UCLA
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Lura
Nov 2, 2012, 12:10:50 PM11/2/12
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I personally attended UCLA as an undergraduate in aerospace engineering. Since then, I've visited the campus a couple of times during my oldest daughter's college search.
I was very surprised to find that, while UCLA itself is still a vibrant, highly sought-after school, the town of Westwood that adjoins it has turned into a ghost town. Literally, every other storefront was closed. 25 years ago, Westwood was a fun place to go, with great restaurants and stars walking the streets. You could go down there and sit and have coffee and just watch the different people go by. Now, though, it's just kind of a sad little place. The only people left from 25 years ago are the homeless, still hanging out in the warm weather, covering themselves with newspapers when it gets cold.
As a school itself, though, UCLA has a great reputation, as do all of the UC's. Unfortunately, I can't say that I had the best of experiences there. Undergraduate students were treated like mere numbers; nobody cared if I did well or not in any of my classes. While the more narrow engineering classes had about 30 students per class, the more broad Freshman classes could have 300. My science fiction class was in a large auditorium with hundreds of students, and the problem was that the only tests were a midterm, worth 25% of your grade, and a final, worth 75%. They were essay questions, and highly dependent on the TA grading them. I challenged my C on the final, and the TA who looked at it admitted that it was an A final and explained that two TA's had to grade all of those finals, so they were probably tired when they got to mine. Often, in the engineering classes, a TA would hold office hours for homework help instead of the Professor. Sometimes the TA's were very difficult to understand because they were from another country.
That's not to say that all of my classes were that way, though. I also had some very caring professors, who worked very hard to make sure that we were understanding the material. And, I actually liked that I was pretty much on my own, having to advocate for myself and take responsibility for my own grades.
The campus itself is beautiful and the weather is awesome.
Overall, I'd recommend UCLA, but only for students who are self-starters and don't need a lot of attention.
I was very surprised to find that, while UCLA itself is still a vibrant, highly sought-after school, the town of Westwood that adjoins it has turned into a ghost town. Literally, every other storefront was closed. 25 years ago, Westwood was a fun place to go, with great restaurants and stars walking the streets. You could go down there and sit and have coffee and just watch the different people go by. Now, though, it's just kind of a sad little place. The only people left from 25 years ago are the homeless, still hanging out in the warm weather, covering themselves with newspapers when it gets cold.
As a school itself, though, UCLA has a great reputation, as do all of the UC's. Unfortunately, I can't say that I had the best of experiences there. Undergraduate students were treated like mere numbers; nobody cared if I did well or not in any of my classes. While the more narrow engineering classes had about 30 students per class, the more broad Freshman classes could have 300. My science fiction class was in a large auditorium with hundreds of students, and the problem was that the only tests were a midterm, worth 25% of your grade, and a final, worth 75%. They were essay questions, and highly dependent on the TA grading them. I challenged my C on the final, and the TA who looked at it admitted that it was an A final and explained that two TA's had to grade all of those finals, so they were probably tired when they got to mine. Often, in the engineering classes, a TA would hold office hours for homework help instead of the Professor. Sometimes the TA's were very difficult to understand because they were from another country.
That's not to say that all of my classes were that way, though. I also had some very caring professors, who worked very hard to make sure that we were understanding the material. And, I actually liked that I was pretty much on my own, having to advocate for myself and take responsibility for my own grades.
The campus itself is beautiful and the weather is awesome.
Overall, I'd recommend UCLA, but only for students who are self-starters and don't need a lot of attention.
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