UCI Begins Fall Rites 25th Time : Education: Freshman contingent is the largest in years, and it is already viewed as a ‘power class.’ Hunt for courses proceeds amid normal chaos.
Henry Pham had a problem. So did Sun-Sun Tvedten. Both were staring at the “courses available” board outside UC Irvine’s registrar’s office, brows knitted in consternation as they tried to find the extra classes they needed.
Pham, a 19-year-old computer science major from Cerritos, got only eight of the 20 units he originally signed up to take this fall. His first choice among the 12 units he hoped to add Wednesday already was full, so now it was back to the course board to draft another list.
Tvedten, 18, a freshman from Anchorage, Alaska, had just learned that she didn’t pass the basic writing test and would have to drop eight units of humanities courses. Now the challenge was to find a compatible English composition course, plus another class that would give her the minimum 12 units she must carry to stay in her dorm.
“I hope I can find something,” fretted the biology major whose parents are of Norwegian and Chinese ancestry.
Welcome to Welcome Week at UCI--that drum-roll before school starts where students fight for parking spaces to get last-minute classes, stock up on hundreds of dollars of required texts, find mentors and just get acquainted.
UCI will kick off its 25th anniversary year with an estimated 16,500 students returning to classes Monday. University officials say the freshman class of about 2,850 is the largest in recent years.
Circling Aldrich Park in the center of the campus Wednesday were dozens of banners and booths for everything from the Muslim Student Assn. to the medieval jousters of the Society for Creative Anachronism. To up the ante at the voter registration table, the prize for signing on the dotted line was flinging a whipped cream pie at such student body leaders as President Todd Schubert.
“It’s a good opportunity to . . . get off my throne,” the 21-year-old social ecology major joked as frothy white cream oozed over the ridge of his eyebrows.
Amid all the meeting and greeting, even the rock band Edge felt ignored.
“Is anybody out there a Jim Morrison fan?” bassist Gordon McGrath inquired through his microphone of the hundreds of students gathered on the green. No answer.
“Does anyone even know who Jim Morrison is?” he asked about the late singer from the legendary rock band, the Doors.
Nary a head turned.
“You guys gotta switch to caffeinated coffee or something,” he grumbled.
Terri Hartman, who aimed her Redi-Whip confection at another student leader, said she and her 18-year-old twin, Sandi, decided to attend UCI so they could live at home in Irvine.
“I could have gone to UCLA, but UCI is closer to home and I felt like I wouldn’t be just a number,” said Terri Hartman, a freshman political science major.
Wednesday’s festival atmosphere was a welcome break from the tedium of standing in one line after another all week for many students.
Sandi Hartman, who is majoring in UCI’s nationally respected biological sciences program, said she stood in line for more than an hour Monday just waiting to get her new photo identification card.
“You end up standing in line for everything,” said Sandi, who, like her sister, graduated from Irvine High School in June. “But actually, we’ve met a lot of people that way.”
Meeting people and participating in clubs and campus activities were among the main goals of a special program Wednesday for commuter students. It was just the thing for freshmen Sylvia Fong and Nicole Nyssen.
“I’m humanities undeclared too! Oh good, now I know somebody!” bubbled a relieved Fong as she and Nyssen left the commuter confab with a handful of newly acquainted freshmen.
In minutes, the 18-year-olds discovered that they had friends in common in Nyssen’s new hometown of Huntington Beach. And they both are thinking about becoming teachers, Fong said, as she continued to explore common ground with her new-found friend.
“Are you interested in choir?” Fong asked Nyssen, adding that she would be trying out for the campus vocalists this week.
Both Nyssen, a 4.3 grade-point-average graduate of a private San Bernardino Christian high school, and Fong, a graduate of Mater Dei Catholic high school in Santa Ana, say they will “ease into” their first quarter with a basic 12-unit load when classes begin Monday.
“There’s no point in getting in over your head,” Fong explained. “The pressure is going to come soon enough.”
Added Nyssen, who hopes to apply for the campus’s Student Abroad program: “There are tons of opportunities here! I like it already.”
The eagerness of this year’s unusually large freshman class already has made an impression on older classmates.
“From what I’ve seen, they’re going to be a power class,” said Ramon Dimaculangan, 20, a junior majoring in biology from Costa Mesa. “It’s the way they are--you can tell. There’s a certain air about them that says ‘success.’ ”
He should know. His 18-year-old brother, Ramonito, an entering freshman in UCI’s engineering program, had already bested him in a summer school physics course.
“That’s when I realized I’ve got to get on my horse and start doing excellent all the time!” said Dimaculangan as he scooped up humor magazines along with his biology texts at the student book store Wednesday.
