Week Zero
Some vignettes from my first week as a new transer student studying Speculative Design at UC San Diego
SUNDAY
I was convinced that school started on a Monday, but actually the first day of classes wasn’t until Thursday. It was an odd stutter of days where I was ready to jump into a new routine, and excited to get into the habit of it, but would have to wait.
Luckily, there was an Orientation Day. I signed up for a slot on the Sunday before week zero, where I learned the truth of the matter of the Thursday start date. I was prepared to begin the week strong and find my way around campus, but no. Still more days to wait. I had already shifted my work schedule down to half-time hours to accommodate my new academic pursuits, so I figured I could make use of the extra time before classes started to do some more reading, and acclimate myself to a different contribution schedule at work.
The orientation provided a few enjoyable moments of interactivity, such as a trivia game in a conference hall. I am a middle-aged returning transfer student, doing an undergraduate program in an obscure major, surrounded by engineering and comp-sci students half my age. The category is “CURRENT SLANG.” I voted for this category because the cringeyness of being older than everyone else and trying to be in on the current slang is a terrible irony that I feel must be embraced. Questions spin by. More so about memes than slang it seems. “This meme is represented by guys who drink matcha and read books in public.” I raise my hand and when the microphone runner gets to my table I correctly answer “Performative Male!”
They don’t know that not only am I witnessing the same memes that everyone else is, but I’m also making derivative memes about them, commenting on and perpetuating the phenomenon of them—which is either a huge indictment of the current state of culture, or is exactly the correct amount of hipness that a student-group organized orientation mixer game could be expected to exhibit.
A campus tour solemnly stopped in front of a Chichanx pride mural and told the story of a shameful event in campus history: the Compton Cookout. A fraternity organized event in which a bunch of mean spirited white kids dressed up in their idea of stereotypical ghetto costumes, creating a racial incident that gained national attention, and would lead to a campus-wide requirement for students to take at least one DEI class before graduating. And we still honor this tradition today. The nice student Orientation Leader told this story like we were standing at the site of a Civil War battleground memorial.
I used a tour stop at the campus bookstore to pick up a course packet I had on order for my writing class—framed as an exploration of how writing is changing in the age of machines and Large Language Models, a subject of particular interest to me so I’d specifically chosen to be in this section. At lunch I leafed through the first article in the reader, a 2014 piece from a half-optimistic take on how students and workers of the future still had an edge on AI when it came to creativity.
I probed the other members of my orientation group about their feelings toward AI. “What’s the difference between if you check out a bunch of books and research a subject, get some ideas and write a paper about it, compared to if you chat with an AI about a subject, get some ideas about it, and write a paper about it?”
Some pushback from a few of the other students. “The difference is they want you to have your own ideas about things and not just what the AI tells you.” A fair, if surface read on the subject.
“But what if you go ahead and research all the things the AI told you about, to verify they’re accurate, and wrote the final product in your own voice—who would know?” I asked.
“You would know,” was the reply.
Another student expressed a more cynical and perhaps, pragmatic attitude: “It’s funny that on the job they’re going to let you use AI but in class you can’t.” I agreed, “Yeah, they might even expect you to get more done with AI, like if you don’t use it you’ll be falling behind.”
Returning from the campus tour to the Student Union conference room with dozens of tables where the Orientation took place, we rounded out the day with some additional interactive team building exercises. We snaked around the perimeter in two rings facing each other, speed-friend-making, answering questions projected on the screen at the front of the room.
“What comes to mind when you think about your identity?” asked one question. To the partner adjacent to me I described myself as a Native American, and a someone into futurism. He described himself as Pakistani, and a Gamer.
“What does Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion mean to you?” we were asked. The Pakistani gamer looked at me blankly, as if unsure what the bureaucratic exercise was good for. He brought up the Compton Cookout incident, and we bonded over having both heard about it during our respective campus tours. I tried to express a good faith read on what the institution was doing here: “Well, you have the push for equity because of a history of inequity right? So maybe someday you won’t have to go through all these motions about saying how diverse you are because it’ll just be more diverse. But I guess we’re not there yet.”
We shuffled around our inner and outer rings in opposite directions again and answered a few more questions.
“How do you express yourself?” they asked. I told a young woman across from me that I find self-expression in making memes for the group chats I’m in, and feared after speaking that this would carry the antisocial valence of a too online loner associated with nihilistic violent extremism (They don’t know I just mean silly little jokes! Nothing sinister). She talked about how she likes to express herself by showing care for her friends through actions, actions speak louder than words. Making sure people have what they need, organizing activities. I said, “so you’re the one who is holding the whole group together, huh?” She seemed a little self-conscious about this, saying that she didn’t mean to be, but that’s just how it turns out. “No, everybody needs some friends in their group like that,” I tried to reassure.
They also asked us to talk about what community means to us—she talked about sharing interests with the people around you, I said friends are the family you get to choose. I talked about how the internet lets isolated people from small towns find commonality outside of where they come from, and how I spend half of my life in group chats, since that’s how I mostly relate to sociality these days. Again I felt kind of like an insane online weirdo, probably on brand for me. Mercifully they let us all sit down afterwards.
A final round of group activities at our table had us playing a sort of “Scattergories” type game, over the heavy subject matter of consent culture, online safety, and healthy relationships. Our table split into smaller units and filled out cards with acronyms representing various psychological care initiatives for students, answering questions by naming examples of healthy and unhealthy behaviors, like stalking and overly controlling partnerships, enthusiastic consent, how to intervene to help a stranger being harassed, that sort of thing. Perfectly positive reminders for a population about to be enmeshed in a culture of partying and dormitory living. The incongruity of the lighthearted game format that this discussion entailed seemed somewhat strange, but maybe the low stakes ice-breaker format makes the sombre topics easier to bring up.
I approached Orientation Day with the sort of open-mindedness and participation that the organizers asked us for, and was grateful to hear speaker after speaker drill into us the notion that there are many organizations set up to benefit us as new and transfer students, there to aid you if you are struggling, mentally or academically. I even learned about a “take your professor out for coffee” program, which I will definitely take advantage of. The pervading theme I walked away with was that there were many resources available to those who sought to give more than the bare minimum effort to succeed in their college experience, a message which benefits from being repeated, over and over again. But I was most surprised to learn, as I’ve mentioned, that classes weren’t starting the next morning on Monday, but on Thursday!
MONDAY
Still, I’d already signed up to pick up my Student ID that Monday, originally thinking it’d be my first day of classes. So I was preparing to make my way back to the campus regardless. And yet knowing all I did now, I still managed to mistake the time I was scheduled to arrive, was running late, and thus had to skip my plan to take the light rail, and instead drive to campus once more, contending with the always too-sparse parking available for undergraduate students, who aren’t even allowed the opportunity to purchase monthly parking passes and have to buy them in daily increments.
And so yet again I drove and rushed to school, and made my way to the Payments office, where the Student ID distribution event was being held. I saw a long line of students gathering to be let into the payments office, and fearing not getting a good place for what looked like it could be along wait, I dutifully joined the queue, though I was unsure if it was the right one. I was also stubbornly opposed to asking the person in front of me or behind me what they were in line for. If someone had asked me what I was in line for, I could have just as easily answered, “I’m not sure, I just get in long lines whenever I see one forming just in case it’s for something good.”
But the pace of the line made me anxious—it seemed unusually slow for just picking up IDs. Sure enough, around the corner there was another, much smaller line in front of some outdoor tables, set up with people who were ready to process us by name, and after foolishly waiting around for too long, I corrected my mistake. I took my first step toward accessing every student discount I was entitled to, and after telling them who I was, they handed me my shiny new identification card. Now I would not have to come to campus again until classes officially began.
THURSDAY
After learning out how truly limited the parking options were for the budget-conscious undergraduate commuter, I resolved to attend my first class via taking the public transportation that my tuition already granted me free access to. This seemed like the best option. I downloaded the PRONTO app to navigate San Diego, and found the proper enrollment program to add to my virtual bus card. All seemed ready to go.
I plotted the route—by any combination of walking and riding buses and trains, it would take me about an hour to travel there, so I set out to give myself enough time to arrive to my first class early. I wasn’t exactly sure which route I would take, but as I walked outside my apartment to head toward the bus stop, some persistent construction lead me to consider trying to take an indirect shortcut. There was on the map a walking trail path, about 25 minutes to the nearest trolly station. It seemed like a pleasant option, I had time to spare and was curious what the route was like, and the weather was not inclement. So I walked down the street, following the GPS lines on this untested path for the first time.
A somewhat steep wooden stairway set into the hill dirt led its way down into a small canyon. I was committed now. It was essentially dry, I didn’t fear getting too muddy. I simply listened to podcasts and made my way. After some minutes a couple passing me warned that the path ahead was blocked—”Well, you could try to go around it,” they suggested. I thanked them for their help and continued so I could see for myself. I came to some construction tape held up over “sidewalk closed” signs, it was easy enough to step on some retaining wall stones on the side of the path to continue. Not wanting to lose the sunk cost of the time I’d already invested, I pressed on.
But just a little ways further I could see a more substantial obstacle. A work crew digging in an open trench. I suppose I could have violated common norms of decency and trudged on around them, but the social pressure of their watchful gaze dissuaded me.
Instead, I decided I had to double back. Already I was starting to panic on this first day of class. There were precious few stairways out of this somewhat steep inclined canyon, which felt more like a ravine at some parts. I calculated that returning all the way to my starting point would cost me too much time, and scanned the surroundings for options. Underneath an overpass, the terrain seemed manageable. I saw at the street level there was a small waist-high fence, it wouldn’t be too difficult to climb up from below and throw myself over. So I crab-walked up the steep dirt incline, steadying myself on a water pipe that ran the length down. When I got to the top, I hung my backpack and overshirt on the wrought iron of the ornate fencing, got a foot hold and pulled the rest of me up and over, and recomposed myself.
I re-mapped the journey to the trolley, and was pleased to notice there was still a favorable amount of time left to make my destination.
Even up streetside, the terrain was hilly and strenuous to walk on. The pedestrian route to the final leg to the station was along a rather unfriendly frontage lane straddled by train tracks and mostly walled-in parking lots. This was not a path I would want to regularly take. In my bid to avoid one extra bus transfer to meet the train more directly, I had discovered a suboptimal route. But at least I had arrived at the station before last train that would get me to school on time.
I fumbled with the transit app, looking for a validator machine to scan my passcode before boarding. All I saw were kiosks for physical card holders. I rummaged through the menus of the app for clues, but couldn’t figure out exactly how to secure my boarding. A train arrived, and not wanting to miss it, I panicked and got on, hoping for grace even though I hadn’t figured out the fare. Sitting down I continued to search through the transit app, looking for any sign of my eligibility to ride. I swore I’d enrolled in the student pass option, but couldn’t find any evidence of it now. Then I noticed the train was moving in the wrong direction. I was downtown now, not heading north to the campus.
I panicked again, and got off at the next stop, making my way to the opposite side of the platform. There I saw finally a scanning machine that could validate my app pass. It beeped at me, protesting that I had no money. I cursed myself that I hadn’t sorted this all out in advance of the first day of class.
The next train came and I panic-boarded again. I was sweating profusely from all the ravine climbing and fence hopping. I probably looked distressed, but I did my best to try to calm myself in the air conditioning and dry out a bit before arriving to campus. Finally on this train I figured out that my virtual transit pass was incompletely enrolled in the student program—there was another step I neglected, adding the $0.00 student pass to my transit app’s e-commerce checkout payments page and “purchasing” it. That would give me the right to ride all I wanted. I hoped no one would come to check my fare.
Somehow I was lucky, evading detection by transit police workers AND making it to campus with ample time to spare. It was a lovely first day on campus. Student groups were tabling, I stopped and scanned my ID at one group serving coffee and mini donuts. I got some fun stickers that I resolved to put on my laptop later, including a neat cartoon pizza slice graphic that spelled out “UCSD” in melty cheese.
Finally I made it to sit down in a small classroom that was more like the lobby area in a student association building. I was embarrassed to be still overheating and sweaty, but happy to be on time. And finally we would begin to discuss this required writing class I’d chosen for its AI adjacent framing, which I was grateful for there being a professor curious enough to engage with those themes. After some introductions in which everyone was asked how they felt about writing and what they hoped to gain out of the class, to which many simply answered, “I don’t like writing and I hope to get an A,” I too chimed in with my thoughts, saying how AI interested me because I was a Speculative Design major, and I was interested in futurist themes. Though I was mindful to hold back a bit on the full science fictional nerdery I could have launched into there, and I neglected to talk about how much older I was than everyone. I figured it was good to not take up too much attention on the first day. There would be plenty of discussions to be had over the next 12 weeks.
After a generally enjoyable first meeting of my writing course, I sauntered over to the site where my next class would normally be held, though it was the lab day for a Monday lecture that had not yet occurred, and so there would be no class today. But, I wanted to practice making the trek between classes in the ten minutes allotted between my scheduled Thursday sessions. I also wanted to see if any other students would be there mistakenly, so I could commiserate with them about the confusion of a midweek start to the term’s weekly calendar.
And indeed, there was one other person there who was confused about this. “There is no class today, it’s the lab for a lecture that hasn’t happened yet,” I explained.
“Are you sure?” He asked me.
“It’s right here on the Canvas announcements,” I said, pulling up the learning management system’s mobile app on my phone.
“When did the professor announce this?” he asked.
“Today!” I said, in an exasperated tone that matched his own demeanor. “I guess I’ll get out of here then.”
“Well, see you next week” I said, having proven to myself that I could at least locate the right classroom in time after my last class let out. Satisfied, I decided that I could make my way to the transit station, where a Campus Police officeer was waiting to ensure that I would be able to scan my ticket. Having finally gotten the app working, I was able to ride the trolley all the way downtown, where a bus transfer would take me on a straight-shot back to my neighborhood. This is definitely the route I will do in reverse when I head back again on Monday.
This completed my first day as a student at UCSD. After a week of false starts, where I got to attend at least one out of my four classes, in that in-between time at the beginning of the term known as WEEK ZERO.