William Bleveans: Crowded USAC election field likely to contribute to debased discourse

This year’s crowded field of undergraduate student government candidates may put the 17-strong field of 2016’s Republican presidential primary to shame. Eight candidates are running for Undergraduate Students Association Council president this year: five as independents, one from an established campus political slate and two from untested slates. Four candidates are running for external vice […]

Aaron Julian: Social media users must exert more responsibility over data

Last week, all of Washington, D.C. and countless others honed in on a hearing in Congress to watch Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, get grilled for the company’s breaches of user data. Congress launched volley after volley of questions, regarding topics ranging from the Cambridge Analytica breach, which involved a third-party web application scraping […]

Ani Gasparyan: Departments should offer more variety in, quantity of honors courses

University honors programs are known for offering rigorous coursework that requires students be fiercely dedicated to applying themselves academically. UCLA’s honors courses, however, aren’t just difficult to complete, they are difficult to get into. College Honors is an academic program that caters to students committed to enriching their academic careers by taking on the extra […]

Mariah Furtek: UCLA needs to paint clear path to art classes for non-art students

What do you call a liberal arts education without art classes? You had better ask UCLA to find out. UCLA students not majoring in art don’t have much of a chance to enroll in art classes. Lower division, introductory art classes – such as those covering ceramics and sculpture – are largely restricted to students […]

Clea Wurster: Privacy act must prevent gathering of consumer information without consent

If you haven’t recently considered going “off the grid” and deleting all social media accounts, you probably haven’t been paying attention to the news. Social media sites have been continually lambasted for information gathering and selling. Facebook collects your clicks, likes and reactions to posts and ads. Google records everything from what you search and […]

Omar Said: UCLA must hire diverse faculty for minority students to succeed

There weren’t many people for me to look up to when I grew up. Born and raised an Egyptian in California, I obviously had my parents, but I never really saw someone like me doing big things in science, politics or entertainment. It felt like I was living in a world that wasn’t built for […]

Selby Kia: UCLA needs more lecture halls, buildings to accommodate increased enrollment

It’s a new quarter, and as Bruins head to their classes with high hopes for a productive spring quarter, many will open their lecture hall doors only to find a seat on the floor. With an undergraduate population of 31,000 and only a handful of large lecture halls, it’s no surprise that UCLA is starved […]