After picking up my visiting friend from the airport two weeks
ago, I was disgusted at the first thing that came out of her
mouth.
Not “How have you been?” or “What’s been
happening at school?” but rather, she asked me “What
celebrities do you think we’ll run into at UCLA this
week?”
I didn’t even feel like answering her question, one that
I’m sure many others have also heard when showing out-of-town
friends around campus. At the same time though, I realized that she
wasn’t exactly the one at fault.
As Bruins, we’re sometimes guilty of bragging to our
friends and family back home about the celebrity encounters we have
frequently, whether it’s interacting with Kevin Spacey at a
question- and-answer session in Westwood or asking for Mike
Myers’ autograph after the Jack Benny Awards.
Sure, try to deny it, but we’ve all contributed a little
in making UCLA appear to be an academic front for a star-gazing
observatory of celebrities and movie stars, and quite frankly,
there’s no one here to blame but ourselves.
Many of us don’t realize that each time we gush with
stories about celebrity sightings and movie premieres in town,
rather than other aspects of our campus life, we’ve
diminished everything else that is great about our education and
our school. Each time our celebrity run-ins are the first thing we
talk about when we catch up with friends and family from back home,
we make everything else about our experiences at UCLA seem even
less important.
Why not talk about that great professor you had this quarter? Or
the awesome on-campus theater performance you saw last weekend?
Instead of telling your parents that you saw Pete Sampras
playing tennis this afternoon, or that you spotted Ozzy Osbourne
buying organically grown peaches at Whole Foods, tell them
something that shows them your education at UCLA has consisted of
more than just learning about the best way to get someone’s
attention from the bleachers at red carpet arrivals. It may be hard
to forget that we live only steps away from Hollywood when Sunset
Boulevard is lined with dozens of entrepreneurs selling maps to
stars’ homes for $10, but let’s try to focus at least a
little and pretend that we don’t care.
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s exciting to
play basketball with Master P at the Wooden Center, or jog past
Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell on the track at Drake Stadium. But
they are just people. They became successful because they focused
on their work. If there’s anything you should get from a
celebrity sighting, it’s that you should work hard too.
So next time a movie is shooting on campus or TV cameras are
rolling, I challenge you to walk by without a head turn or a neck
stretch above the crowd. Your college education is teaching you to
be more than that.