Finding Your Best Fit University with Dalia Wardany - Turkey

Hello Hello.

Hello hello, can you hear me welcome my name is dahlia can I do a quick check to see if you can hear me?

Can we just have someone please type in the chat? How's the volume? Yay awesome. Welcome everybody. Good morning, good evening, wherever you are in the world. I'm from the University of California, Davis. I work for undergraduate admissions and I've got my awesome colleague tie who's also with us in the web and R and he'll be helping me answer some of your questions. Today I want to make this a little bit interactive. First let me check.

On volume, can you just type in the chat and let me know how my volume is too loud to quiet just right?

Don't be shy, I'm counting on you.

Can you hear me OK? It's fine, thank you Sonya. Alright so I'm curious wherever where everybody is joining us from today. Can you just type in the chat and let me know what city, what country you or joining us from?

My eyes are on the chat so I can see whatever you are saying is Stamboul Merhaba I welcome.

Anyone else?

Izmir beautiful hike on high brand.

Is Mira is Dumble Hawaii awesome? Yay. OK, so we're going to jump right in, um.

Yay, thank you so much for interacting with me. Uh, so I'm going to just start by saying Congratulations to all of you, because if you're here with me in today's webinar, it means that you were just admitted to the University of California, Davis. So you need to be super proud of yourselves. We had a really competitive year and we only admitted a little, just around 40% of the total students that applied. So you were among the elite minority that was admitted, and that's just an awesome achievement, so I know.

So that if you were able to be admitted to UC Davis, it probably means you're an awesome student. And it also probably means that you were offered admission to some other outstanding institutions as well, or will be. And it means that you're going to have a very big and difficult decision in front of you that you have to make. This might be the first time in your life that you're making that kind of big adult life.

Changing decision about what you're going to study an where you're going to live in the world, and some of you are thinking about traveling so far from home.

So we're going to talk today about how to approach that decision. My job is basically to travel around the world and visit schools. I've been to Turkey several times. It's one of my favorite places to recruit students from, and we visit schools. We talk to students and talk to them about what it's like to study in the United States. And then we come back home.

We wait for your applications. We read them. We admit you and then we loop back around to try to connect with you again to help you approach this decision that you have to make. I am not here to convince you that UC Davis is the perfect school for you, because I know that there are a lot of outstanding institutions out there in the United States alone. We have over 4000 universities and Colleges.

Hum.

So really, what we're here to talk about is is fit and making the decision based on the factors that are most relevant to you most important to you, an understanding that universities are not one size fits all. So what suits me as a person as a student as an academic and as a future professional may be very different than what suits you and what you're looking for. So this is the time to be a little bit selfish.

And a little bit reflective, and just be true to who you are and what you know that you need the most. There's a lot going on in the world right now.

And I just want to maybe start by telling you that even though we can't interact with you face to face right now, the University of California, Davis is really committed to staying connected with our students and making sure that nothing interrupts getting the best information to you so that you can make this big decision. There is an American saying that says when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

So basically, whenever you're facing a hardship, kind of like what the whole world is facing right now, see if you can find an opportunity in it. So we are looking for lots of opportunities to make the best of this situation that we are all in together. This web and R that you're in right now is very general focused. We're talking about the big concept of how to approach choosing a school, a University, but we've also got webinars lined up about just.

Very UC Davis specific an what to do now in terms of your next steps after you've been admitted and what you can expect out of life from UC Davis. We also have a webinar called ask me anything and so basically when you registered for this webinar, you should have seen a menu of other topics that are coming up. You are welcome to hop into any one of those an interact with Admissions Advisors an get all the information that we've got lined up for you.

OK, so let me jump ahead. I don't want to spend too much time on the presentation so that we can have room for your questions, but looking at college fit and decision-making, there are three kinds of aspects that you want to keep in mind. There are questions that you need to make sure you ask yourself.

Because nobody knows you like you know you and then questions that you need to make sure that you include your family in, because this is really a family decision. Alot of times your parents are the ones that are going to be paying for you to study at University. So definitely we want to honor that and make sure that they also feel comfortable with the decision that you make on where you're going to go to school.

And then there are questions that you want to be sure you ask the University so it's your right and your responsibility to be really vigilant about asking University representatives like me or any other representative that you have in the opportunity to interact with.

From whatever school you're looking at on what is it? What is it they have that they can offer you to make you feel that you are fulfilled as a student and that you're going to get what you need if you go there? So we're going to go through some of the questions and they are around five basic factors.

There's the academic factor. That means basically, how well does this school year looking at serve your needs as a student.

And then there's the social factors. Who's there like? What is the community that, as at the University like? And will I be welcomed as part of that University community? Because we're not just academic people were social people and now I think more than ever people all over the globe are realizing how social we are because we're missing it in some aspects. So the social the social component is really important. Then there's the environmental.

That's basically about where the school is located an what is the geographic location like what's it like to be physically on that campus walking around the financial aspects is about money obviously how well can my family absorb the tuition that I'm going to be expected to pay if I choose to study at this University and then there's the professional factors can I get a job.

Is this University going to help me with my future career? So let's go to let's go a little bit and depth in each one.

Academic factors has to do with how you learn and how you study best. Uhm, I'm going to assume that when you apply to UC Davis, you checked that we had the major of study that you were looking at. We have over 100 majors, so students can pretty much find anything that they are interested in studying. But a good question to ask maybe now is, does the University give me the chance to explore? What if I'm not 100% sure?

Of what I want to study sometimes people apply to UC Davis undeclared or undecided. That means they're not sure, though a lot of times when you're 17 and 18 years old. You really don't know what you want to do for the rest of your life, an one of the beautiful.

But parts about studying in the United States is that you have that opportunity to have a taste of different disciplines, and you can even change your mind. So we do this thing called General Education here, which means for the first year or two of your studies, you're going to be taking classes from a lot of different subject areas so that you can get to know what you really love and what you're good at before you have to be locked down to one field of study.

And then how do you learn best? Do you learn best in a big lecture setting? Do you like just sitting in an auditorium and having a professor talk at you? Or do you want something a little bit more intimate? An interactive? Do you love labs? Do you need to have your hands on equipment and materials and supplies? Do you want to be outside in the elements so nobody can answer that question more than you can? If you need help, maybe even your teachers and counselors and parents might be a good resource for you.

But definitely it's a question that you have to ask another aspect of this or a question. You should ask any University and this one is super important is does your school offer me academic supports? If I need it? So one thing that I know for sure as an educator is that college or University is really different than high school. Ann, I might be a student who's at the top of my class in high school getting the best marks like 85 or higher on a Turkish scale for example.

And then when I get to University, it's different, and suddenly I might be seeing marks that I'm not used to seeing, and that's OK, and we all just need to be a little bit humble that there is a learning curve when I get to University Ann, I will need support sometimes. So what you see Davis, we have a tutoring center. Students can come here, sit one on one with tutors and get extra help on writing and chemistry and math.

But you actually. I mean, I think the best advice I could give you is seek support. Seek tutoring before you even think you need it, because we will all need it at some point in our academic wives.

Alright, the social aspect of of how to find the best University for you? Some good questions to ask the University. Do you have clubs? So at UC Davis we have over 800 student clubs and organizations. And when I say 800, that's such a big number an it should give you kind of a hint that it's really easy to start a club. So does the school I'm looking at give me that option that if I want to start a club or I don't see a club that really like.

Excites me, that's already on the menu. Can I start my own at UC Davis? It's really easy to do that and then how can I find my community a lot of times we get questions from international students, especially who are worried that when they are coming from so far away from home leaving their families, are they going to feel welcomed? am I going to find other students who are from my culture on that campus all the way in America? and I can say that one of my favorite things about Davis is that we're really diverse. We have.

Um, so many different.

Ethnicity is where the eighth most ethnically diverse University in the United States. We have every different culture group, religious group, so many different languages spoken and represented on our campus. So students have an easy time with that and they always feel like they can find their people if they want to find their people. And there's people that are completely different and diverse from them that you can connect with and learn from.

And then what can I do if I'm feeling down? So again, there's a lot of adjustments that you're going to make when you get to University. Living away from home by yourself independently is a huge adjustment and you want to be sure that when you're shopping for a school and picking a University that they have supports for you. If you're just not feeling yourself, you might be feeling homesick sometimes or you are dealing with some kind of.

Issue that you're not used to dealing with and you just want somebody to talk too, so you see Davis has student Health Center that is very holistic in their purpose and their activities, and we try to make sure that we are taking care of the whole student when they get to UC Davis. And it's not just about how well you're doing in your classes, it's how well you're doing outside of your classes, to we want to make sure students are feeling that they have.

A social circle that makes them happy and that they can feel uplifted. An energized and understood. And so we have counselors who are available full time staff that talk to students. Whenever somebody wants someone to talk to an give you advice and support and check on you throughout your journey as a student on campus, OK environmental. This is basically about where is the school located. So when you applied for universities I hope you checked it.

Kind of his obvious that you check to see where the University is located. Where in California, which is kind of awesome Ann, I don't mean to sound biased, but I'm a California girl. I was born and raised. Here is a kind of awesome place to live. It's the West coast of the United States are whether it's pretty much perfect year round. Today it's sunny outside, the birds are singing were very Mediterranean and when I talk about whether I don't want it to seem trivial, you really have to understand.

What a big deal the climate is when you are picking a school because you're not just shopping for a place where you're going to be taking classes, you have to live there. So you have to approach this decision using all of the considerations that you would if you were to decide to choose a new home for yourself. It's gonna be your home for at least the next four years of your life, so you need to be very reflective and selfish when you choose.

And you home that this is going to be a place where I feel comfortable where I don't mind walking around in the elements that I can. I can sync with the weather that's there.

Um, like, I'll just use myself as an example. I don't do well in really cold temperatures, and I think if I were to try to study in a place like Northern Europe or northern Canada, it might be tricky for me. So you really do need to be true to yourself when you approach that.

And then financial. So this is an important one. And sometimes the price of the University is something that will make her break your decision. This is one that you really do need to loop your family members in an and.

What can I tell you? It's like you're getting your young adults now, and so these financial factors are going to matter a lot. How much does the University cost, and is this price point something that my family can handle for four years? And if it's high, what's the return on the investment? Meaning that when I get out of this University with my degree, am I going to be able to find a nice high paying job that is going to make all of the tuition I paid makes sense?

At UC Davis, 80% of our students will graduate and find a job in their field within the first six months of graduating so they don't struggle. They're very lucky in that regard. Another question that obviously you have the right to ask any University is do you have any financial aid or scholarships when you applied for the University of California? Your application also served as a scholarship application, so son students, when they were admitted, received an award with their.

Congratulations, you're in email. If you didn't receive that, it's OK, because what we usually do is that we wait to see all of the students that received admission to see who is going to ultimately say yes to UC Davis. And who's going to accept their admission offer? And then we look at that total number of students and then we look at what's available in the scholarship money that was not taken by students who didn't say yes.

And then our financial aid office will try to repackage some awards and give those out to students that they think can use them.

I'm going to tell you very honestly, that those scholarship amounts are usually on the smaller side. They might be up to a few $1000 US and they may pay for some of your expenses, like a new computer or a flight home. So when we talk about those scholarship awards, we really want you to understand that they are not going to be the kinds of amounts that are going to make a big impact on your decision, because they're not going to.

Deviate a ton of your tuition expenses. So really we don't want you to rely on those. You need to look at the overall price point of the universities that you are considering and see if you can. If your family can absorb those costs independent and separate from any possible scholarships, sometimes students will ask me. Well, can I get a part time job on campus and that will help with some of my expenses? And the answer is always going to be yes, there are so many different job opportunities on campus.

Even for international students.

Those are important. An really positive for your for your future career development development. But again, we don't want you to rely on that completely because.

We want your focus to be just on developing as a student and working on your future CVS. If the money issue is something that causes a lot of stress or pressure on the student, that's not going to be fun. We want your focus to always be on Excel ING as a student.

OK, let me go back here for a second. The last factor is professional.

So your goal when you apply to University actually wasn't just getting into University your goal hopefully is ultimately to get out of the University and start your future careers. So, uh, some good questions to ask any University that you're trying to interact with is Ken your can. Your school offer me the opportunity for internships at UC Davis? I can absolutely say yes. We have an internship and Career Center.

That's really awesome, and their job is to match our students with internship opportunities. We're pretty close to Silicon Valley and so who knows what's in Silicon Valley?

I'm going to look at the chat. Does anyone know what Silicon Valley is? What companies are in Silicon Valley, California?

I'm going to give you a second to types in the chat just to see if you're still paying attention to me.

No takers anybody?

Apple, that's right.

You've already been there door old OK yeah. Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Yeah, they're all in Silicon Valley things. And now I know that you're awake and paying attention.

And so those companies know UC Davis very well. They know our students well. They actually visit campus afew times a year. We've got huge recruitment. Fairs were over 500 companies will come to campus and talk to our students and snatch them up for internships and future job opportunities. And it's very common for our students to even secure jobs before they graduate.

So those are important questions to ask any school, because if it's hard for me to access an internship while I'm an undergrad, then when I graduate my resume, my CV is going to be pretty empty and that's not going to help me and we don't want you to struggle when you get out of college. We want you to find a job right away.

Are there research opportunities at the schools that you're looking for? So at UC Davis we have the office of undergraduate research.

And they will match students with research projects. the University of California does the research for the state of California. That's why if you watch the television news or CNN or whatever your news sources, you're going to hear the name. UC University of California a lot. And that's because of the research that we do. So our students have an easy time finding those kind of opportunities where they can either start a project alongside of faculty member.

Or they can even continue some research that they were doing at the secondary school level.

And you can even find a helpers and staff and fundings to promote that.

Let's see an what if I want to go to grad school? So what is the school that you're shopping for do to help me if I decide I want to further my studies and get a Masters or a pH D or go to medical school so at UC Davis we have six professional Graduate School programs and over 100 overall graduate programs an we just have an assumption that students will want to continue their studies and so we have a lot of supports.

And programs in place to help them with things like preparing for Graduate School entry exams. We have a pre Health Center that will get our students ready to apply for medical school and veterinary school.

And 80% of UC Davis students will get into their first or second choice graduate program.

OK, that's pretty much most of the presentation. I'm going to stop there and see what questions are on your mind.

You can go ahead and just type them in the chat. That's where my eyes are going to go right now.

Don't be shy.

Does anyone want to start with a few questions?

If you don't ask me questions, I'm going to ask you questions.

OK, so Oh yes, someone has a question.

Ken is asking something about when financial aid is going to be prepared for him. So again, if it's about scholarships that are awarded to students, those are typically offered to you and the information is given in your my admissions account. You'll see that under a tab called my awards, anything additional to that. Usually they, if they're going to repackage any smaller scholarships, they will inform you an reach out to you over the.

Summertime we wait until after May 1 May. One is the big day where people have to make make up their minds and decide what University they want to commit to, and after that, in this over the summer is one we look at whatever money might still be available.

And the question about how does picking a minor work, so, um, that's.

A really easy process, so a UC Davis. We've got a lot of majors. We have a lot of students who will double major. You can actually triple major if you want to, or other students will want to just choose a minor that will complement whatever major field of study that they've selected. An all you have to do to make that happen. It is talk to your advisor in your Department and say I want it. I want to do a minor in whatever topic and they will direct you to start taking classes.

That meeting minor requirements. It's just a list of classes that you will find from the general catalog under that that topic an it's just a smaller number of lesser number than completing a full major.

Other questions.

Sammy is asking will there be any changes about dates like starting the fall term due to the virus.

Uhm, OK, so let's back up for a minute and will talk about just what's happening in the world. Because this is global, this coronavirus thing has impacted the entire planet.

I think that universities worldwide and schools worldwide, even at the secondary level, everyone is kind of being forced to be as flexible as possible. Here at UC Davis we have been having meetings and meetings and meetings about how to make sure our students still feel connected with us, even though instruction has gone online for the next term and how to make sure they feel supported because it's really important to us that.

Nothing, uh, disadvantages are students because of these things that are right now beyond anybody's control. It's not anyone's fault that there's a virus being spread around the world right now, and so we don't want them to feel like they are going to be punished or disadvantage because of it. So we here at UC Davis have been very flexible with this coming term. For our students, we've been doing things like mailing out laboratory kits to our engineering students, so they still feel that they can complete their labs, even though.

Many of them are doing it from home now in terms of dates. Right now the dates for orientation are still as is, so students who are planning to come to UC Davis are going to come were expecting them to come attend orientation in late September.

That has not changed, but what I also want to tell you is that because the situation is really fluid and changes every day and we're constantly trying to adapt and shift because of it, you need to stay really close to your emails. Really close to the UC Davis website.

To see what updates and changes are being announced, we have a lot of different alerts on our website. If you haven't checked it, go check it about just coronavirus related actions and resources and tips that we've got for our students. So if there is a change you will be notified and everyone in the world is doing the best they can to manage this.

Now I have another question.

Let's see, I'm planning on majoring in political science and I was wondering if I would have a similar professional opportunity as the people who intend to major in areas like tech, since that seems to be more popular given location of the University. Awesome question. OK, you have so many opportunities in political science. That's actually what my major was back in undergrad. We are in a sweet geographic location for so many reasons, one.

It's California 2 because of our proximity to Silicon Valley, and three were also right next to the state capital of California, Sacramento, which is my hometown is the capital, and that's where the governor works. Our legislators are there, lobbyists are there so a lot of UC Davis students will do internships at the capital and study things like the legislative process. If you're interested in law or public policy, you can. You'll have internship opportunities there, so.

Whenever we offer a major on campus, we know that it's going to be relevant that there are going to be internship opportunities within it and it's.

The information that students are receiving is industry current an.

An robust like there's a lot that you will find in that.

No, it looks like I also answered you with some more information. Awesome, uh, let's see.

And what about athletic opportunities in the school varsity sports? So we are a Division One University. We've got over 20 sports that are in the Division One category in the United States. That means it's like the best that you can be. The top level of collegiate athletics in the country.

So you have a lot of opportunities to play sports competitively if you feel that you were at that level if you feel that you're that strong as an athlete in any one of the Division One sports you can reach out to our athletics Department their contact information is on our website an if there interested after you fill out a questionnaire they may be reaching out to you and then there's so many other opportunities that you can play sports.

Not at the Division One level so slightly less intense, but still competitive.

What sports are you interested in duruk?

And let's see.

Kay, what questions?

Oh, what are pull up? My brother was a water polo player at UC Davis. That's awesome.

National team yeah I would definitely suggest reaching out to the Athletics Department. That's very impressive.

Oh Neil wants to know about the minor topic again, can you do a minor outside the your Department? Yeah, in fact you can major in something that's in a completely different Department in college than what you've chosen. We have students that will do really diverse creative things with their field of study. You can really choose your own adventure and customize it as much as you want. You can major in engineering and minor in music, or you can major do a double major in managerial economics, which is kind of like our business.

Major and another major in Japanese, so it's the world is your oyster in that regard.

There is asking what percentage of international students receive student loans. So when we're talking about international students, we are talking about scholarships. So if we have scholarship money to award, some will receive that. I'm going to be very honest with you, the University of California is not. It's a public University system. That means we are funded by the government. There are not usually a ton of scholarships for international students.

You see, Davis still has an amount. Not all the UC campuses offer scholarships, but we do.

And like I said, if you were not awarded something with your admission offer, you can still apply for scholarships after you start. Here at UC Davis.

Other questions.

Does UC Davis have a makerspace for engineering? Behrendt. Thanks for the question. I'll be honest with you again. So we have a 104 different majors and I work for admissions so I'm never going to be able to give you the kind of detailed information on very unspecific majors. As somebody like a major advisor, 'cause they're the experts for that. And so I'm going to suggest that you do this. Here's some homework.

Go on to the UC Davis website.

And click on engineering the College of engineering and just do a search for that. What you're asking about Makerspace. There's actually contact info for major advisors within the College of engineering I'm going to. I'm going to name drop somebody right now, my friend in the College of engineering. Her name is Jordan and she is the international advisor and she loves to help international students with all these specific concerns so.

Find her information on the engineering website and send her an email say Hi. Dahlia said that I could ask you this. I'm from Turkey. Tell me about your engineering program. You can also go to a website, another page from the UC Davis website called majors blague the majors blog BL OG and you'll see all the different majors that we have an. What are the potential careers that they will lead you to annual even see stories about some of our alumni.

From those majors, to see what they're doing with their lives now, an what their careers look like, and how successful they are.

Other questions.

Can I ask you all a question since it looks like the majority of of you are here joining us from Turkey. How are things?

How are things in terms of just schools closing an just people trying to be safe and spending more time at home? What's that been looking like here in the United States? A lot of us are now, um, staying home to try to make sure we are doing the responsible thing. An help help this virus slow down and not spread and affect people as much.

Asamia says while we're studying, oh, here's another question.

If we realize our major is not what we want to pursue, is there any chance that we can change it? There is every chance that you can change it. So great question. In fact, the majority of students at UC Davis will change their major at least one time I know that I changed my major. I started out as a business major and I changed to political science. So that's a really common thing. We make it very easy for you to do that. It's basically a form that you fill out in a conversation that you have with your major advisor.

Um, the only time it's it's not as simple. A process is what I'm describing is if you wanted to change from from any major into engineering. So the College of engineering has a specific list of classes that laid like to have students take an be successful in first before they will approve that you change your major from something like philosophy or.

Um biology into engineering, but for the most part across the board it's very easy to change your major.

Other questions.

OK, Alright, I think that's my time. Um I'm we have started a WhatsApp.

A WhatsApp account just for students coming. Oh, here's another question. OK, I'll wait.

Can I use my IB grade as credits? So yes for sure if you complete your IB diploma.

Um, it'll can. You just tell me I'm just curious what school you?

You go to in Turkey you we will give you up to 30 credits for completing the IB diploma and whatever your higher level courses are in. We give you 8 college credits for all of your higher level courses that you've passed with a score of five, 6 or 7.

And if you're interested in seeing how your IB courses translate into courses here on our campus at UC Davis.

Our anchor I've been there. Um, you can go to the UC Davis website and search for International Baccalaureate Recognition chart. I be recognition chart and you will see all the courses that we give.

That we articulate on our campus. That means that they match up to classes on our campus, and you can actually skip over those classes.

Alright guys, I think that's my time. I'm just going to do another shout out for all of the webinars that we have coming up. I'd love to see you on some of those. I'm going to be doing some more myself and you can hop into any one of those. Or if you can't and you don't have time, we're going to be recording these as well, so hopefully you'll be able to access the information that way. There's also a virtual tour.

If you haven't ever had the opportunity to come to California and visit UC Davis, I really recommend checking out the virtual tour online because it will show you how beautiful the campus is an it's kind of stunning. So I definitely encourage that. and I started a WhatsApp Group. If you're on WhatsApp, I would love to see you in our WhatsApp Group. It's all for Turkish. Students were going to be chatting about anything and everything. It's another opportunity for you to interact with students who were admitted to UC Davis. Whether or not you decide to come.

I would love to see you come, but that's there's no pressure in that regard and you can still ask me any questions that come to mind later.

Thanks so much for joining us here today. You guys. I'm gonna end this web and R and I hope to see you and connect with you again soon. Stay safe and healthy everybody.