Swim and dive plunge into upcoming Pac-12 championships with a clear mind

With the regular season in the books, the Bruins’ focus will turn toward the postseason.

UCLA swim and dive (8-3, 4-3 Pac-12) will head to Federal Way, Washington, on Tuesday, where it will compete for five consecutive days in the Pac-12 championships. Eight other Pac-12 schools will partake in the competition, including Stanford, California, USC, Oregon State, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Washington State.

UCLA began the regular season with an eight-meet winning streak, but faltered down the stretch against Stanford, Cal and rival USC.

“Those were tough teams we played against near the end,” said coach Cyndi Gallagher. “But we had some really good performances against USC that I think show we’re in good shape for Pac-12s.”

Among those strong performers was senior swimmer Emma Schanz, who finished first in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 53.47. Despite the loss to USC, Schanz said she feels confident in both herself and her team as it heads into the postseason.

“As a team, we didn’t feel disappointed coming out of these games because they were tough competitors,” Schanz said. “This has definitely been one of our best overall seasons, and as a team, we’re really excited to compete and experience Pac-12s together.”

Unlike most of the meets the Bruins took part in this season, the Pac-12 Championships will be held at an indoor arena.

“We’re a lot happier that it’s indoors because we won’t have to hassle with any bad weather conditions,” Gallagher said. “It’s just straight competition, no outside factors involved.”

Heading into the Pac-12 Championships, the coaching staff continues to stress the importance of strong mental fortitude in the pool.

“For us, it’s really about managing those mental systems by minimizing anxiety, maximizing confidence, and allowing the dives to flow through them,” said diving coach Tom Stebbins. “When they try to force things or rush parts of their dive, it tends to mess things up.”

Gallagher echoed Stebbins’ attitude, hoping the team focuses more on the joy of competing rather than the possibility of failure.

“They’re smart kids, so they have a tendency to overanalyze everything,” Gallagher said. “Having that joy, fun and relaxed confidence that we’ve had all year is key to good execution. We won’t dwell on the things that don’t go our way.”

Competition will begin Wednesday morning.

Enrollment system creates crisis for students unable to take necessary classes

Time to map out your class schedule, watch the number of spots left in each course plummet with every page refresh and ultimately rearrange your academic plan while hoping you don’t have to reinvent your career.

Every midquarter enrollment pass feels like a midlife crisis.

Impacted class designations are given out by the Faculty Executive Committee, an elected group of faculty members that serves as an advisory and governing body within the College of Letters and Science. It considers a few main criteria: a class’ enrollment demand, its instructor-to-student ratio and its required resources. Most laboratory or Writing II requirement courses also qualify as impacted.

UCLA has 173 impacted classes. These can fill up quickly, which means they’re nearly impossible for some students to take.

The departments with the most impacted courses are the chemistry and biochemistry department and the psychology department, which already have prerequisites with overwhelming demand.

Students must take impacted courses within a certain window of time to declare their majors and take higher-level courses. But even if they’re doing everything right, the limited amount of space in these popular courses can mean they either have to spend extra quarters on campus or abandon their majors altogether.

Enrollment at the nation’s No. 1 public university is clearly broken. And UCLA is fine with that.

It feels ridiculous that for many, the hardest part of pursuing a major is simply getting a seat. It’s even more concerning that few administrators have any idea how to address this.

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Before declaring a major, a student must first work their way through long a list of impacted prerequisite classes. For example, pre-psychology students must take Psychology 100B before the fall of their third year to declare the psychology major, but must take Statistics 10, Psychology 10 and Psychology 100A before they can do so. And although Psychology 100B is in extremely high demand, only one lecture has been offered each quarter for the past year.

Melina Solomon-Dorian, the undergraduate advising supervisor for the psychology department, said in an email statement the number of courses offered and the size of courses is determined not only by curricular need, but also by limitations, such as classroom space, instructor and teaching assistant availability and workload guidelines set by the TA union.

“The (psychology department) houses some of the most popular majors on campus, and although the student population is growing rapidly, resources are not growing at the same rate,” she said. “In light of this, the department faculty and staff continually reassess needs and have modified course sizes over the years to ensure timely graduation of our students.”

For many students, this has not been enough.

Bridgett Kiernan, a second-year pre-psychology student, has been unable to enroll in Psychology 100B for the past two quarters since the course and its waitlist have filled up long before her first enrollment pass.

“In order to declare my major, all I have left to do is take this one class,” Kiernan said. “I’m trying everything I can to do that, and I keep getting told (by the department) I can’t.”

These delays can jeopardize students’ college careers.

Manuela Guyot, a second-year microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student, says she’s struggled to get into many of the core classes she needs as a pre-med student.

“It’s super frustrating because we all have to take (a) physics series, but the lectures have super limited spots, so we often can’t start our series on time,” Guyot said. “I already can’t go abroad and have to take classes every summer because I couldn’t get a spot in the Physics 5 series.”

Students like Guyot are thrust into situations where they have to bend over backward – whether that’s paying summer tuition, overloading themselves with five classes per quarter or petitioning to graduate at a later time.

And these Bruins aren’t getting much help. Kiernan said she emailed the psychology department to get a petition to enroll in Psychology 100B, but got an email advising her to attend drop-in counseling hours and reconsider her eligibility for the psychology major.

“I came into college knowing I wanted to do psychology, and UCLA accepted me as a pre-psychology major. It’s what I’m passionate about, and I’m scared I can’t do it at all now,” she said. “How can I be told that I might not be eligible to be a pre-psychology or psychology student when (UCLA) accepted me into this school as one?”

The university has options for solving this issue. It could expand lecture halls so classes can physically hold more students. It could hire more professors and TAs to offer more lectures. And yet, we’ve seen few of these kinds of developments.

Certainly, UCLA students signed up to attend a campus where resources are thinly spread across a large population. But the university makes a guarantee to students when it admits them: You can come here, get a top-notch education and walk out with a reputable degree in the major you applied to.

That’s a promise we hardly see today.

Bruins come to Westwood to pursue their passions because UCLA told them they could. What none of us signed up for, though, is a midquarter crisis every four months.

Bruin Tea: Who is the oldest and the youngest student at UCLA?

Quarter system got you down? Have you fallen and can’t get up? Bruin Tea is a series investigating student questions and petty concerns about UCLA.

Question: Who is the oldest and the youngest student at UCLA?

Michelle Chiang, a third-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student, is the youngest student at UCLA.

Chiang turned 17 on Sunday.

Chiang was home-schooled until the age of 14, when she started college through California State University, Los Angeles’ Early Entrance Program, an accelerated education program that allows students aged 11 to 16 to start college early.

“I started kind of in the middle range of 14,” Chiang said. “I just transferred to UCLA this year, actually.”

Chiang said socializing with older students has helped her acclimate to a college environment. She added that most of her classmates can’t tell that she is younger than them.

“Only the friends I talk to on a daily basis actually know because eventually they find out (my age),” Chiang said. “I don’t think it’s been a problem because usually when people find out (my age) the first thing I ask is ‘Oh, could you tell?’ and they usually say no.”

Chiang said she plans to pursue a career in dentistry.

“Starting early gives me an advantage, so I won’t be in school until my thirties. … I’m really grateful for that opportunity,” Chiang said.

The oldest student on campus declined to comment and did not want to share their information with the Daily Bruin.

TL;DR: The youngest student on campus is 17 and a third-year MCDB student.

Learning assistant program expands to reach more students in various disciplines

Learning assistants are being integrated into more STEM courses and introduced to North Campus courses.

The Undergraduate Learning Assistant Program allows students who have done well in a course in the past to assist current students, according to the Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences website. LAs attend lectures, office hours and discussion and lab sections along with students and teaching assistants.

LAs will now be integrated into all introductory life science courses, computer science courses and physics courses, said Shanna Shaked, the director of the LA program and a physics professor. She added the program expanded rapidly from 2016-2018 due to increased grant funding and greater faculty interest.

“We are getting increased numbers of faculty requesting LAs, either in intro STEM courses or in upper division and GE courses,” Shaked said. “We do our best to accommodate these requests within the constraints of LA program funding.”

LAs have typically accompanied teaching assistants in STEM courses to provide additional help to students, but will now begin doing the same for North Campus courses.

Shaked said the program was originally created for STEM courses, but added she encourages expanding it to North Campus courses.

“When North Campus departments approach me, I’m happy to talk about how it could fit,” Shaked said. “A lot of the background techniques should be applicable for any type of learning.”

Shaked added that LAs serve a different purpose than teaching assistants do and focus more on encouraging discussion rather than providing instruction.

“It’s different from a TA, because they’re not intended to present a lot of information or be at the front explaining things to students,” Shaked said. “They sit with students and ask them questions to help them better understand concepts.”

Shaked added that more than 95 percent of students said in a survey they think LAs are helpful in the classroom.

“It seems to be expanding not because we’re really pushing it on people but because more and more faculty are asking for them,” Shaked said.

Timothy Hamilton, an LA and a fourth-year molecular cell and developmental biology student, said the LA Program aims to reduce achievement gaps between students by providing equal learning opportunities for everyone in a class.

Hamilton added that the program is working to expand to all classes offered at the university.

Gianna Uy, a first-year human biology and society student, said she appreciates having LAs in her courses and feels they have improved her learning experience as a STEM student.

“LAs are really helpful because they’re more approachable than professors or TAs and have taken the class so they have firsthand experience,” Uy said. “I think North Campus classes should incorporate LAs too because they would be helpful in any discipline.”

Irene Kim, a first-year economics student, said she has never had an LA in any of her courses but hopes to have them in the future.

“I have never personally had an LA in one of my classes,” Kim said, “So I think it would be helpful to incorporate them into more undergrad classes so people of every major can benefit from the additional help.”

Five men disrupt chemistry class by performing keg stands

Five men disrupted a chemistry lecture Feb. 20 by doing keg stands in front of the class, a stunt which students said they think was likely performed for a YouTube prank video.

Ohyun Kwon, a professor of organic chemistry, said she first noticed a lot of chatter outside her Chemistry 30C lecture in Young Hall CS 76 and asked one of the teaching assistants in her class to go out and check what was happpening. Soon after, the men entered through the back of the lecture hall. One stood in the back of the class and interrupted Kwon’s lecture.

“I feel like we need a mid-class study break,” he said, as heard in the BruinCast recording. “Let’s do keg stands!”

In a matter of seconds, the men rushed to the front of the room and performed two keg stands.

Many students said a camera was set up in the back of the room to record the incident, leading them to believe that the stunt was performed for a prank video.

One of the participants was Kristen Hanby, a YouTuber with over 1 million subscribers. Another participant was Evan Eckenrode, who has over 2 million YouTube subscribers.

Hanby did not respond to request for comment.

Kwon said the incident happened so quickly she didn’t have time to object.

“It all happened so fast,” she said. “I turned around to write something, and the next minute, there are a whole bunch of guys with a keg.”

She said she considered yelling at the individuals who barged in the classroom but decided to remain silent to let the disruption pass as quickly as possible.

“I thought it would be a minute or less of hoopla, so I just let them be,” Kwon said.

The men were in and out of the room within five minutes. They were in front of the classroom for less than two.

Kwon said she resumed teaching after the incident. Although the interruption was brief, she said it disrupted the focus of the classroom.

“The concentration was broken,” Kwon said. “It was very unfortunate.”

She added she thinks UCPD should work to prevent incidents like these.

UCPD Lt. Kevin Kilgore said UCPD did not hear about the incident, but people should contact them if similar situations happen in the future.

“We encourage people to utilize us as a resource for them and we can be of assistance and try to mitigate these matters,” Kilgore said.

Angelina Kim, a second-year chemistry student, said she thinks nobody in the class called UCPD because they did not think the incident qualified as a crime or a breach of safety that warranted police intervention.

“It’s hard to classify it as a crime because they weren’t doing anything that would harm us,” Kim said.

Kim said most of the students in the class felt annoyed by the interruption because the class was preparing for an upcoming midterm.

“I just thought it was a nuisance,” Kim said. “This (was) not the right time for this.”

Although incidents like these are not necessarily common, this was not a first.

In January 2018, Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, a YouTuber with over 9 million subscribers, uploaded three different videos of various pranks at UCLA. His stunts included listening to moaning noises in Powell Library and having students use pick-up lines on each other on Janss lawn. Zdorovetskiy was removed from Powell Library by library staff in one video after students reported he was disturbing library activities.

In October 2017, Jag Singh, a YouTuber with over 1 million subscribers, disturbed students in Charles E. Young Research Library by playing music out loud while students were studying.

Kilgore said UCPD can only address these issues if witnesses report them.

“We’re always happy to look into them, we just need to know about them,” Kilgore said. “If we don’t know about them, we can’t do anything about them.”

UCPath makes plan to compensate for its payroll inaccuracies

The University of California will pay student employees to compensate for widespread issues with a new payroll system.

The system, University of California Payroll, Academic Personnel, Timekeeping and Human Resources, was implemented at UCLA in September. Since then, hundreds of students have reported paycheck inaccuracies and missed paychecks.

The UC announced Tuesday it would compensate affected student employees with $150 each in addition to their normal wages if they experienced issues for one month. If an employee’s issues persisted for more than one month, each employee will receive additional compensation up to $450, according to a joint press release from the UC and the UC Student-Workers Union Local 2865.

The UC and United Auto Workers Local 2865, which represents student workers, including teaching assistants and graduate student instructors, have been working to address the issues with UCPath over the past few months. They agreed on the $150 payout to alleviate financial hardships that the pay inaccuracies have imposed on students, according to the press release.

UC and UAW Local 2865 representatives did not immediately respond to request for comment.

In a separate press release, UAW Local 2865 representatives said they were proud they were able to get the settlement because they did not have many other ways to seek reparations, according to the press release.

The UC is exempt from most state wage theft laws, which prevents affected employees from pursuing legal action against the UC, according to the press release.

UCPath has also been implemented at UC Merced, UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara. It will be implemented at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC School of Agriculture and Natural Resources on Friday.

 

Students sell vintage clothing pieces with meaning through social media shops

While browsing through a vintage shop, Artemis Mansur found an embroidered vest. She checked the tag, learned that it was handmade in Vietnam in the 1950s, and decided it was so special that she had to buy it, she said.

The second-year communication and psychology student and fourth-year design media arts student Maddy Pease share a passion for collecting vintage clothes that led to the launch of their online shop, Cherry Pickings Vintage. The store operates through the brand’s Instagram and Depop accounts, which they opened in January. Through their affinity for fashion, they hope to sell pieces from the past that hold stories of previous owners, said Mansur.

“It’s really nice … to find customers that are like, ‘Wow, I love this because it’s a piece nobody else in the world has right now.’ And the way I look at clothes, it’s an investment,” Mansur said. “You can put something on to encompass how you feel that day, and I think that’s really special and that’s what we try to do.”

Mansur said it is difficult for her to define vintage clothing because it does not necessarily fall into one fashion category and includes clothes from all places and times. The two founders purchase pieces for Cherry Pickings Vintage when they travel for leisure – their inventory now ranges in origin from Paris to San Francisco, and some pieces were made as early as the 1940s. For example, she found a bag at a vintage pop-up shop in Venice Beach which was made by a designer from Barcelona. The defining factor for clothes they consider vintage, Mansur said, is that customers can only find those pieces from a smaller brand.

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Pease said vintage collections also have appeal due to their durability. The durability and quality of the clothes they sell shows in how well they hold up over time. Something bought from Forever 21 usually falls apart after you wash it due to the mass production of fast fashion, Pease said, but vintage clothing sells better because it has survived for so long.

“If a piece of clothing has survived like 80 years, it’s good quality; it’s going to survive for 80 more years,” she said. “That’s the difference between vintage and stuff that’s being made now.”

Because they sell through social media, Cherry Pickings Vintage keeps in close communication with people who order from them. Reagan Zimmerer, a fourth-year student at Pepperdine University and a customer of Cherry Pickings Vintage, said supporting Pease’s and Mansur’s shop feels more personable than buying in-store because she is able to talk directly to the store’s owners. Cherry Pickings Vintage sold her a silk turquoise set for $45 along with a cheetah-print purse for $55, she said.

As vintage fashion becomes more popular, Cherry Pickings Vintage offers clothing that stands out from the bulk-produced options available to anyone at a mall, Zimmerer said.

“I think it’s really cool buying vintage because somebody else has owned this piece before you and there’s so many stories that probably that go behind that purse, or that sweater or that jacket,” Zimmerer said. “People have lived their lives through (the pieces) and then you get to have it and continue its history.”

[RELATED: Online thrifted clothing platform offers affordability, convenience to students]

Cherry Pickings Vintage tries to differentiate the shopping experience from shopping at thrift stores, Mansur said. To make it easier for the customer, Mansur said the shop showcases the pieces by styling them as a part of a complete outfit and creating a cohesive look. Buying from Cherry Pickings Vintage helps customers avoid spending hours searching through clothes on a rack, Mansur said.

“It’s time-consuming to go to thrift stores or go to vintage stores and sift through things (to create a complete look),” Mansur said. “So by us curating it ourselves, making an outfit out of it and modeling, it pretty much puts it right in front of the customers – here’s how you can style it, here it is ready to buy.”

To advertise and sell their pieces, Mansur and Pease separate them into different collections. They have recently released a line titled “LA Times” which is meant to encapsulate the business-chic customer who pairs dresses with blazers, Pease said. The clothes in this collection have more structured silhouettes, Mansur said, as opposed to their spring collection which will include looser slips, see-through styles and pastel colors.

Pease said a vintage aesthetic is something Cherry Pickings Vintage also focuses on for their marketing. She takes photos for the brand, sometimes implementing her own film photography style. For example, she said they took the photos for their business-oriented collection in Downtown LA and hope to do a future shoot for a Western line in Joshua Tree National Park.

Mansur said Cherry Pickings Vintage’s future growth will come naturally with the tendency for people to buy their clothes online. Even though the pieces are old, Mansur said, they are still styles that have remained relevant and can be worn today.

“I wouldn’t say that any of our looks that we style are archaic. You know, it’s like you could wear (their pieces) today, and it would be relevant today,” Mansur said. “It’s just the way that you mix the old and the new that really makes it what it is.”