Speaks Out: Diversity at UCLA

Zach Merrill

Second-year, business economics

“I honestly feel like UCLA is one of the most diverse places I’ve been. I come from more Southern California; it’s pretty much all white kids. Then once I come up here, I feel like it’s really diverse, honestly, from where I’ve been. I feel like (diversity) is being addressed, definitely. I think it’s great that all races, all ethnicities can learn in the same place.”

Carolina Louis

First-year, psychology

“I definitely think there should be more classes available about culture. But I think the student body needs to be more diverse too because I’m in a feminist geography class and it’s predominantly women, but there are very few minorities. So it just feels like there is no alienation ““ they don’t alienate minorities ““ but the body makes it very uncomfortable to just talk about your points of view.”

Daniel Sweet

Fifth-year, geography

“A lot of classes either talk specifically about one group or they don’t really talk about culture at all. That’s just not the nature of the class. I’ve taken some (Chicana and Chicano) studies classes and they obviously focus on (Chicana and Chicano) studies and then other classes don’t focus on culture at all. I think it does pretty well. But there’s a lot of cultures that I haven’t been exposed to.”

Nnaemeka Alozie

Fourth-year, political science

“I don’t think they can really mandate a diversity class. What they need to do is leave things as is and let the natural flow of things happen like what happens in a regular class filled with different diverse people. You get to learn about them because you’re sitting there talking to them and they talk to you; it’s basic common human interaction. You don’t need a class to mandate human interaction.”

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