How do first-year students’ expectations of college measure up against experience?

By AMBER WARNKE — features@theaggie.org

Freshmen at UC Davis are currently finishing up their first months of college, and adjusting to a new life away from home. With this comes excitement and anxiety as students face their first midterms, experience holidays in Davis and continue to branch out and join clubs. 

When Gabriel Mojica-Palafox, a first-generation student and first-year animal science major, came to Davis, he was worried he “wouldn’t have friends or find a safe place.” This fear of not finding community is common among first-year students, with many still searching for their group on campus. One thing that helped him was living in the CASA Learning Living Community, which “surrounded [him] with lots of groups of people with similar interests.”

Julianne Nguyen, a third-year environmental chemistry major, had similar concerns going into college. “I was really worried about making friends because going into high school you kind of already knew the people, but going into college I didn’t have any friends that were going to UC Davis with me, so it was really hard to find a community at first.” 

Similar to Mojica-Palafox, finding others with common interests was what ended up helping Nguyen find a sense of belonging. 

“Joining the band really makes finding a community and a friend group much easier… I didn’t join at the start of the year, I joined this time around October, so it was still a struggle … but I feel like the people were really welcoming,” Nguyen said.

For Talia Conn, a first-year sustainable environmental design major, the main difficulty she faced in her adjustment to college life was the workload. 

“I expected less work than I had in high school because I took a lot of APs, I took a lot of college classes, but this quarter… I have way more school work than I’ve ever had in my life,” Conn said. 

Conn said she could have been better prepared for college academics if she had “learned how to check Canvas, because sometimes I wouldn’t see the assignments I had and I would get behind on reading just because I didn’t see it. You’re expected to figure all of that out on your own and I didn’t know how to.”

Mojica-Palafox said that the studying habits required by college courses were difficult to initially develop. 

“In high school, I never needed to study, so studying was a new habit I had to build here. I just recently had my first midterms ever. They didn’t go the way I had wanted them to go but I’m just looking at it from a learning perspective so I can know what I need to work on, how I need to study going forward.”

Nguyen remembers her time adjusting to classes as a first-year and recommends self discipline in forming study habits to other first-year students.

 “Don’t skip classes because it all builds up. It’s important to not cram. You want to make sure you study the material a little bit each day, or every other day. Add your study habits slowly; you shouldn’t expect to reinvent yourself as a student immediately.”

Miles Bardin, a third-year applied mathematics major, has advice for first-years that they wish someone had told them.

 “Go to office hours and utilize the resources that you have. Especially with the lower-division chemistry and physics classes, the weed-out classes that are designed to be hard. If you don’t get help with that by going to office hours, talking to other students, looking at the [class] discord, it’s going to be a lot tougher than it otherwise could be.” 

UC Davis offers free drop-in advising services to all students in biology, chemistry, economics, math, physics, statistics and writing.

Bardin recounted when they first came to UC Davis; “I think I still had to make mistakes and find out how to get in the groove of being an academic weapon and also balancing the rest of my life.” They encourage first-years to avoid academic burnout as they find a balance. “Try not to get all consumed by school… Have fun, that’s half of what college is about.” 

Bardin also noted a difference in the expectations of one’s personal accountability in high school versus college. 

“There is more freedom in college; there’s more freedom to fall off, get out of the loop in terms of doing well academically, or even just doing well in general,” Bardin said. According to them, this is especially true for students experiencing living away from home for the first time. 

“It’s also the freedom to try new things without too great a fear of messing up irreparably,” Bardin said. “In terms of freedom, oftentimes you’ll have lots of flexibility with deadlines. You’ll have to keep yourself adhering to those deadlines so make sure you know how to prioritize what you’re doing, and actually stick to that.”

While first-years are entering the middle of their first quarter at UC Davis, they can continue to build strong habits that can help them throughout their college career. Finding an academic routine that works for them can help students from feeling overwhelmed as they continue to adjust to living in a new environment. 

Similar to academics, socializing is something that many students find takes more initiative and preparation than in high school. On such a large campus, it can be hard to find a sense of belonging, especially when classes change every ten weeks. But clubs and organizations can help with this. Finding a community on campus to plug into can make all the difference to a student’s college experience, with more than 800 groups to choose between. 

Lastly, students can find success in college by finding balance in their lives, prioritizing both academics, extracurriculars and self-care without overloading themselves, which can lead to burn out. Over time, as first-year students continue to adjust to college life in Davis, they can build a happy studious life filled with new opportunities.

Written By: Amber Warnke — features@theaggie.org

A tight-knit major and its department teach the science behind winemaking and cultivating grapevines 

By LYNN CHEN — features@theaggie.org

Economics, computer science, philosophy, statistics… and viticulture and enology? These are all different majors at UC Davis for undergraduates –– but, what exactly does viticulture and enology offer?

The Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis is well-respected and praised. According to the department’s chair, David Block, Ph.D., members of the department have driven innovation in grape growing and winemaking in California and beyond for over 135 years. After all, campus is only 45 minutes away from Napa Valley, one of the world’s elite regions for wine-growing. In fact, UC Davis has strong connections with wine researchers and producers there as well.

Viticulture is the study of grape cultivation, while enology is the study of wine and the winemaking process. Students taking viticulture and enology (VEN) courses learn about the physiology and growth of grapevines, the world history behind grape growing, the chemistry, microbiology and sensory science of wines, as well as the technologies and chemical processes involved in winemaking.

To some, it may be surprising just how much of a “hard science” the major is, according to Patricia Howe, Ph.D., and lecturer for the Department of Viticulture and Enology.

For instance, the prerequisites for the VEN major include STEM classes that a pre-med student would take as well.

“You take physics, chemistry, biology and statistics,” Howe said. “If you are a scientist, this is a good field.”

VEN majors also participate in hands-on classes regarding wine production, sensory evaluation and wine stability.

“Our department also has a lot of hands-on experience through our laboratory classes,” Ron Runnebaum, Ph.D., an associate professor for the department, said.

Additionally, many students in VEN can also further practical applications of their knowledge through internship and research opportunities. Students may intern at a winery or vineyard over the summer, or travel abroad to famous wine-making regions in countries like France or Italy.

Furthermore, the field of viticulture and enology is an especially interdisciplinary subject.

“This field allows you to make connections across different specialties,” Howe said. “Lots of times, if you’re a biologist, all you do is biology; if you’re a chemist, all you do is chemistry. But, as a winemaker […] you need to be able to draw on all of your education, and sometimes even more. [For example], there’s a surprising number of philosophy majors that are winemakers.”

Equipped with high reasoning and logical thinking skills, philosophy majors can easily draw upon the sciences as viticulturists or winemakers.

“It’s an integration of all of the types of learning that you have and applying it to real world problems,” Howe said.

VEN also goes beyond its subject by employing skills one wouldn’t necessarily associate with STEM majors. For example, learning to use proper descriptive language is just as important as in hard sciences.

“In our class on the sensory evaluation of wine […] a large aspect of that is learning how to describe wines,” Runnebaum said. “Part of the labs [of that class] involve having sensory standards and being able to recognize them and describe them. Not everyone grows up with the vocabulary for wine, so [developing communication skills] is important.”

He stressed the importance of future winemakers being proficient in describing how wine products affect our senses, like taste or smell, in order to improve the quality.

Howe also agreed with Runnebaum’s point stating, “I mean, how many newspapers have a column on engineering, right? A lot of newspapers have a wine column or a restaurant review column, so I think that shows from a day-to-day living and cultural standpoint how talking about food and wine is important.”

The skill of effective communication has always been a useful tool to viticulture and winemaking, according to Runnebaum. Historically, wine grape growers needed to visually examine the plants and articulate their physical features, such as the leaf structure or characteristics of the clusters of berries.

“Now we have tools where one can look and compare the genetic makeup of a grapevine,” Runnebaum said.

In addition, VEN majors have to be able to collaborate well with others.

“A lot of [courses] are not just you working by yourself in a laboratory class, but also [you] working as part of a team. […] You’re developing skills that will be helpful once you go into the [wine] industry,” Runnebaum said.

At UC Davis, VEN students have the opportunity to interact with a diverse group of peers.

“I would say that one of the things that makes UC Davis so special is that there’s diversity, not just from a cultural standpoint, but from a professional standpoint as well,” Howe said.

Because viticulture and enology offers a wide array of job possibilities in the field, making friendships and networking in Davis could lead to connections in the larger winemaking industry and beyond. 

“I have classmates that are college professors now, I have classmates that are winemakers now and I have classmates that left the wine business. There’s a lot of connections from the people I met when I was a student,” Howe said.

Katarina Kent, a second-year viticulture and enology major, shares the same sentiment to Runnebaum and Howe.

“Communication is really big, because anybody you meet you’ll probably end up working with in some way or another in the future,” Kent said.

Viticulture and enology branches to diverse career paths as the industry itself is intricate and complex in its own way.

“You can go into grape growing or winemaking, and the companies that hire a graduate can be everything from a mom-and-pop, two-person tiny winery to a huge international conglomerate,” Howe said. 

Howe furthered that there are even possibilities of specializing which ranges from doing microbiology at an established company, breeding grapes or being an engineer that supports the winemaking equipment and facilities.

Job applicants can also go into the more commercial and business oriented aspects of the industry, such as marketing or human resources.

“I use the analogy of baseball a lot,” Howe said. “You can be a baseball player, but you can also be a coach, a groundskeeper, a bus driver or a physical therapist.”

All in all, VEN majors have the freedom to select future employment opportunities tailored to their interests.

Despite being quite a flexible option, VEN is still one of the more niche majors on campus. However, some perceive this as a benefit.

“It’s a really small major,” Kent said.  “[But] that was kind of something I was looking for.”

Possibly because of its smaller size, the major has a close community.

“The major itself and the community around it [are] quite tight knit,” Kent said. “I’m really looking forward to making connections [with others in the major].”

Wine is a drink of pleasure and studying viticulture and enology is a source of joy for many too. This is true for Kent.

“Hopefully, I can work in a winery one day, be able to make wine and give people the chance to appreciate good wines.”

Written by: Lynn Chen — features@theaggie.org