Monday, March 10, 1997
ACADEMICS:
Soon to be graduate imagines life after college, reminisces
philosophically about his academic performance at UCLA
I paid a visit to my psychology counselor the other day in a
desperate search for guidance. Graduation is a year away, and I’m
already starting to panic. I had a million questions I needed
answers to now that my psych requirements are just about
completed.
Am I missing any classes? How many units do I still need? Can I
do a specialization in Viewpoint Writing? Will a minor in Erotic
Medieval Folk Dance cover all of my upper division units? Who do I
need to bribe to get those O-Chem grades off my DPR?
I thought it was a very productive meeting. It took about half
an hour for my counselor and I to figure out the rest of my UCLA
career. That’s not bad considering it takes me about an hour and a
half just to decide if I want the Panda Bowl or the Two-Item Combo
for lunch. Aah, the efficiency of undergraduate advising. We spent
most of our time just staring at this small green flickering
computer screen that was displaying my entire scholastic career at
UCLA. What I want to know is how come every time a counselor sees
my GPA they always say the same thing …
"Holy Sweet Jesus! That can’t be right! Is this a joke?" Hey,
I’m passing, OK? No need to get rude.
Seeing all of your grades from every single class you’ve ever
taken at once is a harsh reality check. I was awestruck by my
averageness. Don’t think I had some delusions of grandeur or
anything, I’d given up on graduating Summa Cum Laude long ago. I
had set my sights on more realistic goals, like graduating with a
GPA above 1.0 or graduating before they hired another chancellor.
Still, it was a shock seeing all of those not-so-fabulous grades
lumped together. Oh, well, it’s like my friends always say, "’C’ is
for Diploma."
Besides, it’s not my fault that I don’t get 4.0 GPA’s every
quarter. It’s because of the Man, always trying to bring a brotha
down. (Sorry, but since this is my last column, I thought I’d get a
little political.) Actually, I have to admit that I do get fairly
decent grades for the amount of work I do. I’m not a lazy slug or
anything, but I don’t spend hours slaving away at my work like most
of my friends, and I still manage to do OK. It just never seemed
right to me to spend hour after hour locked away in some library
trying to achieve perfection when I could relax, have fun and do
good enough so that I wouldn’t ever have to tell my parents, "Um,
about this UCLA thing, it’s just not working out. Better get my
room ready."
I try to study every night. It never seems to work out. I
usually try to set a specific time when I’m sure I’ll study like a
madman for hours and hours, and then usually something suddenly
comes up. For example, a typical night of studying for me goes
something like this: After dinner at about 8 or 9, I whip out my
fat psychology books, with bright obnoxious yellow marker in hand,
ready to disfigure page after page of text.
Suddenly the phone rings. It’s a friend, he needs to talk about
his psycho girlfriend. Um, OK, I think I can spare a few minutes.
Three hours later, I return to my books. Dried up marker in the
wastebasket. I turn to my books again. My stomach suddenly
rumbles.
Fooooooood. I raid my fridge, nothing but green butter in there.
I call up a friend. A road trip to McDonald’s is arranged. Two
hours later we return. It is now 1 o’clock. I decide to study once
and for all in the living room. Bad move, the TV’s in there. An
episode of the A-Team and a bad HBO movie later I stumble my way to
my bedroom, vowing courageously to study tomorrow. Now I ask you:
whose fault is it that I couldn’t study? That’s right, the Man.
I’m not really too upset about my grades. I know a lot of people
who are doing a lot worse. Besides I’m convinced that you can
succeed at UCLA without really trying too hard. I am not
joking.
Come on, how many of you have ever ditched the majority of those
boring lectures for a class you never wanted to take in the first
place in one quarter and still managed to pull out that B- or C+.
See, I’m not the only one. You just have to know what classes are
OK to slack off in and which are the ones you always have to go to
no matter what. Advanced Electrical Engineering  bad class to
slack off in. Advanced Quentin Tarantino Cinema  go for
it.
It’s the thought of graduation that has really got me troubled.
Once school is over, the fun stops. You are thrown out into the
world with a tightly held diploma in your hand and a huge debt from
financial aid looming over you like smog from the 405. Then comes a
long-term job (hopefully, a high paying one), marriage, a mortgage,
kids, retirement and then BAM! Then there you are, an 80-year-old
with green Bermuda shorts, a grotesque polyester Hawaiian shirt,
crappy leather sandals and black socks sitting on some old lawn
chair on Miami beach downing bottles of Ensure and Geritol.
Aaaaaaaugh! OK, maybe I need to calm down and take a breather. I’m
still young and in control, damn it!
OK, that’s enough ranting and raving. This is my last article, I
should be more positive. Life is going well; I don’t really have
too much too worry about. Except for that chancellor business, is
it just me or does that new guy look a little too Stalinish? But I
guess that’s a whole different article.
In conclusion, I want to say it’s been fun writing for you guys.
Thanks to everybody who e-mailed me for all of your support and
appreciation. Special thanks to my editors who put up with my
constant delaying of deadlines. And to everybody who kept pestering
me day after day, week after week to put their names in the paper
 Monica, Zenia, Jen, Cammy, Kathy, Martin, Marc, Rich, Mike,
my Career Network committee, and my whole family  there you
go, told you I would. Bye everybody, good luck on finals!