The UCLA campus is home to a sea of students in the throes of academic competition, and some say they are left feeling overwhelmed and searching for help. While teaching assistants can offer assistance, some students say tutoring is the answer.
There are several different sources of tutoring on campus, including Covel Commons tutoring, the Academic Advancement Program and tutoring specifically for UCLA athletes.
Ming-Huei Lam, director of composition tutoring in Covel Commons, noted the high demand for tutoring on campus, but said Covel sometimes cannot always accommodate students who want tutoring.
“Unfortunately, we are not able to meet all of the demands. We just do not have enough budget to meet everybody’s requests. During registration in Covel, people are wrapped around the building waiting to register,” Lam said.
The program does the best they can to try and help all the students who request tutoring, but due to budget cuts, there is a shortage of tutoring available. For example, Lam said there was a huge wait-list for tutoring for composition classes, and while wait-lists usually start to build up during eighth through 10th week, it can also happen earlier in the quarter.
Despite the impacted numbers in Covel, first-year mathematics student Emily Mertes said she believes that it is reasonably easy to schedule tutoring if you are diligent about it, and said she has always found the tutoring program to be successful at informing her of her options.
“They do a great job advertising it by coming into your class in the beginning of the quarter and telling you exactly where to go,” she said.
Mertes added that though it is sometimes not possible to get tutoring for all classes, she has found they are usually available if she signs up on the first day of the quarter.
Covel Commons offers tutoring in 24 math and science classes. The program also offers one-on-one composition tutoring for a paper or a personal statement such as a graduate school application.
Tutors must meet a number of requirements, including specified course backgrounds, a specific GPA and a six to 10-hour weekly commitment.
The Academic Advancement Program also offers tutoring to its members. The mission of this program is to provide resources and support for students based on test scores, GPA and the courses they are taking. AAP also takes students’ backgrounds into consideration in terms of social or environmental obstacles when admitting them.
Tammy Kim, a second-year undeclared student who receives AAP tutoring for two of her four classes, said AAP tutoring helps her prioritize her time.
“It helps you to get your work done on time and is nice to have the lecture reiterated. It is pretty easy to schedule because they have two to three time slots available for each session, and they are pretty flexible if you can only make it to one session,” she said.
AAP offers tutoring in 450 different courses in science, social science and the humanities, according to the program’s Web site. It employs around 200 students, many of whom are upper-division students in the AAP program, as well as UCLA alumni who participated in AAP.
AAP also offers one-on-one composition tutoring, and small groups of three to five students for all other courses.
NCAA athletes have access to additional tutoring in order to accommodate their practice and traveling schedules.
Members of UCLA’s 26 NCAA teams can sign up in the beginning of the quarter for tutoring times during week nights.
Aaron Meyer, a third-year history student, is on the football team and goes to tutoring every week.
“It is easy for me to get the tutoring I need,” he said. “As long as you put forth effort, the tutors try to help you as much as they can. It is necessary if you want to maintain a certain GPA and live up to the UCLA student of excellence persona. I tutor for my hardest classes. It really helps in a class that has a lot of reading.”