The Undergraduate Writing Center has expanded services to provide additional academic support and tutoring for transfer students.
UWC partnered with the Transfer Student Center to offer walk-in appointments Tuesdays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Kerckhoff 128. The service, which runs from Feb. 6 through March 13, is exclusive to transfer students who need help working on class papers or improving their writing, said Christine Holten, the center’s director.
Holten said UWC decided to expand services in order to reach out to more transfer students who may not know about the center’s resources.
“(Transfer students) tend to be less hooked into the campus sometimes because they come in during their third year and have a very finite amount of time here,” she said. “We want them to learn about the writing center as soon as possible.”
Heather Adams, director of the Transfer Student Center, said she thinks transfer students sometimes need more resources to help them transition into UCLA’s fast-paced academic environment.
Adams added she thinks the writing center’s partnership with the transfer center ensures that transfer students understand that the writing center’s resources are available to them.
“(The extended services) are an opportunity to do outreach to transfer students where they seem to hang out during the day – the transfer center,” Holten said.
Adams added the transfer center plans to develop similar partnerships with other campus services to make them more accessible to transfer students, including holding office hours with counselors in Counseling and Psychological Services.
Several transfer students said they think the writing center’s office hours will help transfer students better adjust to UCLA.
Johnathan Carr, a third-year philosophy student, said he thinks the program is helpful because many transfer students need writing help as they transition to UCLA.
“I think programs like this will be of great benefit to transfers because switching over to the quarter system can seem fast compared to the semester system,” he said.
He added he appreciates that the program accommodates various class schedules with easy walk-in appointments offered throughout the day.
Patricia Bautista, a fourth-year communication student who transferred from Pierce College in 2016, said she thinks using the transfer center as an extension of the writing center makes for an accessible location for transfer students.
“It removes the stigma from the process of asking for help and makes it less intimidating, since new transfers do not always know whom to ask for help when they need it,” she said.
Bautista added, however, she also thinks that centralizing transfer resources to the transfer center may prevent transfer students from engaging with other parts of campus.
“I’m not sure about whether this move will help integrate transfers into the wider college community, since now transfer students will not need to leave the transfer center for writing help,” she said.
Holten said she thinks using the transfer center for tutoring will reach more students because many transfer students spend a lot of time there.
She added UWC has also expanded to other locations, such as outside the De Neve dining hall, to provide additional appointments for students.