Anything and everything; experiences with faculty and staff, registrar and administration, departments, classes, places to live, part-time jobs, et cetera, ad infinium. I’m reasonably familiar with the geography, so I don’t need a streetmap drawn, but not perhaps so familiar with the local community.
Random thoughts, amusing anecdotes, hard-won wisdom, embarassing stories, anguished complaints, long-held grudges–it’s all fair game. Fire away.
Stranger
Let’s see… I attend UCLA from 2002-2004. I graduated summa cum laude and college honors from the history program. I attend Loyola Law School now. Coming to UCLA from a community college, that is, a junior transfer, I was amazed at how beautiful the campus was, especially Royce quad. I thought “now this is a university!”
I was embraced by the Alumni Association and was given enough scholarships and grants to avoid massive debt. I basically paid $4500 for my bachelor’s degree. My experience at this school was so wonderful that I’m getting choked up thinking about it now.
UCLA is located in one of the most exclusive areas of the world. It sits next to Bel Air and Beverly Hills. This brings us to the negatives. Renting someplace near the school is next to impossible. It is not uncommon to have 6 people renting a one room apartment for 2000 bucks a month or more. The dorms are always good though. Parking on campus costs $7 (when I went) but you can find some place to park off campus. I used to park on Santa Monica Blvd. and take the Big Blue Bus up Westwood Blvd. Only 25 cents for each way. The place where I used to park is no longer there however. Be careful where you park because parking enforcement people are tyrannical Nazis in this area.
Going up the 405 can be a nightmare, either way. I used to commute from Lancaster (about 70 miles to the north) down the 14 -> 5 -> 405 heading south. At the time that I went (usually around 11AM) after the morning traffic, it was only bad at the Sepulveda pass. Coming and going from the direction of Long Beach is a FUCKEN NIGHTMARE!
Always check your professors at Bruin Walk because it has an excellent rating system. Sometimes you can get a ball buster of a professor. It is best to avoid them because you often learn the same material but with different results.
UCLA has the most NCAA championships on any school at 118. The Internet was created here. James Dean, Bob Hope, Jackie Robinson, 3 of the members of the Doors, and so many others too numerous to name all attended UCLA. Athletic and alumni glory is nationally known.
All and all, it was a very pleasant experience. Looking back on it now, I realize how painless it was. For a big school, UCLA takes care of you. As far as the academics are concerned, it is ranked as the 3rd best public university. It is a huge bargain for the price and carries with it heaps of prestige. However, you could always spend 40 grand a year to attend a school lower on the academic rung and live in beautiful South Central. That’s always an option if football is the only thing you care about or you don’t get in to UCLA. (Couldn’t resist, I’m sorry).
Whatever you do, do not care too much about the fucking football team. You’ll only have your heart broken.
Undergrad from 1987-92. BA in English.
The one thing I’d tell incoming students is not to be intimidated by the sheer size of the place. It’s huge, sure, but the combination of ‘big school’ + ‘big city’ means that you can pursue pretty much any intellectual avenue you could possibly come up with.
Live in a dorm when you get there, seeing familiar faces every day will make the place smaller. Get involved in anything and everything that interests you.
When you have to move out of the dorms, you’ll find that living in Westwood is great socially, painful financially. That’s a choice you’ll have to make.
Choose your major with care, although there aren’t any notoriously bad departments. If you go into the English department, avoid all classes with Prof. Walter Anderson, if he’s still there (which I doubt). Trust me on him.
Damn, I wish I could go back. Those were some of the best years of my life, and they are where I found my closest friends. I’m jealous!
MLS program, 1982 - 1984.
I found the academic environment to be very stimulating. You’ll have direct access to the best libraries in Southern California.
As for the non-academic features, there’s a fantastic rec center with a beautiful pool, and a cool coffeehouse that was unique when it was founded, in 1975–in the days before coffeehouses.
Westwood itself is not the place it once was. There was a gang shooting there in 1990, and it has never really recovered; you’d think after all this time it’d be humming along just as before. There are a number of empty stores; yet the landlords don’t seem to be cognizant of their situation and continue pushing out longstanding merchants who don’t want to meet their demands for rising rents. For example, a Gap store was pushed out years ago, and I think the site is still vacant.
If you don’t want to live on campus, you will find a parking permit very difficult to get. I knew someone who lived over the hill in Studio City, and she couldn’t get one. Your best bet is to live somewhere along one of the Santa Monica Municipal Bus Line routes (aka “Big Blue Bus”). Nearly all of their buses go to UCLA, so you could live in West L.A., Santa Monica, Culver City, and a variety of other places and be able to reach campus with a short simple bus trip. Living in L.A. you’ll still need a car, but for getting to and from campus the bus is probably the easiest.