’t really try because I didn’t really care where I went. I knew I wanted to be a programmer but that was pretty much it. I sort of knew my GPA would be good enough to get me into San Jose State but I didn’t expect much. I can’t even remember my “stats” because, really, those don’t matter since once you’re in, you’re in as they say it. I probably had a 3.7 GPA? Took a few AP Classes: Chemistry, Calculus, Physics, and a few others I don’t remember.

Acceptance

I applied to SJSU, UC Merced, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego. I was rejected from UCLA and Cal. Got into Merced, UCSD and SJSU. I had no clue what UC San Diego even was and didn’t realize how lucky I was to be going there. I chose UCSD before ever even seeing what the campus looked like. The first day I saw the school was the first day of orientation. I also chose Sixth College not because of any informed decision, but because it had the word “technology” in it. Note: Warren is the technology/engineering college, Sixth is not. I should have chosen Warren but I don’t regret Sixth one bit.

All I knew was it was ranked decently high, had a good computer science program, and it seemed nice enough. I was disappointed about not getting into UCLA and UC San Diego like a lot of UCSD freshmen are but I realized now that it was the best choice for me because I love driving and LA traffic/Cal streets just wasn’t up for it.

Meeting People

I lived in the on campus apartments my freshmen year. I bonded with my house mates but I was constantly trying to branch out. I walked over to the residential halls, called “Camp Snoopy” and just invited myself into places through friends I sorta knew. The one thing that bonded all of us was our love of Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I was awesome at it so I played and bonded with one of the res halls and they became some of my greatest friends through my four years at UCSD.

Point is, you just need to meet people. I avoided joining clubs for the first two years so I could focus on academia but just find a group of people you enjoy and stick with them. Find something in common and do it with them.

I had my car freshmen year since I love driving and was able to go with close friends and eat out every weekend. This was a horrible idea in hindsight since I blew away $20 a week as a college student living on loans but again, I don’t regret it. I bonded with people and made close friends.

Living Like a College Kid

You will find that after living at home and only being around people who are like you makes it very difficult to transition to a place where you will have conflicts with people. Don’t run away from it, and use it as a way to grow. It’s better to learn how to confront people, talk to people, and work with people now then when you have to do it in real life.

Eat as much free food as you can. Go to all the free food events and meet people. I blew away all my dining dollars by Winter Quarter and had to use my Textbook money to eat.

Academia

Go to class. Seriously. Go to class, sit in the front row and learn. 10% of you will listen to this advice but I am still going to say it. Don’t bring your laptop, don’t play on your phone. Try to hold you attention for 50 or 80 minutes and you won’t regret it. I spent way too much time paying Tetris and reading Reddit on my phone and I regret it now.

Do your homework and surround yourself with smart people. Make friends with people who are acing the class. They probably do awesome in Calculus but wouldn’t mind some company.

To be continued..

maybe. 

woodendreams:

 (by Younes B.)

(Source: dearninety, via ichigaki-deactivated20130425)

(Source: yourtrueface, via eldritchduchess)