Hiya I’m Tom Boom (17 y/o), from Apeldoorn, Netherlands and I’m a first years student.

My field of interest at UCR could be best described by the word: “anything” although I have a small preference for the science and engineering courses. This brings us to the reason as to why I chose UCR. I simply picked UCR because I had a very broad interest in a lot of academic fields and didn’t want to limit myself by picking only one of them to specialize in. So when I heard about UCR I immediately gravitated towards it. But studying isn’t the only thing you do at UCR, not by a long shot actually. The social life is also a very important part of your time at UCR (to most people at least), and this is where the UCR community comes in. The community is simply put: marvelous. Everyone is always ready to help and keeps an eye out for each other, forming a very close and warm community where everyone is welcome and no one is left out. Need help moving a couch for 2 kilometers? There’s probably multiple people that would love to help. All around big fan of UCR.