Ara Shirinian: Transfer events should be student-run, creating sense of community

In the opening presentation at my transfer orientation session, there was an emphasis on the fact that at UCLA, you are not just a number.

It’s unfortunate then that I spent the rest of the excruciatingly long day feeling like the opposite was true; throughout the day, I came up with more questions than answers and spent much of my time racing the people in my group to sign up for classes that were quickly filling up .

While jumping into a new university is likely to come with a few speed bumps, poor communication and a lack of organization should not have been the defining characteristics of my first transfer event.

This is why I was cautiously excited when I found out about Transfer Pride Week, a series of events being hosted by the Bruin Resource Center between Jan. 19 and 23. There will be multiple events on each of the five days that include social mixers, a resource fair and postgraduate support sessions. It has potential to be a good place for transfers who wanted something better than what they got during orientation by helping them find the resources they need and become more comfortable in their new environment.

Unfortunately, the lack of student representation on the planning committee puts the whole set of events in danger of losing student interest and frustrating transfer students who are often tired of focusing on administrative issues. It might be a refreshing change to participate in university-sponsored events where they can spend time with other students in a socially productive environment.

Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, the Undergraduate Students Association Council transfer student representative, was the only student voice on the planning committee that consisted of about 20 other people, she said.

Only a few of the events are planned by student groups; the majority are in the hands of administrators. While student-planned events are not guaranteed to be good, at the very least, they might be more fun, and participants will be more likely to voice their opinions about how to improve events when they are speaking to their peers and not to administrators.

For instance, there is a state of the union address planned by the administrative committee where a professor will give a lecture tailored to transfer students, but it’s possible that many students won’t want to spend their Tuesday night attending lecture, said Sadeghi-Movahed.

In contrast, the Toast to Transfers Mixer, which is taking place in Kerckhoff Grand Salon on Wednesday night, is organized by students and promises to be a more social event where transfer students can meet each other and partake in activities such as human bingo. They will be given a chance to talk about where they’ve transferred from while enjoying some refreshments.

The difference between these two events represents how important student involvement can be. The goal of any event should first and foremost be to get people to come and have a good time because this will allow the program to grow over the coming years and continue to help transfer students become part of the UCLA community. A mixer with games and a focus on individual experiences sounds much more likely to do this than a lecture which does not involve any meaningful student interaction.

There is a distinct lack of care and consideration that I feel often plagues the events that I have experienced, and Transfer Pride Week is a good opportunity to make up for that.

For example, my mediocre experience at transfer orientation mostly left me on my own to figure out how everything worked and which classes to take. The entire event was a rushed introduction to the university by counselors who are most often not transfers themselves, and are not well-equipped to answer the questions transfers might have.

These kinds of badly-planned events isolate the growing community of transfer students that more than anything just wants to become a united part of the UCLA student body.

There are resources available to all students, including transfers, throughout the year. On-campus events like Transfer Pride Week should do more than simply put out these resources and should aim to bring forth a sense of community that is much harder for students to pursue on their own.