Best products from r/UCSantaBarbara

Books - Chem Series

• Any AP chemistry book. Textbook or exam review book. They will only carry you to 1B and a little into 1C though.
  
• Any sort of general chemistry book....You can probably get a cheap used textbook that's older in edition (like this one) - I fucking LOVE used textbooks that are older editions because they are usually like 1 cent on amazon and generally have the same information.
  
• Might as well just check out the textbook on the syllabus which is this - any of the older editions work. If I were you and if you were REALLY interested in starting, grab one of the cheap older editions ALONG WITH A STUDY GUIDE for that same edition (such as thiis one)
  
  Books - Physics Series
  
  
• Any physics textbooks that you might have lying around from school....AP physics review books probably useful
  
• To be honest, I'd just pick up one that's similar / the same from the syllabus. They are currently using a new book, which is really freaking expensive. I use a ~1$ book that is written by the same teacher, but just has some calculus in it. Everything is the same otherwise. I also picked up a study guide for it for like 2 dollars on amazon. This will send you to an Amazon search for the book that I use - just add study guide if you want a study guide (the text and the study guide have to match editions, since the study guide just gives you answers and help for the problems)
  
  My Notes
  
  
• I don't really have any solid notes to give you for the courses; to be honest I doubt they would be of use to you. Learn to take notes for yourself so that they are useful to you
  
• Check out this guy - he has great advice for notes and stuff in college.
  
  Math34B and Writing 2
  
  
• I might offend some people out there but this is what I've heard: Math34B is for the mentally challenged (they dumb down the math way too much) and writing 2 is fine. If I were you I'd take Math3B - it's a little harder, but it's probably worth your time in comparison to 34B. Might want to look into that but yeah...a lot of people would probably recommend that you take 3B. Overall it sounds like a pretty chill FSSP schedule, and it might even be a little too chill. Maybe consider something else like Greek Myth or Dinosaurs?
  
  First/Second/whatever...
  
  
• If you're an incoming freshman, don't say you're "Sophomore standing" or "Junior standing." Generally (suuper general), some freshman think they are big shots because they are junior or sophomore standing. Truth is, its not that big of a deal and no one cares. Story time....
  
• My friend and I were at a party during FSSP. Totally new to the party scene, wtf is going on sort of mode. The party we were at was thrown at a frat house and it was super chill - BEST party experience I've ever had. The President of the Frat was talking to us and my friend says "oh I'm a freshman but I'm technically a junior because of my A-" Nope, the dude didn't even let him finish. Told him in a serious but chill way to not do that. Could've gone worse I guess.
  
  Carried away? hahaha
  
  
• Well....I mean there are some people that get carried away (I know a guy that parties all day every day....) but 99% of the people here don't do that, so I wouldn't worry too much. Keeping your future goals in mind is definitely a good way to set yourself on track in terms of academics (and if you don't have a solid goal yet, that's fine too - takes some time to learn). My advice is, assuming you don't know what you want to do after college, is to explore college life here and to go to the various seminars on campus that expose you to the different fields of study. You learn a ton from them - a lot that I can't really tell you all in one little paragraph - it comes, and you'll be ready when it comes.
  
  Chem1, Phys6, gen ed
  
  
• Sounds pretty awesome. Might consider some math as well - don't forget chem lab and physics lab. Consider your courses more after you've had some experience in FSSP with how heavy the courses are - that schedule sounds fine otherwise. There's a decent amount to learn and you'll definitely have work to do; however, that course load won't force you to stay in on Friday/Sat night.
  
  
  Let me know if you have any other questions. Sorry it took so long - had to catch up with my own courses

I took 109A last quarter with Bruice and LMAO rip it was 2 fast and furious 4 me, and thus my weary brain and butt is re-taking it right now with Aue.

Anyway, I went into this quarter expecting the first half at least to be a breeze for me since yeah, I'd gone through the course once already. But to be honest, Aue's style of teaching is completely different from Bruice's, and I was pretty lost myself and felt like I was taking the course for the first time again. So even more respect to the students that are taking O-chem for the first time under him.

I'm not the best student, but from my own experiences comparing the two classes, I feel like you shouldn't focus too much on the textbook, since Aue deviates from it a lot and teaches things that aren't mentioned in it at all. In Bruice, her tests were basically just the book problems (the questions weren't too hard, there was just so much to cover in so little time, whic, but I'll look through the book now and realize there's so much stuff I had to study in her class last quarter that seems to never be mentioned in Aue.

Are you enrolled in CLAS? That's really helpful for me. I did pretty well on the first midterm this quarter, and it's all because one of the CLAS instructor's pre-midterm review sessions taught me so much and saved my butt.

Seems like the best way to study for Aue is to study his past midterms. I don't have any of my own, but I know he does post an old one online on Gauchospace. Just see if you can get a good understanding of the free response questions, since the first midterm was pretty similar in concept, and if anything, it was the multiple choice questions I struggled more with LOL.

Additionally, one of my older friends gave me this book to supplement my readings last quarter, that I didn't crack open at all until I was in Aue lmao. But I found it pretty helpful, too, since I was too lazy to read the textbook and it seemed like Aue followed the order of this handbook better than Bruice's textbook. I believe it's also one of the supplemental readings he mentions in the syllabus: O-Chem As Second Language

But yeah. Don't stress too much. I hope some of this could be helpful, but take it with a grain of salt, since this is also my first time taking a course under Aue. I too am in the same boat as u in that i feel fked for the next midterm atm :-) But dw, you've still got a couple of days left and I had no idea that I would do decently well on the last midterm until it happened. That can be you, too.

HAVE FAITH IN YOURSELF AND GOOD LUCK!

Off the top of my head:

• First aid kit (used it more than I thought I would that year)
  
• Extra seating (foldable chair(s) at least)
  
  Quick tangent: the coolest room on my floor in FT was a double. They bunked their beds and arranged their beds to be bunked together. They then put a futon and chairs in their room and had plenty of space for friends to hang out. You will not regret trying to be like these guys.
  
  
• Desk chair cushion (I recommend this one; stay away from Walmart/Target's shitty ones)
  
• Cool lamp or some form of alternative to the flourescent lighting when you're just hanging out
  
• a few small knick-knacks to liven up the place
  
• WALL DECOR. Get a cool tapestry (urbanoutfitters.com has cool ones), some sort of poster -- anything!
  
• A twin XL mattress pad
  
• Extra sheets
  
  Another tangent: I had a darling girl over one fateful night in FT, and I'm really glad I met her. After she left, however, I was even more glad that I had an extra pair of sheets because I noticed that she managed to smear her face makeup all over my sheets and pillowcase.
  
  
• Some sort of speakers with a sub. I can recommend some good speakers, but an even better idea if you have existing ones is to buy an adapter like this, and use bluetooth to connect your speakers to your phone and laptop.
  
• Fan(s). If you're in a double, you can get away with 1-2 fans. If you're in a triple, I recommend 2-3 fans. Vornado is a good brand. If you're living on campus and not in FT, I would get a small fan with a clip. You'll want to attach this to your desk shelf (FT doesn't have these shelves).
  
  
• Sleeping bag/blanket(s)/extra pillow(s). These will be useful in case someone crashes at your place and you don't want to cozy up with them in your tiny bed.
  
• Shower caddy and shower flip flops
  
• Baskets of some sort to organize your stuff
  
  I know you are trying to reduce costs, but I included some seemingly unnecessary things on this list because your dorm room is your home for the year. Having a little bit of decor and extra seating makes all the difference in terms of your happiness.
  If you have any questions, feel free to ask; good luck!

I don't have any old problem sets off hand, but I could point you towards all the topics you should know and be familiar with. It's basically the first 3 chapters of Griffiths -- by the end of the quarter you should know everything from these chapters extremely well.
As for an explicit list of things to do, I would recommend (in this order, more or less)

• get familiar with using probability distributions, complex numbers (i.e. integrating probability densities to find probabilities, means, standard deviations, complex conjugates, norm squared, normalization, etc.)
  
  
• try to grasp the idea of operators (e.g. position, momentum), observables/hermitian operators, commutation relations, and what is means when two observables commute or not (thing about eigenstates, sequential measurements, uncertainty principle,...)
  
  
• derive solution to infinite square well (0 < x < a ; -a < x < a)
  
  
• derive solution to harmonic oscillator (focus on algebraic derivation, raising and lowering operators are extremely
  important later on)
  
  
• calculate expectation values of x, x^2 for the oscillator using ladder operators (this is to highlight orthogonality of eigenstates)
  
  
• derive free particle, examine scattering (E > 0) and bound (E < 0) states
  
  
• derive delta well, finite square well and calculate transmission/reflection coefficients (and bound states for delta well)
  
  
• read up on and use Dirac notation until it is second nature. redo first bullet point with this notation (this could be useful to do first so that you can practice it)
  
  
• understand the level of abstraction for a ket and what it means to "multiply" by a bra and express an equation in the basis (as described by the bra)
  
  
• revisit the idea of operators in a specific basis
  
  
• derive generalized uncertainty principle, revisit non-commuting operators
  
  Hopefully, that gets you started off, but for 110A it may be worth the time to learn Einstein summation notation -- it'll come in handy.
  
  Good luck!
  
  Edit: formatting

I didn't take any lower division classes here but the upper division classes are pretty great. I haven't really had any bad professors and they seem to be a lot better at teaching than the professors in my upper division physics courses were.

The quarter system isn't bad. I think it's actually a good pace and the courses that have more than 10 weeks of content are 2 or 3 quarters long, which is great because it means you're not stuck in a class that you hate for very long.

The difficulty depends entirely on the professor, but I haven't had a class that was super difficult and uncurved. Curves always seem fair for the difficulty of the class. Finals are usually fair but midterms really suck because they're only 50 minutes long. You will probably do horrible on a few of them before you figure out a way to make it work. We have a much cushier path to upper division than most schools. Instead of being dumped into linear algebra or real analysis and having to learning how to do proofs, we have an intro to proofs and logic prerequisite and another class where you essentially just practice proof techniques that you will use in analysis later. I loved it because it let me focus on the material in my more challenging classes without having to figure out the mechanics and techniques of general proof writing.

One thing to keep in mind is that upper division math is nothing whatsoever like the math that you're probably used to. You essentially start over and learn things correctly, and you usually have to pretend that you don't know anything that you've learned over the past 14 years of math classes outside of basic arithmetic and algebra. You will be writing paragraphs in plain English with occasional math symbols. It's all about taking definitions and theorems that you know and using them to argue that other theorems are true. It's a lot more fun than it sounds. If you want to get a feel for what it's going to be like, check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Prove-Structured-Approach-2nd/dp/0521675995/

It's easy to find elsewhere. You don't need to know anything to get started and it's actually really fun to work through. This was the textbook for my intro to proofs class.

Yeah, that's not good - I'd feel sick too if I heard a roommate say that to their partner, and I'm glad you're trying to think about what you can do. I also understand that you don't want to mess up your roommate situation. Do you have any mutual friends with him or her, or do you know any of their friends who seem like decent people? You could ask the friend to talk to them about the relationship (and to keep confidential that you were the person who mentioned something was wrong).

You might also benefit from reading up about abusive relationship dynamics, to help you figure out whether to intervene (and how to intervene). It's helpful to have this knowledge - you never know if you might need it for helping a friend someday. The book Why Does He Do That? is well-recommended for this topic.

Buy a skateboard, it's awesome 90% of the time. It can kinda suck when it rains or is windy though. But, the freedom of skating around on campus is one of the best things ever. Make sure you buy Bone Swiss Bearings if you get a board. I promise, this is the best decision you can make if you decide to skate. No other bearing set comes close.

I applaud you actually deciding to respond with substance rather than attacks. Here is my response on a point-by-point basis:

1. While I admit that I should have furthered clarified my original statement, I would suggest the my second, much longer comment adequately clarified my argument and "defined" the term I was using. Thus, while I admit my initial argument was lacking substance, I don't believe you can say the same about my argument as a whole.
   
   
2. I appreciate this admission and dose of actual common sense and morality. Your opinion is much more nuanced and respectful than the comment by u/mikeyjett that expressed the sentiment that "all Nazis must fucking die." Saying any group of people should be killed for nothing more than who they are is inherently and obviously immoral and bordering on genocidal. I find it ironic that the same people who rightfully despise Nazis will turn around and advocate for policy prescriptions that resemble literal Nazi policy during the 1930s and 1940s.
   
   
3. I agree that the argument is lacking in sufficient evidence, and thus I will now amend it to include more evidence that supports my point. The argument I made is that conversation can convince people, even very radically-opinionated people, to change their views. More evidence to support this claim is listed below:
   
   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-kkk-member-denounces-hate-groups-one-year-after-rallying-n899326
   
   "In the past 12 months, his beliefs and path have been radically changed by the people he has met."
   
   https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/humankind/2019/07/26/how-former-kkk-member-and-muslim-refugee-became-friends/1807639001/
   
   It was clear to his wife Melissa that Buckley wasn't going to change on his own. She reached out to Arno Michaelis, a man who had been in Buckley's shoes. Michaelis was once a neo-Nazi skinhead. He had a drastic change in mind and heart in the early 2000's. Now Michaelis spreads messages of inclusion and forgiveness and helps other people get out of hate groups. He flew from Wisconsin to Lafayette, Ga. to help Buckley leave behind the hateful life he was leading.
   
   https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80y3va/im_an_ex_white_supremacist_and_klansman_ama/
   
   Q: "What changed your mind and why did you quit?"
   
   A: "Life has a way of kicking your ass when you make bad or stupid decisions. I think after a few of these ass kickings you start looking at yourself critically. This happened to me, and once I accepted that I wasn't right about a few things from there my whole belief system kind of unraveled. At this same time, I met some black individuals who unwittingly played a part in the saga."
   
   
4. Regarding "ok libtard," its mainly a joke, but yes I shouldn't have posted that. Sometimes I get caught up in the memeing. Regarding the second comment, what I meant is that I have some conservatives beliefs. I also have some, and probably more, liberal beliefs. Hence me identifying as a centrist, and actually a left leaning one. My position on the political compass (see below) and my support of Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg, both moderate liberals, support this.
   
   On the political compass I lie in the liberal lower left hand quadrant, even if I am close to the libertarian quadrant.
   
   https://www.politicalcompass.org/crowdchart?name=monredmen&ec=-1.5&soc=-5
   
   My online history has been suspect in regards to my rhetoric in the past. You have me there. But in my defense, I have a long history of having respectful and rational conversations with a wide variety of people and organizations, including some that hold views I am staunchly opposed to. In the past few years I have participated in debates and discussion with my very leftist AP Comp and APUSH classes at my high school, debated the UCSB College Republicans on Universal Basic Income and a few other issues, among other things. I intend to attend UCSB Campus Democrats meetings once I'm back in Santa Barbara and will also be talking with the co-chairs of the Multi-Cultural Center on some of the disagreements I have with them.

This is probably your best bet. The tanks are 100% cotton and really reliable. The best deal I have yet to find. Check them out

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GCUIB6W/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

IMO, I would definitely not get that laptop unless you would want to run games with very low settings and still hit a poor fps score. It only uses Intel's integrated graphics card and only stands up to very light titles and general windows usage.

At $800, it would be hard to balance between the portability and battery life versus the gaming performance you want. Are you planning to use your laptop to take notes on? Or are you more of the type to like physically writing down notes to review later? If you don't mind giving up a bit on battery life and portability, you can try to grab something with a 1060 gpu in it for much better gaming performance. It's a shame that you asked this literally a day right after Intel's Gamer Day sales ended, otherwise I would have suggested if you could push the budget a bit for Acer's Predator Helios 300 model from last year. If you want still, you can get a certified refurbished one for $800 on eBay ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-Predator-Helios-300-Intel-i7-8750H-16GB-Ram-256GB-SSD-W10H-NH-Q3FAA-001/254049080476?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item3b2681549c:g:QNMAAOSwqaNcvf4v&enc=AQAEAAAB4BPxNw%2BVj6nta7CKEs3N0qXuA3M7IxeHPxPU0iOMfihz50e%2F5Hu6C2kPupUGV%2B1pulLkRAYsBPHHzygOZeX8bWDJZnSlMPLu36huncMtpn%2BI7%2FsqJIAtmZvVRhhx8Ae%2Fd2wehotTNC8WELYhV%2FEejvdSed95F9y6rr%2FoXoDCn4QLK4nwhD%2B%2F0u%2F0BM0flXxCm7iJT%2FH%2FXDLIMUJmvrUq1UWEF2gXqcx8%2BWhdrKffEXPnF1uGjBCOtyoH326iUyD0PypzJshEoLoHWaJIix71iECnDKgtC9TssKPurjVQRDUCbbA%2Fg2DtRe%2Bp7AoRU2h0h1zXzMzZ7oXGNn429GXCCkfRHWs3EoJXNNlx%2F0fLITqORvEUfGfd6znre6xPHX9RIpOuCqQ5etKijUAuhKecjEEUVVA7oVrkHSxrkI2wzNvyMKKgQ%2Bl1rhYBt44Xf5KC%2FFj7TpcHTWtbk263IzqM7wFuX54opy3OFjx2FrOCG%2B455%2FNijYwjG%2BDkSel37TRAbFLhE2v4zuxv7BXbEDQWzhLIvC7TMsXqoSsp6jsEc54JhQN1846fMLwqtJtuNhrBlPKIW4u5rQ5cM3O5ptXidbh1uOPYFz2FbfjlTCoZ%2Bhu1Qd14QKGoCO0yrkCSy6UAgw%3D%3D&checksum=254049080476b1c787bfe3ca4291894e764b60b8ccf2 ) (Wow, that is a long link). At this price point, if you don't mind the little bit more gamery top lid, nothing for gaming comes close to it at this price point.

If you want something with a bit more portability to it and design, you'll have to drop down to a 1050 or mx150 for gpu. You'll see longer battery life, but your gaming performance will take a fair hit. If you want something more portable, go for a MX150 option like https://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-i7-8550U-GeForce-NanoEdge-Display/dp/B07B7VFTN9/ref=sxin_7_ac_d_rm?ac_md=2-2-bXgxNTAgbGFwdG9w-ac_d_rm&keywords=1050%2Blaptop&pd_rd_i=B07B7VFTN9&pd_rd_r=79541585-e1f2-4211-9b5e-4d8ecf298f03&pd_rd_w=aV7ij&pd_rd_wg=6SJDJ&pf_rd_p=d29bc9bc-49e2-46b8-bc05-387917c341ec&pf_rd_r=23EHCWG183SCVY1NW4RE&qid=1568016931&s=gateway&th=1 . For a 1050 option, everything looks to be of similar bulk at this price point so I would still go with the acer predator on the eBay link above.

the girl that was on the bottom bunk got the remainder of the space leftover in each of our (top bunk) closets. u each should get a set of 2 drawers (at least in san nic! idk abt others). how we thought of it was that the girl on the bottom bunk also had under-the-bed storage for her clothing and other things. but basically we each got two-thirds of a closet

I also had these (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TAZ6PFU/ref=twister_B07C1G27RD?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1) cubbies that fit on the top shelf in the closet to make things more organized and add another layer of space. those were bomb, in san nic 3 fit across the top so we each got 2 squares to put things in and on top of

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/Official-Nintendo-White-Classic-Gamecube-Controller/dp/B0017KIBAI/ref=sr_1_2


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Italy|amazon.it|




This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

I'm doing the same as you; started playing melee two weeks ago.

Got it when it was still $28, too bad it's risen so much.

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Nintendo-White-Classic-Gamecube-Controller/dp/B0017KIBAI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397281573&sr=8-2&keywords=gamecube+controller