UCLA Question: Time Off/Breaks/Externships, Current students please HELP!!!

[michever]

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Hi everyone. Been a reader for a while and SDN has been super helpful to me during my application process. First time poster though. I have been accepted to UCLA and have done some searching around the forums, but haven't seen anything too recently on this topic:

I know UCLA is on the quarter system, with 2/3 week breaks a few times a year and was wondering - if you want to specialize, how much pressure, even informally, is there to do "resume-building"/extracurricular type stuff (whether that be research, externships at other schools, abroad trips, or anything else)? I guess I'm curious how much of these ~10 weeks of break per year current students would guess they spend just vegging out (visiting family, friends, traveling) vs. doing something more "productive" for lack of a better word. I realize this will vary greatly depending on people's preferences, ambitions, goals, etc but am trying to get a basic sense, particularly in the cases of students planning to specialize. THANKS SO MUCH for any info and insight!

 

[michever]

anyone? any ucla students that can please comment?

 

[Black Teeth]

Hi everyone. Been a reader for a while and SDN has been super helpful to me during my application process. First time poster though. I have been accepted to UCLA and have done some searching around the forums, but haven't seen anything too recently on this topic:

I know UCLA is on the quarter system, with 2/3 week breaks a few times a year and was wondering - if you want to specialize, how much pressure, even informally, is there to do "resume-building"/extracurricular type stuff (whether that be research, externships at other schools, abroad trips, or anything else)? I guess I'm curious how much of these ~10 weeks of break per year current students would guess they spend just vegging out (visiting family, friends, traveling) vs. doing something more "productive" for lack of a better word. I realize this will vary greatly depending on people's preferences, ambitions, goals, etc but am trying to get a basic sense, particularly in the cases of students planning to specialize. THANKS SO MUCH for any info and insight!

Well, the majority of students at UCLA come there with the intention to specialize. There is no pressure from UCLA or its faculty to do extracurricular stuff at all. The pressure comes from within yourself. When you see all your classmates participating in every extracurricular activity being offerred, it has a tendency to make you want to do the same because you don't want to be the odd person in the class who is not specializing and therefore, not participating in extracurricular activities. All of a sudden, that's how you "catch" ortho fever or for fever for any other specialty that you might be interested in. Pretty soon, the idea of specializing starts to grow on you and you become consumed by it. That's the story I still keep hearing from UCLA students and sadly, that was my story too when I went to UCLA. That's how I ended up going into pediatric dentistry as a specialty. I wanted to go into ortho at first, but once I took the ortho laboratory courses, I thought ortho was pretty boring. It just wasn't my cup of tea I guess. But most UCLA students do their extracurriculars during the quarter and leave their vacation breaks to get away from school. Very rarely do I see students at UCLA do extracurricular activities during vacation breaks. Everyone needs to recharge their batteries and UCLA students are no different. We all partied during the breaks...at least that's what I did when I was at UCLA and so it seems to still be the case today. So don't worry about pressure do specialize or do any extracurriculars at UCLA because there isn't any...not even informally. The pressure to specialize comes from within you after you see all your other classmates doing it. Hope that answers your question.