Abhishek Shetty: USAC should focus on more economic projects, not solar umbrellas

UCLA is currently en route to its goal of producing zero landfill waste by 2020. That goal is at the risk of hitting a roadblock if the Undergraduate Students Association Council Facilities Commission goes ahead and wastes money on expensive solar umbrellas. Using funding from The Green Initiative Fund, the commission is drafting a proposal […]

Abhishek Shetty: Danny Siegel should redirect his efforts to tackle housing affordability

Just five months ago, Danny Siegel rose to the office of Undergraduate Students Association Council president and made housing affordability one of the key parts of his platform. But now, as the academic year gets underway, he can’t afford to be vague on his proposals. Housing affordability is slowly becoming a major inconvenience for students […]

Abhishek Shetty: Misguided Volunteer Day projects miss opportunity for real impact

Last year, when I was a freshman on Volunteer Day, we were sent to EL ARCA, a center for adults with developmental disabilities. On a sweltering morning, ten of us were handed the job of painting a fence that was about 15 feet across, while the Volunteer Day leaders circled around and nodded in approval. […]

Abhishek Shetty: Students should avoid spending extra on ‘voluntourism’ opportunities

Each September, UCLA introduces a new class of excited freshmen. They’re brought here by stellar grades, extracurricular achievement, and for most, volunteer work. However, it’s far from clear who the beneficiaries of their volunteering work are. Volunteering is seen as an integral part of college applications, since it coveys how involved you are in social […]

Abhishek Shetty: Clinton’s college affordability plan traps students into workfare scheme

NPR reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders is ready to endorse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president on Tuesday, with her proposal to eliminate college tuition for certain students instigating the move. However, given his support for free college tuition, he might want to hold it off for now. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, […]

Abhishek Shetty: Kang must reach more students if he wants to improve campus equity

If Vice Chancellor Jerry Kang was a presidential candidate, he would be John Kasich. They’re both voices of relative sanity among the politically divisive and unconstructive noise around them that we should all make an attempt to listen to, regardless of our own views. But one difference between the two is that you know far […]

Abhishek Shetty: UCLA must do more to prepare students for the threat of earthquakes

“Locked, loaded and ready to roll.” When a seismologist speaking about a fault line has to take on his alter persona of a cowboy about to shoot from the hip, it might be best to pay more attention. That was how Thomas H. Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center described the San Andreas […]