Barret Feusi shared his best tips on navigating UCLA life, from choosing dorms to finding shortcuts to classrooms, with the students he hosted during the Bruin Overnight Experience.
The second-year biology student volunteered in Bruin Overnight Experience, which asks for Hill residents to volunteer to host out-of-state students in their dorm rooms. He volunteered last year and said he still stays in contact with the students he hosted.
“I got the chance to socialize and relive my first-year experience with them, telling them my stories,” Feusi said.
To give out-of-state students a better look into life at UCLA, the Office of Residential Life, Admissions, Parent & Family Programs and the First Year Experience together plan to is hold the fifth annual Bruin Overnight Experience on April 18. The event costs UCLA from $15,000 to $30,000, said UCLA spokesman Ricardo Vazquez.
Officials are accepting applications for volunteers to host admitted students overnight in their dorm rooms and to help run the annual Bruin Overnight Experience. The application can be submitted online by April 9.
During last year’s Bruin Overnight Experience, about 125 volunteers hosted 250 out-of-state students in their dorms for one night, said Allison McComb, director of First Year Experience for the Office of Residential Life.
UCLA students can choose to host up to three students, depending on their room size and other factors, according to McComb.
McComb said the officials running the event expects similar numbers this year in out-of-state student participation, since the maximum number the dorms can hold is 250 students. However, the numbers of volunteers has increased every year.
“I think (I was a host) because I really loved UCLA and still do. I feel I have gotten the perfect experience with UCLA and Los Angeles in general so I thought I could pass that on,” Feusi said.
Activities have varied each year but have included things such as a scavenger hunts into Westwood. This year, students have put forward ideas for events, though no activities schedule has been finalized yet.
“Our student coordinators are doing more of the programing (this year). … We did that based on feedback we got last year, giving newly admitted students people they could relate to,” McComb said.
If chosen to be volunteer hosts during the Bruin Overnight Experience, students must go through trainings about the different circumstances they should anticipate during the experience.
Amber Latif, a first-year biology student, said she hopes to volunteer as a host for two or three students in this year’s Bruin Overnight Experience. She said she hopes she can create a good environment for students interested in attending UCLA.
“Environment plays a huge factor on how your school experience plays out,” Latif said.
The program began five years ago and is designed to start building a community for out of state students, McComb said.
For Feusi, hosting out of state students was not an attempt to convince students to go to UCLA, but a chance to give them the experience of living in the dorms.
“It may not sway their decision to come here as much as it lets them see living at UCLA as a reality,” Feusi said.