Finding Your Best Fit University with Dalia Wardany - Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt

That that told her.

Thank you.

Go back.

But you know there is.

Yeah.

Hello Hi everybody can you all hear me this is Dahlia I'm from the University of California, Davis.

OK, we've got a good group with me today on can you do me a favor and just type in the chat and let me know that you can hear me just say hi.

My eyes are on the chat right now so I can see you if you type anything.

Anyone want to chime in and just say hi? You can let me know where you're chatting from.

Hi Matthew.

Hi Sam

Awesome, how's the volume? Just want to do a quick volume check. Too loud to quiet.

Just right.

You guys are helping me test out the volume. Right now it's perfect. Thanks, Matthew.

Awesome alright great. Well uhm let me see if you are with me in this webinar today I'm just going to call out the elephant in the room. It means that you were just admitted to the University of California Davis. So I'm going to say congratulations. I'm so excited for you all, right? So let's make this a little bit interactive before we kick off the presentation.

Tell me where you are joining us from today? What city, what country? I see abdurachman from Egypt. Slam Alaykum Hundred man. How are you? Who else anyone else out there from somewhere other than California or even California? It's all good.

Giorgio from Beirut, Lebanon, Marhaba Selma from Jordan, Hawaii. Hi, Sarah.

Awesome Basel, Switzerland. Awesome thanks Ashley. Oh what a good international global group so awesome anyone here from the United States or from California waking up early with me.

Handy from Lebanon. OK, where can I go get started? So yeah, congratulations. You all have just been admitted and you all just need to be celebrating ourselves right now. I know the world is a little funky right now. There's some strange things going on so I'm gonna just say I hope you're all doing well and you and your families are healthy wherever you are. We're all in it together. Uh, there's a there's an American saying that I don't know if you've heard this or not before but.

The saying goes that when life gives you lemons make lemonade, so that just basically means when things are a little bit of- or difficult or you're facing hardship see if you can find an opportunity in that to make the best of it, so that's definitely what we're doing here at UC Davis. We've got a lot going on even though we can't do what we love to do and meet you in person right now, but we are going to do everything that we can to connect with you wherever you are in the world.

Come and not let what's happening in the world, stop us from giving you the information that you need to help you in this huge decision that you're all about to make. So for many of you, this might be the first time in your life that you're going to be making a potentially life changing decision about what you're going to study an where you're going to go to school and where you're going to live. And some of you are going to be moving really far away from home, so.

We've got a lot of things here at UC Davis planned for you to to help prepare you for that big decision to support you in that decision. We've got a great, robust menu of webinars scheduled. I hope that you have seen them, because if you registered for this webinar, you should have been able to see a list of what's coming up. You are welcome to hop into any one of those whenever you feel like you have time and we're going to do our best to make those to record those so that even if you.

You can't show up life or one of them. You can still access the information, so we've got webinars all about UC Davis. We've got webinars that talk to you about the next steps. If once you've been admitted, what to do next, how to accept your admission offer if that's what you want to do, how to get yourself ready to move to Davison? Enroll in classes. We've got a really general one about, just ask me anything where you could literally literally do just that.

And then we've got this webinar that you're all in with me today. That's more of a big picture. An today's webinar is going to be all about just how to even approach that decision. About where do I want to go to school? An all of the things that I need to be considering before I make that big decision, so I don't know. If you heard that the song that I was playing at the beginning, if anyone joined us on time, it was a little bit of Taylor Swift. That song called me that talks about.

All about me an right now it is all about you, and so it's OK right now to be a little bit selfish and a little bit introspective, because this decision is going to impact you, you, you, directly, and in order to make a good decision about where you go for University, it has to be true to you as a person. You as a student and all about what you need an you want. And so we are going to do our best to help you.

With that, let me just give you a little bit of background about me. I work for the undergraduate admissions office for the international admissions team, and my job is to go around to different countries. I travel to different countries and I visit schools in different cities around the world. We meet with students and visit schools and just help you understand what it's like to study in the United States, and then when we're done with all of that, we come back home.

We receive your applications. We read your applications. We admit you and then we try to loop you back into the conversation to help you figure out what you need and how to evaluate all of those college options in front of you. So I'm going to kind of make an assumption or a prediction. And if you were able to be admitted to UC Davis, which is ranked number 5 for public universities in the United States.

It probably means you're kind of awesome as a student and as an outstanding student. I bet that you probably have multiple options in front of you for where you could possibly go as a student, so if you were admitted to UC Davis, you were probably also admitted to some other outstanding institutions, and I'm going to congratulate you on those as well.

But now we have to get real and think about Oh my gosh, this is a big decision. How am I going to choose between them? So sometimes when I'm out talking to students I get a lot of questions like so why should I go to UC Davis? Or why is UC Davis better than UCLA or UC San Diego or the University of XYZ? And so those are tough questions, but I often find that when we start talking about that, the discussion often goes back to.

You, the student, an what you need as a student in your future, not just your future school but your future home away from home because you're going to have to live there and you're going to spend at least four years of your life there.

So it needs to be about a lot more than just where you're going to take classes. It has to go way beyond things like the name of the University or my rankings as a University, and way beyond where my friends are all talking about going. It has to be a very personal, very individual decision. Universities are not a one size fits all kind of thing. It's like when you buy a jacket and you jacket for the winter or a new pair of shoes.

Everybody has a different size. Everybody has different needs, a different style, so it has to be super individual and fit you as a person. It can't be about anybody else.

Because what suits me as a person and what I need to feel challenged an engaged and feel like I'm comfortable.

Hold on, let me move a little bit here.

Is going to be different than than what you feel you need to be a student?

So we're going to talk about just the concept of fit. What fits me is going to be different than what fits you when we talk about college fit. That's probably a phrase that you've heard here are there were basically talking about the degree to which the University that you're choosing suits. Use a person as a human and as an academic, and there's a lot of different questions that are really smart to have in mind when you're talking to universities.

So like I mentioned, my assumption about you, there's a lot of places that you've probably already been admitted to. An maybe are still going to be admitted to.

You owe it to yourself and you have the right to ask really hard pointed questions to any University representative that you are.

Practing with my job is not to tell you or to tell you that you have to come to UC Davis. I am not here to convince you that UC Davis is going to be, but will perfectly fit your needs an in always that's something that you have to decide so I know that when we read your applications and we made the decision to admit you. I felt pretty confident that you would be a good fit for UC Davis, but now the onus is on you to decide if you think that we

Are a good fit for you, but I'm never going to say that there is any perfect University an always and I'm not. I'm there's so many outstanding options in the United States. If you've decided that you want to go to University here, we've got over 4000 universities an A lot of them have out start outstanding programs that you can take advantage of. So right now it's going to be all about you and we're just going to give you some tools and some resources and some good questions.

To keep in your back pocket when you're considering.

So let's get going here.

So we need to ask yourself some questions. Remember I said This is super personal super reflected. You need to ask yourself what do you need and what do you want as a person because nobody knows you like you know you.

And then you have to also consider consulting with your family members because they love you. They know you better than anybody. They want the best for you, so we have to ask them as well. Moms and dads and siblings and extended family. What are the things that you expect out of my perspective? University experience an the program of study that I'm choosing?

And then definitely, there's the questions you're going to ask directly to the University. What can you offer me? What are the supports are going to be able to provide to me?

OK, so there's five main factors that we want to talk about here.

There's the academic, the social, environmental, financial, and professional and we're going to look at each one a little bit in depth. I'm not going to go too far in depth 'cause I want to leave a opportunity for you all to ask questions. I'd try. I'm going to try not to hold you beyond.

4045 minutes total for this webinar, but academic basically just means. How well does this school suit your needs as a learner? am I going to be able to study when I want to study and money going to? am I going to be able to learn in a way that suits me? The social aspects ask you to talk about to think about yourself as a social being so we're not just academics. We live in communities. We interact with people. Is this an institution that's going to make me feel welcomed?

Anne, where I will find a community and find people that I'm going to want to hang out with.

And then there are the environmental factors. Basically, where is this place and what's it like to physically be in that geographic location or the campuses?

And we have financial. So money is important in for some people actually a lot of people money might be the deciding factor where you end up going. And it's super important and we're not going to gloss over that because you're all now young adults and these are the serious factors in the hard decisions that we should all be able to handle at this point before you start University and your parents are all going to be very grateful for you for it if you do that.

And then the last factors professional. What is the degree that this institution can help me start my future career?

So let's jump in.

Let's see so academic. What are some good questions to ask? Does the college or University offer my field of study? So I'm going to assume that when you applied, you kind of had an idea what you wanted to study and that you did a little bit of homework or research in whatever University of applied to the to ensure that they had the major that you were interested an it could also be that you applied as undecided or undeclared, and that's.

Totale cool because as long as the University you end up at has a process for you to explore and maybe change your mind, change your major or add more than one major or minor in a major, then you're good. But those are questions that you have to ask about because not everybody knows exactly what they want to do for the rest of their life. At age 17 and 18, I know I didn't.

And at UC Davis is actually pretty easy to change your major. It's basically a form that you fill out. We if you know right now, actually some people might say, Oh, I already know that I want to change my major from the one that I applied to. I want to do something totally different and that's fine. We just ask that you hang out for at least one quarter and then your academic advisors will help you change your major.

I'm gonna say that the majority of our students here at UC Davis will change their major at least once before there they've graduated. And then How do I learn best? So you have to again just know yourself better than anybody. Do you learn best an A setting where you're like sitting in a lecture Hall? Do you like when the teacher is teaching at you and giving you verbal information and you're just sitting kind of in the audience receiving? Is that your favorite thing?

Are you more of an experiential learner where you want the opportunity to work with a hands-on opportunity, or you want to work in a lab? You want to be touching objects? You want to be outdoors.

Do you work best virtually?

Like, do you learn best in an online setting like kind of what we're doing now? Kind of what the world is doing now and you can type in the chat if you feel like it. Is anyone currently at home doing school from home right now, I'm sure that's a lot of us specially I know that the students that are logging in from Egypt and from Lebanon from Jordan are doing that right now and a lot of other peoples, including here in the out of the United States. So how's that going for you? Do you like it? Is that something that you feel like you can do long-term?

So again, you have to answer those questions for yourself.

Maybe even consult with some of your teachers and counselors. They might also give you some insight on what type of learner you are. If that's a question that kind of stumps you and then the last question on this slide that's kind of my favorite is what do I need? What if I need academic support so?

Let's be real. If you were admitted to UC Davis, which you all work as you're here with me, you are an awesome student and we are consistently admitting students who are at the tops of their classes. They're getting they're used to getting top marks in school, but I'm going to be really honest with you. It is not unusual for students to be at the tops of their classes in their final year of high school and then start University and experience.

Kind of a learning curve. There's a lot of differences between high school and University. There's there's knew things that you're going to have to adjust to inside the class and outside of the class. And sometimes students who are used to getting top Marks and high school are humbled a little bit when they start their freshman year in University and they start to see marks that they weren't used to seeing an it's OK, you just want to make sure that when you're choosing a University that it's a place that has.

A lot of academic supports for you so that you can access those if and when you need them, and I'm going to just give you a piece of advice, access them whether or not you think you need them. We can all benefit from more support and more tutoring. UC Davis has a tutoring center that you actually you get with the tuition that you pay, so it's it's not an additional cost, it's included, and so basically you already own it. You already have access to it, so use it. They do things like sit with you, one on one, and coach you on your.

History classes your math classes.

And they can help you with writing Cousin College. There's a lot of writing that we all have to do.

Uh, they even give you support on things like time management and money management. Other things that you're going to have to learn how to do independently when you're in University. So that's an important question to ask to any University Rep at whatever institution you are considering saying yes too.

Let's move on. Alright social, so I already mentioned this. We're not just academic people were not robots. We are social beings an I think right now more than ever we here were kind of like.

It's really hitting us a very close to home that we are social beings and we are now a lot of us are sitting at home. Maybe were not able to go out the way that we're used to going out and interacting with people. The way we're used to, because we're trying to stay safe and healthy and do the responsible thing for the whole planet. So we are accepting more than ever that we need each other and that we crave this social interaction.

So a good question to ask yourself about your future school is what kind of communities will I find there? I'm going to. am I going to find the community that will welcome me an embrace me? Are there are there opportunities for me to engage with other students and like learn from people who are different than I am? What kind of plugs do they offer? So at UC Davis we've got over 800 clubs. It's a lot, so when you're talking to a perspective University, you might ask them what are the clubs you have land and then you think about yourself. What are my?

Puppies. What are the things that I really want to like keep doing when I'm in college. I'm a piano player. Well I'm not, but like you might be if you were a piano player and you want to keep playing piano in college. Is there an opportunity for you to keep doing that? What if you are in the Chess Club in high school and you want to still be in the Chess Club in college? Do they have that? And if they don't, does this place give me an opportunity to start my own club so when I tell you that UC Davis has over 800 clubs, that kind of gives you a sense that.

That is pretty easy to start a club on your own. We've got like.

What do we have? I I we've got a Harry Potter club. We have a a zombie apocalypse club. We have a badminton club. We have like pretty much anything under the sun that you can imagine.

And then how do you find your community? So sometimes, especially our students that are moving so far away from home and away from your families. And maybe this is your first time leaving the culture that you're used to. You're wondering, am I going to go to UC Davis or whatever University an find my people? am I going to find people who understand me who get me? Will I be able to feel supported and understood in that way?

So you see, Davis is is really diverse where the eighth most ethnically diverse University in the United States. There's a lot of different cultures represented on our campus. A lot of different languages that are spoken, so I'm confident that that students can come here and find their people if they want to find their people. If you want to avoid your people completely, you can do that too, and engage with complete, completely new and different cultures if that's what you're into. But you do need to.

Ask the question. Who's there an? Will they welcome me?

And then the last question on this slide is where can I go if I'm feeling down so part of being a social person is is our emotions and it's also not uncommon for students to start University Ann feel a lot of like adjustment growing pains and they might feel homesick so ask whatever school you're looking at what are the supports that you have to help me if I'm feeling oth if I'm just feeling down or something's bugging me.

In or out of one of my classes and I just want somebody to talk to at UC Davis we have a Health Center with counselors that are there full time and ready there ready to talk to students for whatever reason you want that kind of support because it's really important to us here that our students are taken care of as a whole person not just as the academic side of you but the physical side of you and the emotional side of you.

Let's keep going environmental OK so this is basically about where is this school located where in the world what's the geographic location of this institution what's it like living there physically what are the physical surroundings like.

Wow so if you if you are moving away from home for University that's you need to remember that you're not just choosing a school this is not just a place where you're going to robotically take classes you have to be part of that the local community and it's really important to consider what the neighborhood is like around the campus what the climate is like in the city that you've chosen to to relocate in sometimes it might sound a little trivial when we talk about weather.

But it's really not. It's actually kind of huge, because the climate that you're choosing to relocate in can have a big impact on your ability to just feel comfortable and your ability to feel like. Yeah, this is fine. I'm not distracted by how icy cold it is outside, and I can just like, do my classes and study and hang out with my friends without being silverlake preoccupied with with.

My fingers, being super cold and or that sort of things, I'm just going to use myself as an example. I'm a California girl. I was born and raised in California, so I'm used to this really mild Mediterranean climate that we get to enjoy here in California. So I know that if I were to make a decision or consider going to college, maybe on the East Coast of the United States or some parts of Europe, I would. I would definitely struggle because I.

Can't function as well as I would like to function when the weather is too cold and that's just for me, so maybe you were the opposite. Maybe you're coming from a really warm climate and you're craving a really cold, snowy atmosphere for the next four years of your life if that's the case. I'm going to say. Maybe California is not for you, but you definitely need to think about that it's important.

Some, and let's see how safe are the neighborhoods in the surrounding, the school. So the United States has a lot of different kinds of cities and towns. An living in a smaller size town is very different than living in a big city.

UC Davis is located in Davis, CA which is a college town. So when I say College Town, it basically means that it's a smaller sized town with a big University presence. So everything in and around the town of Davis is catering to the students. We don't need cars to get around in Davis. Everything is very pedestrian friendly and we are a big biking city who already knew that.

And just type in the chat. Who knew that that we ride bikes here in Davis? Kind of what we're famous for? I think so you never need a car to live in Davis, and that's important to think about, because if you decide to go to University in a big city that will rely on public transportation or you're going to have to get a car to get from point A to point B, that can add to your expenses. If you're going to need to rely on things like Uber or Lyft.

Then that that will be an added expense for you. So then something that might impact the financial side that you weren't initially expecting. So in Davis you don't need a car. You can get around either by writing your bike and we give lessons. If you forgot how to ride your bike or you want to learn all from scratch and or you can walk like me. I don't write a bike, I walk everywhere I need to go.

So then financial. So this is something now as young adults you are going to need to start considering and your parents are going to be very grateful that you do.

It's basically about how much does it cost to go to go to school in this place an is the tuition something that my family can comfortably absorb without wreaking havoc on my family without being disruptive on my family. and I personally feel like there's never any reason to disrupt your family and your life too for an undergraduate degree, there are so many wonderful options all over the world over 4000 institutions just in the United States.

And they are all at different price points, so you really need to do your homework right now.

Alongside your family to figure out if those numbers if that price point of the University that you're that you're looking at, fits with what with what you need it to be so that so that the family can still live comfortably, not just you, but the rest of your family members as well. And then if the prices high tuition is at a high price point, you then might want to ask her what's the ask yourself, what's the return on the investment?

Ask University rest. What is it that you can offer me or what kind of assurances can you give me that after I get out of college, I'm going to be able to find a job that would be the return on your investment.

Let's see so here at UC Davis. We have a lot of data and statistics.

Where we see that the majority of our alumni over 80% of our alumni will find a job within their field within the first six months of graduating. And we do think that they get to see that return on the investment of their tuition of the last four years in a nice salary in a career that they've chosen once they've graduated. OK, How do I play for financial aid and scholarships? This is a question that we get asked about.

Alot, um, I will tell you that when you applied to UC Davis your application.

Also served as an application for scholarships so when you were offered admission when you got that email from us, it said congratulations you're in. You may or may not have seen a scholarship award, an amount of money that was awarded to you. It would have been in the same space as that congratulations letter. If you did not see anything in with your admission offer, it means that you probably didn't receive any. Now, that doesn't mean that you need to.

That you're never going to be able to get any scholarship money what typically happens is that we package some scholarships and hand them out at the point of admission in March and then we wait and see what students are going to decide so we all know that may one is that big decission day all over the place where students have to make a decision where they're going to attend University we wait around until may one an we see who says yes to UC Davis and based on that.

Sometimes our financial aid office will will repackage some award money and they're usually smaller in amount for the students who are ultimately going to enroll and I want to just be really honest an open that we don't need to expect too much out of those that are usually the kinds of awards that may help you with some expenses maybe a new laptop or a ticket home but it's not going to be the kind of amount that is going to make.

A huge difference in your tuition total an it really shouldn't be the kind of thing that you rest your desicion uh on so just some clarity about that.

You can still apply for scholarships after you enroll.

A lot of time students will ask me so can I get a job tuitions kind of high but can I get a job on campus or can I work to help with paying my tuition and the answer is definitely you can get a job there are so many different work opportunities on campus is even for international students as long as you're working on campus there are you can absolutely do that and there are abundant opportunities for you to find campus jobs and they're really nice ones you can even come work for us in admissions.

But we don't want you to rely on a part time job.

If it looks like the overall price point of the tuition is too high so here's the thing you're about to start University and you're going to study some amazing things and you're going to get ready for your future career?

There's a lot that you're going to be adjusting to and we don't want you to be stressed out because of something like money or wondering if I'm going to be able to pay for my books or am I going to be able to pay for my food this month if you're worrying about stuff like that then it probably means that the price point of that University doesn't make sense for you and your family at that point and then that should help nudge you in the direction of looking at some of the.

Other options that are available to you. I would never tell a student to stretch themselves or their families for for the sake of just come to UC Davis. That's not what we're about here. Let's go on.

OK, professional, the professional factors and questions to consider. So your goal, even though we're really excited that we were just admitted to college, your goal was not getting into college. Your goal is actually to get out of college. So once you're in now, you need to like re focus your attention on your end goal, which is getting out of college and starting your future career. So some good questions to ask. Any school is how easy is it for me to get an internship at your school? Is it?

Is it a hard process? Isn't super competitive? Are there enough to go around? am I going to be able to find an internship that's related to my field of study? Are there research opportunities so like at UC Davis, University of California, Davis an all UC campuses? Do the research for the state of California were really big on research. So you see, Davis has its own office of undergraduate research. Their job is to help match you with research projects and Opportunities.

There is a lot to go around. Over 70% of our students will do some type of research before they graduate. Those are the things that look really fancy on your future CVS because you are doing research along size alongside faculties, faculty members that are at the tops of their fields. They are. They are published authors. They have won Nobel Prizes. They are rockstars essentially. And so you doing any type of research at the undergraduate level is going to help promote you.

As a future perfect professional.

And what kind of companies can you connect with while you're a student at the University, you might want to ask the school if they do anything to bring companies to campus to help connect with you and help you think about how to prepare yourself for a career later in that company. So at UC Davis we have these big recruitment fairs. Every quarter will bring over 500 companies. A lot of names that you're very familiar with.

And they get to know our students. They snatched them up, snatch them up for internships. Alot of our students will be hired even before they graduate, so.

We're in Northern California. We're pretty close to Silicon Valley.

An all those companies in Silicon Valley know the UC Davis campus very well. They know the quality of student that we that we have on our campus and a lot of our students will do internships for companies like Google and Oracle and HP and Genentech.

So definitely ask those questions you want to make sure that that if the University that you're talking to says, yeah, sure we've got internships, but it's so hard to access them or it's so cut throw an I. You know it's they are prioritizing. Maybe their graduate students over their their undergrad students, then that might not be beneficial for you.

And then what if I want to go to grad school? So a lot of our students are thinking even beyond their bachelors degree 2 Masters or to medical school or law school. What are the opportunities now today as an undergrad for me to get ready for that and to be for me to be attractive for grad school applications? So the University of California Davis has a lot of different grad programs. We have six professional schools here and 80% of our students.

Will get into their first or second choice Graduate School once they graduate, OK.

That's almost it. We're wrapping up the presentation now, and I'm going to leave just a few minutes for questions, please connect with us. We're all over social, and if you are joining us here today from Lebanon on Egypt.

Jordan, we've got a brand new WhatsApp group for international students that we'd love you to hop into. That's the QR code for it. You should be able to kind of slide your phone over in. It will do something magical and then you'll be able to join me in the WhatsApp Group and then we can chat it up over there. I'm I'm in there and we're going to get some students in there. Some current students, an newly admitted students, and you can still ask. Continue to ask any questions that are on your mind.

And keep your eyes out for all those webinars that I talked about. Stay close to your email were all having to learn new ways to communicate. Now since we can't talk to each other face to face. So email super important websites are super important. All the information is there. I just barely scratched the surface on everything that we've got going here going on here at UC Davis and make sure you take a look at the list of webinars coming up. I'll be hosting a few more of those down the road myself as well.

And you can even schedule an appointment with me. We're going to do some small group appointments for you and for your parents to talk to me. Face to face, you'll actually be able to see my face. OK, so keep close. Your email will be sending alerts and invitations for those opportunities going forward as well. and I think I'm going to stop here and wait for some questions if you want. If you have anything on your mind that you want to ask me, go ahead and type it in the question.

And the submitted question an. I'll try to get to those.

What's on your minds?

If you don't ask me questions, I'm going to ask you questions I'm I'm like known for asking way too many questions.

OK, let's see what we've got here. What's the weather like in Davis from Sun MA Sama? It's beautiful. It's very Mediterranean. We're really lucky here in California because we don't have any. What we call extreme weather. We don't have hurricanes or tornadoes or snow blizzards or those kind of things. So it's.

It's very mild year round. We have Four Seasons in the winter, never gets really cold, and thankfully for me 'cause I don't do well when it's really cold. You would need a jacket. It rains a little bit in the winner between the months of January through March, April.

Uhm, but other than that it's it's pretty beautiful. Other questions.

If we don't have anymore questions, I'm going to say goodbye to everybody and wish you all a great evening. Wherever you are at a good rest of your day. Um Ann. Please stay close to your email. Watch for future webinars. An I'm going to say goodbye. Take care of you want everyone.