From academic tutoring to free food, here are some of the best campus resources available to you as a UC Davis student
You’ve all heard the college question trifecta: Name? Major? Hometown? It’s all a cliche, but introductions are important, and sometimes you have to start with the basics.
Last week, we introduced ourselves, the nine members of The California Aggie’s Editorial Board. Today, we continue our introductions with an overview of the campus resources available to students at UC Davis. In our biweekly editorials throughout the year, we’ll often be writing about hard topics, including incidents or trends that may be causing us and other students to feel anxiety, fear, sadness and so on.
With the tools at our disposal, we’re able to offer nuanced perspectives on current issues, creative ideas and symbolic support. But we aren’t the ones offering services and organizing the programs that are actively working to support community members and create change in the areas that need it. What we can do is direct you toward those resources, and in our editorials, we often will do just that. Beyond that, these resources are often funded in part by your student fees — so why not make the most of the tuition you pay and take advantage of the programs and services they pay for?
So without further ado, here are some of our favorite campus resources and why you should use them.
Student Health and Counseling Services
The constant stream of world news right now, and always, can be hard to process. Beyond that, starting a new school year comes with new stressors and complications, not to mention the time-bending whirlwind of the quarter system that somehow means… midterms start next week? For these reasons and so many more, mental health in college can be a rollercoaster — as can physical health, when the frat flu starts spreading.
We always encourage students to ask for help when they need it, and the counseling and health services provided by the university are one way to do so. Health and counseling services are available to students regardless of their insurance coverage, with students paying a small fee for most services. Individual counseling sessions are available to all UC Davis students at no charge on a short-term basis. They also offer a variety of support groups and academic counseling options.
The system isn’t perfect; the small staff of counselors means that there are often delays with scheduling appointments, and while it is a good short-term or one-time solution, it’s not as helpful for those who need more long-term therapy. But it is one option that is low-cost, and if nothing else, the people there may be able to direct you to other local resources that are right for you.
Please take care of yourself this quarter and don’t be afraid to reach out to the qualified professionals who want to help you.
Safe Rides
Safe Rides is a free service that offers rides in clearly marked security vehicles to any students who feel unsafe walking alone or in a small group at night. Certain parts of Davis are lacking in street lighting, and it can be scary to walk alone. The drivers will take you from any on-campus location to another on-campus location seven days a week from 5 p.m. on throughout the night, and from any on-campus location to any location in the city of Davis every day from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m.
AggieEats and The Pantry
If you’re ever out of grocery money, forgot to pack a lunch, can’t afford to eat out and decide you’ll just skip a meal or two — think again.
The ASUCD Pantry is a student-run organization based in the Memorial Union that provides food, including fresh produce and pantry staples, as well as toiletries and other basic necessities, to students and faculty at no cost. All you need is your student ID, and you can stop by to pick up a certain allotted amount of items daily.
Another newer addition to the list of food resources for students is the AggieEats food truck, a pay-as-you-can food truck that is on-campus five days a week serving a rotating menu of meals.
UC Davis has some amazing resources to combat food insecurity among our campus community. Don’t be put off by worrying if you’re “the right audience” for it; the more frequently these services are used, the more easily they can prove the need for their services to funders or partners. So by taking advantage of The Pantry or AggieEats, you are helping those services continue to be available for other food-insecure students on campus.
Student Community Center
Feeling out-of-place? Need a scantron? Want to take a nap? The Student Community Center (SCC) is meant to address all of these needs, and more.
There are too many groups within the SCC to go into detail about what all of them do here, but from the LGBTQIA+ Resource Center to the Cross Cultural Center, all of them are intended to create a welcome space for a diverse community. They also all offer free scantrons to students.
The SCC is also home to the South CoHo, and nearby, a large central area with comfortable seating, tables and outlets for anyone looking to take a snack break, do some studying or both.
Academic tutoring
It may only be Week 2 of the quarter, but if you’re already struggling with your classes, you’re not alone. And if struggling in your classes is something that’s new to you, that’s common too — many of us may have had the experience of being the gifted child; the one who the teacher asked to help grade the spelling tests, and who would never dream of being the one who needed tutoring.
And then we got to college, and realized we actually know very little and would very much like someone to explain math to us — and that’s okay! College is hard, and you shouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of on-campus resources like tutoring to help you reach your academic goals. Tutoring happens in the basement of Shields Library and in the Teaching and Learning Complex, and all Academic Assistance and Tutoring Center (AATC) services are available to registered students free of charge. Many subjects have different style options including one-on-one tutoring by appointment, drop-in tutoring and asynchronous resources.
Internship and Career Center
It’s fall, which means it’s almost time to begin the annual cycle of applying to dozens of internships, and hearing back from approximately one. If you want to break that cycle, the Internship and Career Center (ICC) is here to help.
The ICC offers appointments with career advisors to explore career options, practice interviews, help with job and internship searches and review cover letters and resumes. They also host free workshops on topics like interview basics and networking, and offer a virtual service called Resume Review+ where students can digitally submit their resume and receive detailed written feedback.
When challenging discussions about both local and broader issues happen on our campus, we as a newspaper have a certain role to play in showcasing diverse perspectives and offering, to the best of our ability, unbiased and informative coverage of events. That said, we recognize that we will often highlight issues on campus or problems facing students at college campuses without having a concrete solution to offer of our own.
But there are people working toward concrete solutions, and that’s what these campus resources are for. Beyond the ones we listed, there’s the free on-campus thrift store Aggie Reuse, the International Student Center, the Activities and Recreation Center and so much more.
You’re paying for these services, and they’re intended to help you. So use them!
Written by: The Editorial Board
