Future Bruins: UCLA’s not perfect, but your time here can be

Whether it took a minute or a month, most Bruins have some recollection of the exciting yet slightly awkward time between being admitted to UCLA and actually choosing sunny West Los Angeles as their home.

Yesterday marked the beginning of a two-week, campus-wide welcome of prospective students, their parents and their worries.

In other words, it marked the tangible beginning of the period where the university not only admits students, but actively attempts to make sure they register.

Pamphlets will be handed out, banners put up, on-campus residence hall tours given, and prospective students will be whirled around the university, while being barraged with statistics: 100 NCAA team championships, more than 50,000 applicants a year, hundreds of student organizations that line Bruin Walk.

Though the myriad of enticing info points about all things UCLA can certainly stun thousands of eager high school seniors into thinking Westwood is the place for them, the rolling hills of a campus just south of Sunset are not all sun and games.

While the following few paragraphs will highlight information you may not find in promotional materials, they should be seen not as warnings against attending UCLA, but rather as glimpses into the reality of attending UCLA.

There are administrative issues that sometimes provide students with battles that not all are willing to, or capable of, fighting. When your major is impacted and there are only so many seats ““ even though there are quite a few seats in each class ““ it is frustrating.

Getting your loan or scholarships processed might take a while, which could breed stress when students leave the comforts of home for the reality of paying their college tuition and for housing.

Sitting in a class with 200 of your peers led by a professor with a resume longer than a detailed itinerary of everything you did last summer can be intimidating. Fast-paced quarters and fast-track lifestyles ““ traffic-filled drives to Hollywood, trips to Venice, experimentation with alcohol and other substances ““ can leave some lost and others depressed or left to face the consequences of poor decisions.

But none of the aforementioned reasons are legitimate excuses for excluding oneself from being a part of the Bruin experience.

As it is, students at UCLA become adept at shuffling their courses to meet both the demands of their schedules and the availability of a large campus. Dealing with enrollment and administrative issues may provide students with more “real world” skills than most of their classes actually will.

Dealing with a quarter system that throws you into papers and midterms before you are able to navigate the curves of Westwood’s apartment scene is a good lesson in realizing that college is about academics as much as it is about living a new life.

So what is the University of California, Los Angeles then?

A vibrant academic community made richer by a thriving athletic legacy, a prime climate and a versatile location, surrounded by world-famous, yet nuanced, urban landscapes? Or a cold, gigantic, pop culture behemoth of an institution in a mini-society free of reality and high on the superficial?

It is somewhere in between.

It is gigantic, but not at all cold. It is athletically gifted (understatement), but not every Bruin is living and dying over his or her bracket ““ even if most of us are at least hoping the tourney doesn’t end with this weekend’s Final Four performances.

UCLA may not be for all, but it is for many ““ maybe even many more than those who think so at first glance.

To borrow a cliche often uttered from the lips of representatives and recruiters, “There is no typical UCLA student.” There will be people here you dislike, people you appreciate, and, hopefully, people who inspire you in ways unknown to you before.

If you choose UCLA to be your home for the next four (or five or six) years, address the campus’s faults with awareness.

Get involved to make what at times will seem to be a large school more personal. Put yourself out there before everybody else has already formed their cliques ““ but never think your clique is complete. First or fourth, any year is another chance to expand your experiences through new relationships of all kinds.

Most importantly, however, do not let anyone else ““ professors, older classmates and Daily Bruin columnists included ““ tell you what your college experience should be.

Wondering if you have what it takes to be a Bruin? You do. E-mail other concerns to kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.

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