There is a need for a refocusing of undergraduate education away from grades and tests toward learning. Education in primary school, secondary school and undergraduate programs emphasizes assessments and ranking of students to the detriment of learning. Students aren’t becoming problem-solvers and thinkers – rather, they are becoming study machines because that’s what gets them […]
Category Archives: Opinion Columns
Ara Shirinian: California budget revision would compromise quality of UC education
If the secret to good magic is misdirection, then Gov. Jerry Brown might soon be the next David Copperfield. On Thursday, Brown and University of California President Janet Napolitano announced a budget and tuition agreement as part of California’s May budget revision that will freeze tuition for the next two years for residents. This is […]
Arthur Wang: ‘Bloody Thursday’ defines lack of dialogue between UC, students
All of us cheered when Gov. Jerry Brown struck a “historic” deal with the University of California and its president, Janet Napolitano, freezing tuition increases for two years and promising annual 4 percent budgetary increases over the next four. But few of us, especially the student activists who were at the forefront of last year’s […]
Aram Ghoogasian: Nakba should be acknowledged while discussing Israel
For many Palestinians, today doesn’t mark 67 years since the Nakba, but rather 67 years of the Nakba. In 1948, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” that gave birth to the State of Israel. This tragedy has been compounded by the fact that, despite […]
Kunal Patel: Current UCLA outreach program inadequately serves women engineers
For as much effort as UCLA has put toward increasing its undergraduate diversity through outreach programs, one group of individuals – women in engineering – is consistently overlooked. It is quite troubling that as the field of engineering and its associated salaries have grown in the last few decades to contain many of the highest […]
Chloe Lew: Students must make effort to be allies in substance abuse recovery
Three years and four months sober, first-year psychology student Marissa Ericson still wakes up in the middle of the night from the same recurring dream of shooting up heroin, a drug she has never touched. For Ericson, who began drinking and smoking cigarettes at the age of 11 and underwent rehabilitation at 16, being a […]
Yiwei Sun: Napolitano must listen to undocumented students to earn trust
If the University of California held its national summit on undocumented students last week to improve its public image, the students in attendance made sure that effort did not go unchallenged. During UC President Janet Napolitano’s opening address at the summit – which convened students and policy experts to craft policy suggestions for undocumented student […]