Daily Bruin – Page 29

The Quad: Community cap-and-frowns upon graduation traditions, explores sustainable alternatives

Graduating seniors, what legacy are you leaving behind this year?

Many will say good memories and lifelong friendships. But as graduation season kicks off, confetti begins to line Janss Steps and orders of one-use caps, gowns and sashes begin to fly in, and it becomes clearer that the legacy left behind might not be so environmentally friendly.

We’ve come to see this as a tradition for the typical college graduate – graduation photoshoots with confetti and glitter become a must. What isn’t so obvious is the environmental harm that lies in these seemingly innocent pieces of plastic.

Confetti is classified as a microplastic, and because of its small size, it easily enters water pathways and oceans. These small-but-deadly bits of plastic contribute to the current 800 tons of plastic that flow into our oceans every year and have a lifespan of hundreds of years.

Associate professor Deepak Rajagopal of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability said that confetti’s damaging presence on campus is due to its size.

“These small bits of colorful plastic … are a problem because they’re very hard to clean,” Rajagopal said. “No one’s going to collect it.”

A quick walk on Janss Steps or past Royce Hall makes it clear that these colorful specks of plastic have taken over Bruin territory.

First-year environmental science student, Director of Advocacy and Outreach for Team Green at UCLA and next year’s Director of Sustainability Jasleen Kahlon said that graduation-related litter all around UCLA’s campus has been sad to see.

“(Students) are hardly thinking of the effects of pollution and littering,” Kahlon said. “So many of our environmental issues that are (supposedly) difficult to tackle are a matter of convenience – this is just people being ignorant.”

Luckily, there are sustainable alternatives so UCLA students don’t have to sacrifice sparkle in their photos.

Companies such as Ecofetti have taken note of the environmental dangers of microplastics such as traditional confetti, and have since created a “water-soluble, non-toxic and biodegradable alternative.”

“People need to realize that there are eco-friendly ways to celebrate and take creative photos,” Kahlon said. “Making confetti out of leaves by hole-punching dry ones or scattering flower petals (are more sustainable options).”

UCLA students, for the most part, have become increasingly aware of what items they’re using while celebrating, said Justin Wisor, the Director of Custodial and Grounds at UCLA Facilities Management. He attributes this increasingly sustainability oriented sentiment as the source of general decrease in the presence of confetti during the graduation season.

But confetti is just one part of the problem. Graduation products such as caps, gowns and sashes leave behind a carbon footprint due to their unsustainable materials, as well as their one-use culture.

According to the The Robin Report, producing the amount of polyester fiber needed for one T-shirt emits twice as much carbon dioxide as for a cotton T-shirt.

Harmful materials aside, the one-use culture of caps, gowns and sashes also takes a toll on the environmental sustainability in graduation festivities. Approximately five million graduation gowns go to the landfill each year.

To remedy this, Kahlon suggests that UCLA implement a reuse program for caps and gowns, with a total or partial refund to students for returning their items.

“People often like to buy (their cap and gown) and keep it, but I’m not so sentimental about it,” Rajagopal said. “When I graduated from graduate school, I rented it for $75.”

Many big-name graduation companies such as Herff Jones and Jostens have taken the initiative in creating eco-friendly alternatives to the traditional cap and gown. Herff Jones now offers both a rental and keeper gown option, which are both made from 100% recycled materials. Jostens has also come out with the REsponsible REgalia™ line, whereby all keepsake gowns are 100% biodegradable.

Kahlon thinks that making a bigger deal about the issue will force students to give their actions more thought.

“It might be a really good idea for us to host a workshop on eco-decorating for celebratory events and grad photos,” Kahlon said. “There are tons of ways to get creative with this, from confetti and photo materials to decorating for parties to gift wrap.”

In order to counter this tendency for students to partake in graduation festivities without regard for the environment, a one-time fix such as an eco-friendly alternative to confetti may not be the long-term answer. Rajagopal said that it is instead necessary to view environmentalism as ethics to live by.

“Environmentalism has to be part of you, instead of a one-time thing. It’s something that we have to introduce through school to our kids at a young age, in college and in life after they graduate,” Rajagopal said. “That’s the culture we need.”

The Quad: Personalized laptop art invites UCLA community to stick together

Human beings, unlike laptops, are not neutrally monochrome.

Tech companies devised the laptop on the premise of efficiency and mobility and as a result, its appearance is sleek and simple.

Since then, the computer has become a more personal item. We went from being disconnected to our devices to keeping them – as the name implies – sitting in our laps.

As I wandered into the multiple coffee shops in Westwood, the laptop-as-an-extension-of-the-body phenomena was crystal clear. As add-on body parts, laptops are adorned and personalized, shaped and branded.

They not only shout out where their owner is from or what they like to eat, but also the places they’ve traveled, the sports team they subscribe to, their political beliefs and so much more. Students coat the stainless steel exterior of their computers with stickers, rebelling against the idea of being ordinary.

When people sit in crowded coffee shops, hunched over their laptops with headphones blocking out the rest of the world, it seems like social interaction is impossible. Laptop stickers, however, could provide a new alternative.

Still, trying to talk to people about their personalized designs was incredibly intimidating. The laptops seemed to work as an isolating barrier, a fort that I felt insecure about pushing through – especially when talking to complete strangers.

Laptop stickers often serve as art projects, creative outlets for students who refuse to have dull run-of-the-mill personal belongings.

Soli Rachwal, a third-year gender studies student, has an artistic collage consisting of maps, old movie posters and a large ostrich sticking out its tongue. Her funky creation is not only a reflection of her artistic skills, but reminds her of friends and family.

“My dad is a graphic designer, and before the internet they had these books with different-themed images. My friends came over one day and we cut some of them up. It was very fun and I think it turned out pretty cool. I always get a lot of compliments on it,” Rachwal said.

Some laptop designs take an artistic route, but the same cannot be said for everyone. Sometimes, the sticker selection is not carefully curated, but instead serves the practical purpose of recognition in a sea of similar-looking products.

This is a case for Aishwarya Natarajan, a third-year molecular, cell, and developmental biology student. She said that she does not think about the stickers she has, but she instead collects them randomly in order to personalize her belongings.

“Most of the stickers are things I get at work, on Bruinwalk or things my friends give me. I have never gone out of my way to buy stickers or anything like that. I use them to be able to recognize my water bottle since there are so many Hydro Flasks ,” Natarajan said.

Whether meticulous, artistic or random, these stickers enhance our personal belongings, perhaps even helping to give our possessions a second life.

“It’s such an old bottle that was getting chipped, so I just kind of covered it up with stickers instead of buying a new one,” Natajaran said.

Interestingly, I felt like I knew a lot about the students I talked to after chatting for only a couple of minutes. Whether we chatted about their places of work, political beliefs, religions, close relationships, or that they simply happened to walk down Bruinwalk on a certain day, it became clear that these stickers encourage conversation.

They provoke curiosity, and a desire to learn about those around us. In a school of more than 30,000 undergraduates, this bid to reach out to each other is extremely valuable.

When I spoke to Sophie Kehl, a first-year geology student about her stickers, not only did I learn about her love for environmental awareness – and K-Pop boy bands – but I also was pushed to see the things we had in common. Like me, one of Kehl’s greatest achievements was her admission to UCLA. She chose to celebrate it with a blue and gold sticker that covered almost all of her laptop cover.

“I decided to start decorating it when I got into UCLA and put that first sticker as a sign of commitment. I guess I always loved it when I saw people with a bunch of stickers and so I decided to do it myself,” Kehl said.

As I was getting ready to leave one of the coffee shops, I was feeling very satisfied with the conversations I had. Even though they were nothing out of the ordinary, they represented an act of bravery for me – I was able to get through the fort-like barrier of our technology and approach fellow members of the UCLA community as human beings.

With everyone hidden behind the top lid of their laptops, it can be hard to see the faces of people around us at times. As the laptop cover takes over as the face we show the world, it makes sense that we want to adorn it – to make it more human and less machine.

As I was packing up my own laptop, Rachwal turned the question on me.

“I’m curious now, what do you have on your laptop?” she said.

The Quad: Seniors innovate worn out phrase to illustrate and reclaim post-grad life

Class of 2019, prepare to enter the real world.

The phrase “real world” has joined the ranks of “We did it” and “As we enter the next chapter of our lives … ” as an integral part of the clichéd graduation rhetoric. But, despite its popularity, the phrase’s meaning remains remarkably vague.

One would think graduating seniors would have a grasp on what is meant by the concept of the “real world,” given the amount of times they have inevitably heard it from relatives, teachers, mentors or even the occasional interposing stranger.

For Katie Kim, a graduating fourth-year communication student, one main component of the “real world” is the lack of a clear path for individuals to follow – a situation that, up until now, has been absent from the lives of many students.

“(There’s) no longer really structure, because I feel like from now up until high school, middle school and elementary school, you have kind of this plan of what you need to be doing. Then once you graduate, it’s kind of like, you could wake up tomorrow and decide to move to another country,” Kim said.

Marie Vazquez, a graduating fourth-year Chicana/o studies student, echoes Kim’s idea of the liberty of the real world, but slightly differently. Though Vazquez emphasizes financial independence as a requirement in the real world, she also points to the crafting of a career around one’s passion as a freedom that can be enjoyed in the real world.

Vazquez and Kim both draw attention to the beauty in the liberty of the real world. However, there are other aspects to this liberty that can be intimidating.

For Paul Sedaros, a graduating physiological sciences student, the “real world” includes being responsible for one’s own actions and finances and being a contributing member of society. Additionally, he believes that there are forms of support in school that will not be present in the real world.

web.quad.gradissue.KM.jpg — Paul Sedaros, a graduating fourth-year physiological sciences student, said that to him the “real world” means that when he leaves UCLA, he’ll have to be responsible for his actions and finances. (Kanishka Mehra/Assistant Photo editor)

“In a chemistry class, you have someone that’s teaching you the material and kind of preparing you for an exam that you’re going to take, but once you really enter the real world, sometimes you’re going to have to learn things on your own at certain points in time,” Sedaros said.

Sedaros also emphasized that this concept of the “real world” varies from person to person.

Though the students’ respective interpretations of the “real world” varied, most of them agreed that there was an element of greater financial responsibility implied in the term. However, there was variation in this common theme based on students’ personal financial situations and experiences.

Tyler Catudioc, a graduating psychology student, shared her experience of working while being a student.

“Where I’ve come from, I kind of had to grow up fast. All of college I think I’ve at least had one job the whole time if not two jobs and an internship and been in clubs and stuff like that,” Catudioc said.

Many college students have jobs while in school with varying workloads and levels of commitment.

In a February 2018 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, more than half of all college students were shown to be financially independent. In fact, about half of independent students had dependent children of their own.

The idea that an increased financial responsibility is a corollary to graduation from college may not be the case. One student’s financial obligation may drastically change after graduation while another student’s may remain exactly the same. Thus, there appears to be no rigid boundary between college and the “real world” as a consequence of there being no typical student.

Though the “real world” seems to have something to do with freedom, financial responsibility and finding one’s way, there is no single definition for it.

However, one thread that seems to be common in all conceptions of the “real world” is the element of change and new beginnings.

After all, a college education is a means to a variety of ends that are intended to augment the lives of their recipients: a degree to enter a certain field, expanded knowledge or simply personal fulfillment.

Regardless of one’s personal circumstances, all graduates are bonded in their pursuit of a better future. Everyone’s idea of the “real world” is a little different, but the prospect of its arrival produces mixed feelings of excitement, apprehension and curiosity that are universal.

“Everyone here is in the building blocks of their life,” Catudioc said. “You’re preparing for the real world; for the rest of your life. I feel like that should be the most exciting thing because you actually get to live out what you’ve been preparing for.”

The Quad: Students reflect on 2016 active shooter situation in wake of broader school shootings

Fourth-year theater student Vivi Le still remembers waking up in her Dykstra dorm room to the loud whir of helicopters and to a phone blown up with missed calls and messages.

Le was not alone in her atypical start to the morning June 1, 2016. Thousands of UCLA students woke up to the alarming news of an active shooter on their own campus, and many more received the news only steps away from the active site.

The UCLA community was forced to think about the unthinkable – a school shooting on their home turf. Three years later, graduating seniors look back on this tragedy as an event that has taught the community a simultaneous fragility alongside resilience, but that still remains a frightening reality that can never be erased.

It all started on the morning of June 1, 2016.

At around 10 a.m., all UCLA students received a BruinAlert informing them of a shooting at the Engineering IV building, commencing a school-wide lockdown.

Fourth-year history student Hubert Liu was passing the Bruin Bear on his way to class when he picked up a phone call from a friend who instructed Liu to turn around and go home straight away.

When Liu got back to his dorm, he learned that there had been a shooting on campus and immediately sought out as much information as he could get from online news outlets.

“At that point I was feeling more confused about what was happening rather than scared because I had too little information to work with,” Liu said.

Many students and faculty shared similar sentiments to Liu, whose initial feelings of confusion preceded any kind of fear. Students earnestly sought updates and clarification about the situation through word of mouth, news outlets and social media.

“You would think that the students who were actually in the school would get the fastest updates, but we were getting our information from the news as if we were outsiders,” Le said.

For many, fear took over with the spread of rumors through the community. One widely spread speculation stated that there were four active shooters, each targeting different parts of the UCLA grounds: North Campus, South Campus, the Hill and the apartments.

Director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, Melissa Brymer, said an individual is likely to feel at peak distress in a lockdown when forced to navigate conflicting information.

“Whether it be from Twitter or from the BruinAlerts, notifications were neither clear nor regular enough,” Brymer said.

Students who had earlier starts to their day on campus were confronted more closely with danger.

Fourth-year psychology student Nicholas Eittreim was waiting for his Chemistry 14C lecture to start in Moore Hall 100 when he and his classmates were notified of a shooting that had occurred in a building right around the corner.

Eittreim said he remembers being the most scared when they heard someone rattling the doors, trying to get into the lecture room.

“People were screaming and crying and trying to hide in between the seat aisles,” Eittreim said. “Overtime, my anxiety started increasing as I tried to grapple with conspiracies and speculations.”

The entire UCLA body was struck with fear about the possibility of an uncontained shooting.

“I felt afraid because I learned to assume the worst in situations like this,” Liu said.

At around noon, the campus reopened with a clearing from the LAPD. The shooting of two men was deemed a murder-suicide, and the gunman was later identified to be former UCLA doctoral student Mainak Sarkar and the victim, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering William Klug.

Merlene Alonso, a fourth-year Latin American studies student was working her morning shift at the Sproul Hall front desk at the time.

After the lockdown was lifted, Alonso said she saw students coming back to their dorms from campus, and never forgot the looks of fear and anxiety on their faces after having experienced such a traumatic event just minutes prior.

“We hear a lot about shootings on the news, but you never think it will happen in your community,” Alonso said. “Seeing the expressions of the students who had lived the moments that news channels were documenting made it even more real.”

Shortly after the incident, UCLA worked to create spaces for mental and emotional healing in its community through Counseling and Psychological Services sessions and open group discussions.

Despite these efforts to set aside a recovery time, the campus seemed to fall right back into its normal cycle within a week from the incident – which was anything but normal, Le said. Finals week commenced, and students began to focus their attention on cramming for exams and moving out at the end of the quarter.

“There just wasn’t enough time or space to properly mourn,” Le said.

Eittreim said his chemistry final was made optional, as the professor understood that some students were not in the proper mental state to be studying for exams, but recalls that many of his friends still had to bear the crunch of final projects and assignments even right after the shooting.

These varying responses to the shooting weigh whether the U.S. is growing a culture of desensitization, or simply resilience.

The UCLA shooting situated itself in a larger timeline of increasingly frequent school shootings in the United States, closely following the fatal events that took place at High Point High School and Independence High School in May and February of 2016.

After the tragedy, the UCLA community worked to return to normalcy and move forward – a transition that has unfortunately become almost second nature to many Americans.

Although the event at hand was logically and emotionally traumatic, things felt oddly normal even though they weren’t supposed to be, Le said.

This raises the question: Does the road to normalcy ever exist after tragedies like the 2016 shooting, or does the nature of the world in which we live teach us to gulp our fears and persist on?

As the class of 2019 graduates this spring, fourth years will take the last of the experienced student memories of the tragedy with them.

This incident showed the graduating class how easily unfathomable situations on the news could occur on their own campus. Nevertheless, it demonstrated the importance of support and acknowledgement as a community in getting through these difficult times.

Not only did this incident spark the rise of student groups that have worked with the UCLA community to create a culture of support, it has also fostered a growing sense of student activism to implement changes in safety protocols and gun reform, said Brymer.

“Community was key here,” Liu said. “The aftermath of this event brought the UCLA community even closer together in a moment of brief mourning and remembrance of this tragedy.”

My tenure as an editor may have been grueling, but the people made it worth it -30-

I’m not good at remembering things.

I didn’t think much of it when I joined the Daily Bruin. I applied on what was basically a whim a second before the deadline for applications closed and probably didn’t read the paper until the day of my interview. It wasn’t a prominent start to something I’d end up spending the greater part of my last year at UCLA doing.

The time between then and becoming an assistant editor was a blur of columns, pitches and edits. I can’t recall anything much more specific than that.

I don’t mean to be cliche, but I honestly didn’t think I’d ever become an editor. I started this job thinking I didn’t deserve it – and who am I to say I did? I don’t think I was the strongest writer, the most opinionated person or the most dynamic personality in the Opinion section. I was in all of these categories what I had been in most aspects of my life: average.

But I cared about the job. I loved and love the Opinion section in more ways than words can say, so I won’t even try.

I do have to admit though – being an assistant editor wasn’t as idyllic as I wanted it to be. There’s a lot of things that I wish didn’t happen, things that I could’ve done differently and words I wish I hadn’t kept to myself. I’ve left this office crying in frustration more than I’ll probably admit to anyone.

I wish I had known a lot of things then. I wish I had known there’s absolutely no one dumber than someone who thinks they’ve learned everything. I wish I had known your reputation is everything – it’s something that can make or break you. And I wish I had known that second-guessing yourself, no matter how naturally it might come, only means that other people will too.

If I’m honest, I spent a long time wishing I acted on that advice.

In one of my moments of frustration, someone asked me to remember the reason I do all the work that I do – our readers. And he was right. A big part of why I spent as many hours as I did in the office grueling over columns was so we could give our readers a quality Opinion page.

But if I’m honest, that’s only one of my reasons, not the main one.

The things I do remember clearly are the good things about the Daily Bruin: the writers whose articles I’ve enjoyed editing, the editors I loved working alongside, the columns I enjoyed writing and the paper we somehow always managed to get out every day.

I remember my columnists, who I want thank for all of the time and dedication they’ve put into this paper. They were who I cared the most about helping during my time here and I can only hope that I did a decent job. You are all intelligent and highly capable writers – keep doing your best.

And I remember my fellow Opinion editors, who know more than anyone the hours that go into making this page. Thank you to my counterpart, Omar Said – you made me want to pull my hair out more times than I can count but you’re a little brother to me whether you like it or not. And thank you to Keshav Tadimeti, who taught me what it means to be not just a good editor but also a good person.

I spent long hours in this office, more than I probably needed to, because I always knew I only had a year here. I wanted to make it count. Now, with my time as an editor coming to a close, there’s still a lot more I wish I could’ve done – columns I wish I could’ve written, sources I wish I could’ve spoken to, writers I wish I could’ve helped just a little bit more.

But what we did this year was a lot.

I know there have been highs and lows. But we did amazing work and I’ve enjoyed toiling alongside the people in this office all year.

And that’s something worth remembering.

Gasparyan was an Opinion columnist in 2017-2018, News contributor in 2017-2018, assistant Opinion editor in 2018-2019 and editorial board member in 2018-2019.

Despite promises and publicity, UC perpetuates lackluster response to harassment

This year, thousands of UCLA graduates will be women.

But very few of them will go on to become professors.

The majority of students and college graduates today are women. But professorship remains a position largely occupied by men – and there are a lot of reasons why that’s the case.

Sexual harassment and sexual violence are the worst of them.

Last year, 38% of women in graduate school reported they experienced sexual harassment from faculty or staff. Almost half of these students said they had been victimized by the same faculty member.

It’s understandable why students wouldn’t stay on to become faculty at these universities. The duplicitous nature of harassment makes staying much harder – it can be painful to bring up allegations of abuse, and even more so to prove what happened. And often, those cases involve someone who holds more footing within the university than you.

The results are drastic: Women are pushed out of pursuing advanced degrees and careers in academia by harassers who make campus environments suffocating.

The University of California’s campuses have pledged to increase the hiring of women as faculty, while turning a blind eye to sexual violence and sexual harassment. It’s no wonder, then, that there are so few women faculty members in certain fields of study at UCLA.

So this graduation season, let’s consider all the women who have been forced to abandon academia. It’s about time they got higher education’s attention.

According to a 2018 state audit, UCLA, UC Davis and UC Berkeley inconsistently disciplined faculty who had committed multiple sexual harassment complaints. Campus coordinators who should have overseen these cases were found to be relatively uninvolved and uninterested.

The UC since changed how it responds to sexual assault and harassment complaints, including a stipulation that university officials should consult with Title IX coordinators about appropriate disciplinary measures.

But that doesn’t change how campuses like UCLA insist on maintaining confidentiality policies and settlement agreements that deter victims from even coming forward about their cases.

And the UC’s failures don’t end there.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found in 2018 that UC Berkeley failed to conduct formal investigations into students’ sexual harassment or assault complaints, or even resolve them in a timely manner.

The university’s former executive vice chancellor and provost, Claude Steele, resigned amid the scandal of this investigation – likely because of criticisms regarding his mishandling of a sexual harassment complaint against Sujit Choudhry, the former dean of Berkeley’s law school, by his executive assistant.

Steele determined the most appropriate course of action was to keep Choudhry as dean with a cut in his salary and have him write an apology letter to his assistant.

His assistant later sued and reached a settlement. Choudhry remained a professor for another year, even after the university found him guilty of sexual harassment.

UCLA was also home to a major sexual harassment scandal. Gabriel Piterberg, a former history professor, was accused of sexually harassing two of his graduate students. The university mishandled the Title IX case and the court proceedings dragged on for far longer than necessary. Eventually, Piterberg only left campus as part of a settlement.

This trend of easy walk-offs has been prevalent for years. In 1996, Diane Reifschneider, a doctoral candidate for chemistry and biochemistry, filed a lawsuit against UCLA, then-Chancellor Charles E. Young and chemistry and biochemistry professors Malcolm Nicol and Charles Knobler. Reifschneider alleged she had been sexually harassed over a period of two years by Nicol, her academic advisor, who she claimed in her suit had a history of harassing female students.

That pervasive culture is a big reason the majority of female undergraduates don’t go on to become professors or graduate students.

“Whenever a woman comes forward for expressing any grievances for sexual harassment, her authenticity is questioned,” said Saraliza Anzaldua, a doctoral student in philosophy. “And it’s very difficult for any woman who feels alone without an ally to feel like any progress can be made.”

Even if women reach faculty status unscathed, the culture of harassment within higher education remains. About 40% of female faculty members and 30% of female nonfaculty staff members said they had experienced sexual harassment at their university.

The number of women in higher education reflect that. Women hold 49% of faculty positions in the U.S. but only 38% of tenured positions. At UCLA, only 33.7% of professors were women in 2016. When the path to a professor position is riddled with a culture of misogyny, it only makes sense that so few women have made it through.

Yes, men like Piterberg and Choudhry might seem as though they’re few and far between. But just because sexual harassment doesn’t make headlines doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening – only that it hasn’t been reported. Many women, whether to avoid further harassment or a drawn-out legal process, have packed their bags and left academia without saying a word.

So while the numbers are daunting, they’re not all we should rely on – we’ve heard enough women come forward with reports of assault to know that, while universities can choose to ignore the problem, women cannot.

Whether it’s Piterberg, Choudhry or Nicol, we know it happens in the UC. Whether it’s Stanford University, Columbia University or University of Notre Dame, we know that it happens across the nation.

Just ask some of the women graduating this year.

Blue Devils band together to perform dynamic performances in summer tour

The Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps performs the same set for over 20 competitions during the summertime, Emma Boone said.

The second-year music education student will play the mellophone for the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps in the summer. Throughout May and early June, the 154-person group rehearses for 12 hours a day in Concord, California, to prepare for its United States tour starting in late June, Boone said. Competition is not the main reason the performers are part of drum corps. Instead they joined to help grow and better the Blue Devils organization, Boone said.

Drum corps heightens the intensity of a normal marching band through long training days, and the members’ hard work will culminate in its upcoming summer tour, Boone said. The sound and mobility of the mellophone makes it fit well into a marching band setting, she added, but the instrument also lends itself to the larger and more theatrical numbers the Blue Devils perform.

“Everybody comes together for one common goal – and it’s because they love performing,” Boone said.

The group’s performances will consist of both common and lesser-known songs, she said. While some of the songs on its set list have already been composed – such as Britney Spears’ “Circus” – others have been written specifically for them to fit the show’s “Ghostlight” theme. This year’s show centers around the idea of a ghostlight – a prop commonly used in theater – as a light source to ward away or attract ghosts, Boone said.

Drum corps combines both music and visual choreography in its sets, Boone said, differing from marching band, which tends to be more theatrical. Its performances draw from ballet influences, highlighting pointed toes and immaculate posture to imitate characters reflected in its performances. In their numbers, many musicians hold their instruments while dancing and performing, while others – like tuba players – will set their instruments aside to engage in the choreography as they play, Boone said.

“We’ll actually still be playing while we are dancing … because it is more impressive to play while you are moving your body and still have a good sound rather than just standing there still or marching,” Boone said.

But performers only have a brief amount of training before they carry out the complicated and dynamic choreography, said Boone’s previous drum corps instructor and alumnus Marcus Stone. In addition to this, students must contend with the intense demands of touring, such as traveling and loss of sleep. Students must be prepared to perform the elaborate numbers in a myriad situations they might encounter, he said – like playing for an unfamiliar crowd without the guaranteed support.

“We kind of just throw everything at them because our job is to create a laboratory environment where it’s OK to fail because the next day you can try again,” Stone said.

The Blue Devils’ performances typically center around an artistic vision, said Elijah Jones, a second-year music performance student, who will play tenor drums for the Blue Devils in the summer. The Blue Devils bring an artsy avant-garde style to drum corps, he said. A past performance from the Blue Devils was inspired by Edward Hopper’s painting “Nighthawks,” Jones said, in which the group brought a new perspective on where the characters in the artwork come from. The organization’s visual staff helps the performers to perfect the choreography, like bringing a unified acts during movement periods, he said.

“Our visual staff are the ones that will help us with being able to do the dance work that we have in the show and be able to help us with … making sure that we can all move together,” Jones said.

For her summer with the Blue Devils, Boone said she expects long bus rides and hot temperatures. The struggles, however, forge closer bonds between the bandmates, which is important for a cohesive performance, Boone said.

“(Performing) will get hard, but there’s times where you realize … ‘This is why I do it’ (and) ‘This is why I love this,’” Boone said. “All these other people are suffering alongside with me, (and) in the moment it’s really hard, but it totally pays off once you start performing.”

Email Coltun Schneider at aschneider@dailybruin.com or tweet @coltunschneider.