William Zou: Midterm dates should be posted before enrollment begins

They say that fortune favors the prepared – yet, UCLA students frequently face sudden academic issues beyond their control that can easily derail their meticulously plotted-out course plans. Much of the blame lies in enrollment difficulties, and one of the most dire dilemmas that Bruins face during enrollment is the fact that while the school […]

Jacqueline Alvarez: Professors must work to engage students in large lectures

Hundreds of sleepy-looking Bruins slouch into their seats. The professor stands behind a podium, though it’s hard to determine whether he’s reading the lecture speech for the first or 50th time. An entire hour has passed since the audience was last prompted for questions, yet the room has collectively sent more than 50 Facebook messages […]

Aaron Julian: Californians must challenge ideological inconsistency shown in Prop. 66

California, a blue state that leads by example on most progressive policies, went red this past election cycle on an important issue. Somehow, the values of the Democratic Party and progressives alike proved baseless when the liberal populace of California voted not only to keep the death penalty via Proposition 66, but also chose to […]

Guillaume Kosmala: Easy-A classes perpetuate a broken, grade-centric educational system

Students are under a huge amount of pressure to find new ways to distinguish themselves in an increasingly oversaturated job market. As a result, they naturally gravitate toward any available shortcuts, such as easy-A general education classes. Unfortunately, this results in a world where students sacrifice intellectual exploration in favor of gaming a broken system […]

Keshav Tadimeti: Make 2017 the year of addressing ideological divides

2017 is finally upon us, and what better way to start things off than to make New Year’s resolutions you’ve probably already forgotten about? Okay, I kid. 2017 stands to be the roughest year thus far for many UCLA students, and not just because the next winter break is another 11 months away. After all, […]

Abhishek Shetty: Housing should eliminate stay-over fee and extend move-out deadline

Late Friday night, UCLA Housing employees will go door to door on the Hill to make sure that anyone who hasn’t paid the stay-over fee has left. The next day, at the break of dawn, they’ll come back and kick out anyone still in their room. This sounds less like a helpful move-out extension from […]

Jonathan Friedland: City councils should allow Westwood to achieve potential as college town

Think of a typical college town: bars and dispensaries galore, miles of bike lanes and stores that appeal to students. Now think of Westwood: two bars, virtually no bike lanes and full of niche stores like Sur La Table and Paper Source with almost no use for students. The blame falls on the Westwood Neighborhood […]