September 2025
Highlights: New student information to prepare for fall quarter, including placement exams, course registration windows, Aggie Orientation, and student social media links.
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October 2025
Highlights: October events include the Fall Advising Festival and Majors Fair. Reminders about drop deadlines and CA&ES advising details.
Discover Your Strengths: We believe that everyone has a special talent or skill that makes them unique. This year, we’re challenging all Aggies to discover and further develop their own strengths. Each month, we’ll highlight resources and opportunities you can use to identify, value, and develop your strengths.
October’s theme: “What are your strengths? What are your superpowers?”
People can often struggle to see their own strengths but easily identify their friend’s best qualities. Have you experienced this? If so, it’s always a good idea to find a trusted friend or advisor to help you more clearly see your own strengths.
This month, we challenge you to do a “compliment swap” with a friend, and visit a UAP advisor to explore your strengths to see how you can use them to make this year the best one yet.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Andra Soria, Academic Advisor
- Question: What would your best friend say is one of your strengths?
- Response: My best friend would say that one of my strengths is that I am understanding and considerate of others!
-Lili Bynes, Academic Advisor
- Question: How did you discover your own superpower?
- Response: I discovered my superpower through a former mentor. My superpower is listening to people to help them identify and create choices.
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November 2025
Highlights: November events include Coffee with the Dean. Reminders about important academic deadlines, meeting with major advisors for academic planning, and resource links to the Academic Assistance and Tutoring Center and Career Center.
Discover Your Strengths: Kpop Demon Hunters not only gave us catchy songs (that we can’t stop singing) but also some solid advice about the importance of asking for help from our friends and community. UC Davis has a lot of different communities that help you bounce back from setbacks and build friendships and connections to help you slay the quarter system.
This month, we challenge you to reach out to a campus community you’re interested in. Here’s a list of available resources to get you started. One of your greatest superpowers is asking for help and looking for support.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Honora Knopp, Integrated Program Advisor
- Question: How did you overcome the anxiety of asking for help?
- Response: By nature, I’m an observer. Over time, I began to notice something important, the people I admired most, my mentors, colleagues, and friends were thriving not because they did everything alone, but because they had learned how to ask for help. they sought out community and allowed others to support them, and that made all the difference. That learning helped me start to reframe my own thinking.
-Mandy Rousseau, Integrated Program Advisor
- Question: How did you overcome the anxiety of asking for help?
- Response: When I was a student at UC Davis, I overcame the anxiety of asking for help by starting small. go to office hours with just one question prepared, and next time it will be easier to ask more. Go to the career fair just to observe what it’s like, and next time you’ll be ready to actually go up to a table and start talking with them. I promise it’s worth it to practice talking to folks, and you never know what useful things you’ll learn when you ask someone for advice or help!
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December 2025
Highlights: Reminders about finals week and CA&ES Study Break. Links to self-care resources, tutoring and advising resources.
Discover Your Strengths: Ever get stuck on a loop of the same negative self-talk? It happens to EVERYONE! The superpower we want to highlight this month is self compassion, more specifically, learning from mistakes and not getting stuck in a shame spiral. While it is easier said than done, with practice you can learn to treat yourself like you would a best friend.
This month, we challenge you to change judgmental thoughts about yourself into a moment of self-compassion. Need help getting started? Reach out to the UAP advising team today.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Greg Anderson, Associate Director
- Question: What’s an embarrassing moment that you can laugh about now?
- Response: In college, I was taking a Sociology midterm in a lecture hall that sat 300 students. So the hall was completely full. I was sitting the middle of my row, with at least 5-6 students on both my left and right. Suddenly, I felt the urge to sneeze, but couldn’t get up since everyone was focused on their test. Now I usually sneeze 3 times and then am done. Not this time!! I must’ve sneezed at least 10 to 15 times in a row; I tried to muffle the sound by sneezing into my shirt and arm, but I’m pretty sure that all 300 people were annoyed with me by the time I was done.
-Nick Lee, Aggie Jumpstart and Community Coordinator
- Question: What’s an embarrassing moment that you can laugh at now?
- Response: In 8th grade, I went from hero to zero trying to throw backpacks over to other students behind a gated area. During PE, if our backpacks couldn’t fit into lockers, we put them in a gated area that had to be unlocked by a teacher. One day, the teacher took forever to unlock the gate, so I climbed the fence and then got in trouble. But the most embarrassing part was that after climbing the fence and tossing over that first backpack, I felt like a real life hero. But that only lasted a few seconds because the rest of the backpacks were really heavy and I struggled a lot. Another kid had to “rescue” me by climbing over and tossing backpacks for me.
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January 2026
Highlights: Reminders about UAP drop-in advising availability, Slice of Advising, drop deadlines and Spring Quarter registration windows. Information on Tutoring resources.
Discover Your Strengths: January is a month of fresh starts, but New Year’s resolutions can get lost in the grind of day-to-day living. You can make reaching goals easier by breaking them down into small steps. And we do mean small! Think “step one: find running shoes,” not “step one: run a mile.”
This month, we challenge you to identify a goal and break it down into simple steps. Need a partner to help you figure out the process? Then visit with our UAP advising team for help.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Alissa Magorian, Associate Director
- Question: What goals or intentions do you have for this quarter?
- Response: My goals for winter quarter are to read more books (I’ve been getting into French revolutionary history lately, but often take little breaks to read a fun, contemporary novel), connect with friends, support loved ones (including my fur babies), stress less and maintain a good balance in life. This year I’m setting the intention of centering joy, even when challenges arise.
-Alina Bara, Academic Advisor
- Question: What daily habits help you stay well?
- Response: Getting 7-9 hours of quality sleep, staying hydrated and walking 10K steps daily, helps me stay well. Also, I find that staying connected with my dear ones, practicing mindfulness and gratitude and laughing keeps me grounded and nourished.
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February 2026
Highlights: Do something nice for yourself this month! Explore the Arboretum, get a hot drink with a friend at the ASUCD Coffee House, or take a nap using the UC Davis Nap Map to find the perfect spot.
Discover Your Strengths: February is often filled with thoughts of love, hearts and chocolate. This month, we want you to think beyond love and embrace kindness, specifically kindness to yourself and others.
Life is hard enough when things are going well but throw in a bad grade on a midterm or forgetting a friend’s birthday and it can be a struggle. But if you look at those experiences through the lens of kindness, it can help you move forward instead of overthinking about what went wrong. Next time you get stuck in a negative spiral, stop and reflect on the experience with the goal of being kind to yourself.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Joe Lee, Academic Advisor
- Question: Can you share an example of someone’s kindness that still resonates with you today?
- Response: One example of kindness that still resonates with me is going to baseball games with a friend/mentor of mine. The care and compassion displayed by showing up and being present is a lesson that I’ve carried with me and remember each year that we head to the ballpark. It’s also something that I strive to pay forward to others.
-Vanessa Talavera, Outreach Coordinator
- Question: How you overcome a challenge or setback with grace for yourself?
- Response: I remind myself that I’m doing the best I can with the information that I have and that this is my first time facing this challenge, so it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get done. This is temporary and there are better days ahead!
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April 2026
Highlights: April events include UC Davis Picnic Day and Slice of Advising. Reminders about commencement information and summer sessions registration and resource links to Campus Recreation including Craft Center classes and Outdoor Adventures.
Discover Your Strengths: Taking care of yourself isn’t a frivolous luxury reserved only for social media influencers. By prioritizing you on your to-do list, you’re building a strong foundation that will help you be your best.
Taking care of yourself continuously is like having a safety net of support. When big stressors come your way, you will be able to navigate them and keep moving forward rather than falling down or getting stuck.
This month, we challenge you to identify ways you can recharge and add 15-minute self-care appointments to your schedule. Want to collaborate and build your self-care schedule together? Stop by to visit with our UAP advisors.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Charles Williams, Academic Advisor
- Question: What is something that brings you joy in your day?
- Response: Something that brings joy to my day is taking a walk through campus on a lovely spring afternoon. I try to appreciate the wildlife and beautiful scenery campus has to offer. I provides a nice change of pace from our traditional office space.
-Clarissa Mark Wong, First-Year Advisor
- Question: What is something that brings you joy in your day?
- Response: Something that brings me joy is being able to spend quality time catching up with my family, especially my kids, and sharing lots of laughs with them. Our schedules can be so busy but being able to take even just a few minutes out of our hectic days to slow down and share these moments together can be a great mental reset.
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May 2026
Highlights: Reminder about Fall registration timelines and summer sessions registration. Connect with an academic advisor for questions.
Discover Your Strengths: Ever felt a little lost or unsure of yourself? Take a moment to reconnect with your purpose. When we step back and focus on the bigger picture, we can feel recharged and motivated to handle the stressors of the quarter—and life. Your purpose has been a driving strength in guiding you this far; imagine where you’ll go from here!
This month, we challenge you to reflect on the values of those you admire—friends, family, coworkers—and identify what values are most important in your life. Think of three qualities that stand out to you and in the coming week, find a way to live your life around those values (e.g., integrity, kindness, security, advocacy, leadership, consistency).
Need some help on how to fill your week with value-focused activities? Stop by to visit with our UAP advisors.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Hayley Hill, Academic Advisor
- Question: What is a value you live by?
- Response: A value that I live by in both my personal and professional life is to treat others as I want to be treated (a.k.a. “The Golden Rule”). During my time as a student at UC Davis, I felt seen, heard and supported by those around me, so I try to help others feel the same now that I am a staff member on campus.
-Vien Cantorna, Undergraduate Academic Programs Assistant
- Question: Who is someone you admire and what values do you both share?
- Response: Someone that I admire is my cousin, Darlene! We both share the same values of always being kind and honest. We feel that those values are important to live by and cannot be compromised.
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June 2026
Highlights: Spring quarter is almost done! Cross the finish line by practicing self-care with mental health resources. Check out the Commencement FAQs.
Discover Your Strengths: June is full of endings and new beginnings—you’re finishing up the quarter and heading into summer as a graduate, or summer researcher, intern or traveler. Getting to this point took a lot of effort and dedication, and that’s something to be proud of!
This month, we challenge you to recognize the ways you have supported yourself and found help when you needed it. Reflecting on your journey can increase your happiness as you start your next adventure. Increase your joy by writing down three things you’re thankful for at the end of the day (e.g. I love starting my day with overnight oats or I’m proud of myself for asking my roommate for help studying).
Need help starting your gratitude journal? Stop by to visit with our UAP advisors and we can collaborate.
Get to Know the UAP Team:
-Ashley Pelham, Academic Advisor
- Question: What personal strengths are you most proud of?
- Response: I am most proud of is my intrinsic drive. I push myself to do ‘all the things’; because 1. I would be bored if I didn’t, and 2. I want my children to see what is possible. I am a first-gen college student and want to be the example to them that I never had.
-Erin Kandola, Academic Advisor
- Question: What is a recent moment that brought you joy?
- Response: A recent memory that brought me joy was traveling to Hong Kong and Macau with my husband not long ago! We try to travel as much as we can, and I always love the opportunity to explore new places, eat great food, experience different cultures, and take a well-deserved break from the norm whenever possible.
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