Benefactors may be nice, but they will come back to haunt you. Or at least their political ambitions will. The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law was recently trapped in controversy when it announced its intention to eliminate the name “Boalt” from a building, several alumni groups and about 120 other university institutions. John […]
Category Archives: Opinion Columns
Orientation needs an update to support new Bruin transfers as much as freshmen
I came to Transfer Student Orientation at 7 a.m. on a Friday, wide-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to start my journey as a Bruin. Fast forward 10 hours and I was frantically running around the Hill, hair wild, eyes bloodshot, laptop in one hand, my phone in the other, scouring Google Maps to figure out where […]
Financial aid’s lack of clarity, transparency makes university less accessible
It’s no secret that attending college is more expensive than it’s ever been. As a public institution, UCLA has tried to be affordable to students regardless of their socio-economic status. While UCLA frequently touts the numbers of how many students receive aid, what it often glosses over is how complex and elusive the financial aid […]
UCLA’s inadequate career counseling fails to prepare job-hunting Bruins
UCLA objectively trumps many universities in most regards – but there are some things that we can learn from other schools. Providing good career services, for example. UCLA emphasizes providing students with a top-notch education. However, classes generally focus on subject matter mastery, rather than preparing students for their intended career paths. While this greatly […]
Course readers continue to burden students’ wallets, lines pockets of publishers
Westwood may seem safe on the surface, but, as any student could tell you, it’s an academic wild west. Like a stray bullet in the midst of a bar fight, this student was hit by a painful surprise this quarter: an $80 charge for a course reader. Course readers are paper-bound, custom-printed collections of materials […]
Richard Sander’s lawsuit against the UC is more about politics than transparency
Affirmative action’s days may be numbered due to an academic’s (pur)suit for the numbers. When UCLA School of Law professor Richard Sander filed his lawsuit against University of California two weeks ago, it was not to ban affirmative action. That – specifically, race-conscious admissions, the practice most often associated with affirmative action as a general […]
Financial literacy education at orientation would help alleviate future stress
“Broke college students” is our self-proclaimed name – and we own it. But why can’t we be Bruins on a budget? First-year students may be excited to take on the world as they join UCLA, but the reality of how expensive their Uber rides or restaurant meals are hits hard and quickly. The first year […]