<p>Hi--my S2 is having to make his big decision and we'd love to hear about what makes you glad you chose UCLA. I guess we'd really appreciate any anecdotes about life at the school, clubs, dorms, food, opportunities, friends, workload . . . whatever.</p>
<p>I've been kinda freaked about the rumors of rising tuition and how budget cuts may affect programs. </p>
<p>My question: are you happy here?</p>
<p>Thanks so much.</p>
<p>Although it fluctuates from time to time, right now I can honestly say I’m very happy here. The weather is amazing and I love being able to go to the pool after class and soak up the sun. I love that I can go to Santa Monica to go shopping or to the beach for 70 cents round trip. The food here is great and although it can get monotonous, they do try to spice things up, especially if you go to the dining halls. From what I’ve heard we have great food in comparison to most schools.
Dorms are ok. Nothing special but at least the dorm I’m in is pretty clean.
There are a ton of opportunities here, one of the things I think people stand to benefit the most from at a public school. If you’re willing to look for them or put in some effort, there are a wealth of resources at your disposal. Ditto goes for friends. If you put in the effort, meeting people/joining clubs isn’t an issue.
Workload is definitely more intense than high school, though since I’ve never been to another college I can’t say what it’s like in comparison. The quarter system is probably my biggest complaint about UCLA though. I hate having midterms practically every week from 2nd or 3rd week until 10th week (happened to me last quarter, I took a final a week after one of my midterms for the class). It can be very stressful and is not lenient on procrastinators.
All in all, I’m really loving UCLA. The campus is beautiful, there’s so much to do in the area, the weather is amazing. It really is an ideal college experience.</p>
<p>I love how even with tuition hikes, it’s still at least 20k/year cheaper than private schools, being able to destroy the public school stereotype by going to office hours frequently and even having lunch with professors, the amazing research opportunities everywhere, the #2 ranked applied math program (okay, this is major specific), and having the ability to escape into the great city at any time.</p>
<p>The friends and workloads are really what you want to make out of them. (I have a friend who is taking 12 units and does like 20 minutes of homework a week…) I didn’t join any clubs really except for career specific ones. </p>
<p>The food is awfully nice too.</p>
<p>So all in all, I’m happy with UCLA. Would I have been happier if I chose UChicago or Berkeley or USC? I don’t know but it really doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>EDIT: Forgot dorms, I’m actually not happy with mine as I wanted a res hall and got placed in a plaza with all upperclassmen.</p>
<p>everything except the traffic on 405 and in Westwood village.</p>
<p>I love that UCLA is so well-rounded and balanced. We have it all: good weather, great environment, studious but social students, a great athletics program, numerous research opportunities, a beautiful campus, proximity to the beach, movie premieres in westwood every few weeks, amazing dorm food…we’ve pretty much got it all. it’s hard not to be happy here. the quarter system is tiring, but it’s also nice to know that i’ll be done with certain classes in 11 weeks rather than having to suffer through them for longer.</p>
<p>pros: </p>
<p>City: Los Angeles is one of the most dynamic, cultured, and vibrant cities in the world, and meeting plenty of interesting people who come from all over the world to visit. </p>
<p>University: I’ve heard from many accounts that UCLA is one of the best looking universities up there with stanford and caltech. </p>
<p>professors: The University is one of the best universities in the world with one of the highest cited faculties of any university in the world, in nearly all fields. </p>
<p>Students: No matter what age or from what place any student here is, they are some of the most interesting and intelligent people you’ll ever meet at any university.</p>
<p>Cons:</p>
<p>Parking: Unless you have gauranteed parking, you’ll get a ton of tickets in westwood so that’s something to be careful about. </p>
<p>traffic: there’s a ton of traffic in LA, and it can make getting 4 blocks in westwood like 20min. </p>
<p>Other than that, i don’t really have any complaints with the university. There’s also a ton of networking opportunities (at nearly every opportunity i’ve gone to in LA, places no where even near the vicinity of westwood, i’ve almost always found at least one person who goes to UCLA)</p>
<p>any rumors of taking ‘5 years to graduate’ are completely bogus. Many people finish BEFORE 4 years, so for most 5 years is pretty uncommon.</p>
<p>rising tuition is indeed a concern, but it’s undoubtful that the university will reach anywhere near the levels of private universities because that would essentially destroy it as a university primarily for californians (even if californians were admitted, it’s extremely unlikely that many would go to it at that price; same for international students, which is pretty doubtful they’d pay like 50k a year in tuition for UCLA when they could go to columbia or harvard for like 40k) so even if it tuition does go up, it will probably be very little, and still only a fraction of that of private universities.</p>
<p>all in all, if your S2 is in love with the university, that’s where he should go. Good luck with whatever decision you decide to make.</p>
<p>I love the fact that we are an awesome basketball and sports school and still considered a really prestigious, academic school. When you tell a stranger you graduated UCLA, you will generally get a “Wow, UCLA” type of response. It won’t be the “DAYUM…” reaction you would get if you graduated from Stanford or Yale, but it’s still pretty good.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, when you tell people you graduated from big sports schools like Georgia or Florida, it’s kinda just like “Well that’s good.”</p>