A former City College student shared her personal experience on transferring to the College of Creative Studies at UCSB for math, and emphasized that it is never too early to start planning on how to pay for your education.

AnaSophia Eiseman, who goes by Ash, addressed a group of four students and Jeffrey Gray, statistics instructor and advisor of the Math Club, on Friday, Nov. 17 in Humanities Building Room 111. The Math Club sponsored the speech, and admission was free.

Eiseman was 15 minutes late for the speech, and when she arrived she was supported by a walker and both her knees were in knee braces. Lately, she has been dealing with pains from a biking accident that happened on the campus of UCSB.

This reminded her of the unforeseen circumstances of life.

“Things do come up,” she said. “Don’t go into it [college] saying you’re going to graduate after two years.”

“Professors at the UC are really different than they are here. If you are a professor here, your job is to teach. If you are a professor at a UC, your job is to publish,” Eiseman said.

Eiseman explained how many professors’ attitudes towards teaching is like “having to sweep the floor after cooking.” They simply do not show as much interest in their students, which made her appreciate her nice and passionate City College teachers even more.

A way to gain your professors respect at the UC, is to visit their office hours regularly, because it shows them that you care for their classes, and then they might remember your face among the hundreds of students they teach weekly.

“I’m here to tell you what I didn’t know when I applied for college,” Eiseman said as she went on to talk about student loans and debt.

Even though Eiseman will be graduating from UCSB with between $30,000 and $40,000 debt, she thinks it has been “spiritually” worth it so far. She said she would not be without it, and she has built up a great social network with very supportive friends.

The College of Creative Studies is a special program with the low acceptance rate of 400 students. It offers eight different majors such as mathematics, physics, writing & literature, art and biology..

“CC’s classes are incredibly structured. We just don’t have grades,” Eiseman said as she explained how your participation in class is measured in units.

What Eiseman enjoys the most about the program, is all the research she gets done, especially on her favorite topic, Graph Theory, which she refers to as her baby.

Eiseman, who was a foster youth, has been interested in math for a long time now. When she was a student at City College she was president of the Math Club, and she tutored for both english and math.

The presentation was a free flowing exchange between Eiseman and the audience as they could ask questions whenever they had one.

“I encourage everybody to get the highest education you can, even though it’s so expensive,” Eiseman said.

Clarification Nov. 20, 2017:

This story contains has been updated to correct grammatical errors in a previous version.