Reflect back on your first weeks at UCLA. Reflect on how difficult those first weeks were. Advanced Placement and community college classes didn’t always translate into UCLA credits like you wanted them to, finding ways to get involved did not always come easily and not everybody on campus welcomed you for who you are. Balancing academics with research and professional development wasn’t always easy, and adjusting from the comfort of your home to the packed, intense campus of UCLA was even more difficult.
If you came in as a freshman, you had extensive resources and opportunities to get to know others and to develop yourself professionally. They were widely publicized, and your professors and mentors pushed you to engage in research, leadership and professional development. You had time to decide your major and how you wanted to involve yourself on this campus, and you had time to develop relationships with people around this campus before you got involved.
Now imagine that you just entered UCLA, you had only two years on this campus instead of four, and you had no mentors or programs to tell you what you should expect here. Imagine that students and professors alike thought less of you just for taking the two-year path, and excluded you from student groups and research opportunities just because of the way you became a Bruin. Imagine that you had to discover campus resources for yourself because UCLA had no set, coordinated way to engage students like you. And imagine being isolated and alone because you couldn’t find anyone to relate to.
How would you feel?
This is the reality that most transfer students at UCLA face. Transfers have only half the time that freshmen have to do what they want to do, and they must compete against seasoned juniors who already have two years of UCLA experience and networking behind them. Transfer students lack the same level of coordinated institutional support that their traditional four-year counterparts enjoy, and it makes them seriously question whether or not they belong here.
However, transfer students are not the only ones who feel marginalized and unsupported on this campus. First-generation college students, students of color, and students from low-income backgrounds all face the same marginalization and lack of support that comes from being who they are. They don’t even have to be transfer students to be treated as second-class Bruins.
Although transfer admissions are a vital means for including first-generation, low-income and other underrepresented student backgrounds in higher education, there is a general problem that every one of us faces. We face a system that advantages some individuals over others because of something that we can’t change, be it the color of our skin, our sex, or the way that we became Bruins. We face a lack of effective, coordinated and dedicated resources to facilitate our success as students. We face a campus climate that makes us hesitant to openly celebrate and find pride in who we are and what makes us unique. And we need to work together to ensure that all Bruins have equitable access to academic, social, professional and research opportunities, regardless of who they are, where they come from or how they got here.
The transfer student representative is the chief advocate of the student body for making UCLA a better place for transfer students. Many underrepresented student populations depend on transfer admissions to enter UCLA, and the struggles and institutional roadblocks they face closely mirror those that transfer students face. It is important that all representatives of the student body, especially the transfer student representative, understand how to make the campus a more equitable place for everybody, and have a demonstrated passion and record for doing so.
Without a proven record and focus on social consciousness and grassroots, student-powered change, the Transfer Student Representative office cannot possibly succeed in its mission. About three quarters of students who voted last year chose to create the position to promote and to support a better transfer student experience, showing that the majority of UCLA students want meaningful change to happen through this position. They also recognize that support systems for transfers are broken and need improvements directly from the students. Meaningful change can only be realized by leaders who understand the systematic disadvantages that transfer students and other marginalized populations face. Only they can bring their experiences to the table to implement thoughtful, lasting and impactful changes that all Bruins can appreciate and enjoy for years to come.
Matsumoto is a third-year business economics student, the co-president of Transfer Student Alliance at UCLA and the co-deputy chief of staff for the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Transfer Student Representative office.