Though for most people the long-awaited summer is a time to unwind, for others it is a time to plan ahead for the future.
This summer, UCLA students will take advantage of the unique opportunities presented by summer break to participate in internships, take classes and conduct research to prepare for their respective graduate or professional programs.
Mae Jennifer Shores, the assistant dean and director of MBA admissions for the Anderson School of Management, advised that students who are seeking to apply to the school’s master’s program “seek an internship or a job that requires strong skills or skills in related areas to whatever someone’s professional interests are.”
Michael Winston, a second-year political science student, said he hopes to develop the skills needed for law school by interning for a California state senator this summer.
Aside from drafting documents, he said he will have the opportunity to witness politics operating at the grassroots level.
Karol Johansen, the counselor supervisor for the UCLA Career Center, said UCLA has a database of employment opportunities on the BruinView Web site.
“Even in the worsening economy, many employers who wanted to employ full-time employees are considering interns, so there’s a real healthy supply of internships,” she said.
As to be expected, many students will also be attending summer school to complete their course requirements.
Mamta Patel, a fourth-year economics and psychology student, said the summer enables her to take Economics 106, a course available to only business economics students during the normal school year.
Despite the faster pace that a shorter quarter ensures, Patel said she has found from past summer school experiences that this does not mean summer classes are necessarily more difficult.
“Professors have been found to be more accommodating by presenting less material for the test, and the exams are less difficult,” Patel said.
Many students seeking to take the LSAT in September are taking preparation courses over the summer, said Matthew Riley, one of the founders for the Blueprint test preparation program and an instructor for the location in Westwood. The LSAT is a standardized test administered four times a year to those applying to law school.
“The one nice thing about the summer is that, because we have so many students, we can offer so many different schedules,” Riley said.
UCLA students are also preparing for the GRE, a standardized test for prospective graduate students, business or professional students according to the test’s Web site.
Deja Autman, a third-year Afro-American studies in sociology student, said she is taking a GRE preparation course over the summer because she intends to apply to journalism school for broadcast journalism after she graduates.
Other students said they are using the extra time during the summer to delve more thoroughly into their research.
Lillian Tran, a third-year Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics student, will be working on a project for her departmental honors thesis. Tran, who said she hopes to attend medical school, will research a co-drug for an antibiotic so that the antibiotic can be used against all types of bacteria.
Tran said that, compared to research during the normal school year, which she described as being very fragmented, “Researching over the summer is really beneficial because you can run more time-consuming experiments and do more interesting experiments you won’t normally have the time to do.”
She said she already took her MCAT in May. The MCAT is a standardized multiple choice taken by prospective medical school applicants which assesses skills in problem solving, critical thinking, writing and knowledge of science concepts and principles prerequisite to the study of medicine.
Johansen said the UCLA Career Center will be open during the summer to assist students.
“We are ecstatic when we see first-year students. It is never too early nor is it ever too late to visit,” she said.