<p>My H (math faculty at USC) was out to lunch with his colleagues yesterday. UCLA has formed some committee to make recommendations on budget cuts at the campus. It is said this committee is heavily weighted with representatives from the professional schools, and fewer from Arts & Sciences.</p>
<p>The came out with a recommendation to ELIMINATE the writing program. To a T, my H said, these MATH professors stated that this was an awful recommendation.</p>
<p>This gives me a shiver up my spine at to what might come out of the budget sausage maker at others UC campuses. Although S got an admit to UCLA, it was thankfully never high on his list and, double thankfully, he has other great options outside the UC system.</p>
<p>Why are mothers always ■■■■■■■■ rival universities? Don’t you have to pick up Katie from daycare or something?</p>
<p>You don’t even know what Writing Program will be cut or whether that it has a counterpart at USC. Cutting this purported writing program no one knows about or probably participate in doesn’t make UCLA worse than USC. They’re not cutting the English major here.</p>
<p>This was a rather insulting and arrogant comment made by the OP, but understandable if the son has the same writing proficiency or lack thereof as the parent. Then all the more reason to get the free ride to U$C. Which, btw, without Steven Sample at the helm (who is widely credited with bringing about an unparalleled institutional rise at USC), who knows whether USC will degenerate to the academic mediocrity it once experienced. </p>
<p>Then, there’s Pete Carroll’s departure . . . .</p>
<p>Well if your husband said it then it must be true, right? Why even bother to ask us lowly UCLA students about this mysterious “writing program”?</p>
<p>How can UCLA cut “the writing program?” The basic writing requirements seem to be UC standards - at least I don’t know of any UC’s that don’t have them. The creative writing concentration in the English Department? Does that sound like an effective way to save money?</p>
<p>And this was a discussion between USC Math Department faculty? I actually glanced at the USC math department website today (oh the things one does during first week) and noticed that if you come in with a 5 in Calc BC you can get a BA in math with 8 classes. I thought that was odd.</p>
<p>The OP was for consideration of potential students, who might wish to know the direction their future school may be going. Caveat emptor. In any event, I hope the idea, rudimentary as we know of it, is reversed.</p>
<p>No, I don’t go ■■■■■■■■ (at 3,002 posts?) to bash other universities. In retrospect, had the last paragraph been excluded, I wouldn’t have provided you nearly the fun. It was not necessary, however.</p>
<p>The Asst Director of the USC writing program and I are friends. She also heard about the proposal from UCLA and thinks it’s a bad idea. </p>
<p>The fact that the discussion referenced initially was held by math dept faculty isn’t unusual. Faculty who are engaged with their uni and desire it to succeed know that writing skills are important, even if it’s at a neighboring university. Why? It’s because, guess what? Those faculty live in the greater LA area and want to see students succeed, yes, at UCLA, and become productive members of the community.</p>
<p>Calling a budget system a sausage maker is not unique to me, although I have 25+ years in the field. Ugly stuff comes out of budget making in the public sector. I, for one, am quite angry at the seeming lack of support for the entire UC system. Believe me, I have a different dog in this fight than you do, but I do have one.</p>
<p>Writing Programs, if that’s what the poster means, always seems to be under threat for “big cuts” but always manages to weather them. In fact, from what I read, it appears that even in better times this has been true. The biggest reason for this is that, unlike its mother department (English), the program is made up of lecturers rather than professors (even if they are PhDs). Lecturers are much easier to eliminate, or at least talk about eliminating, because they do not have tenure. The lecturers in the program received layoff notices but it is highly doubtful that they will go. As the other posters have said, UCLA wouldn’t stand for composition courses just disappearing.</p>
<p>But what writing program? The remedial stuff? The composition requirements (that I believe are the same at all UC’s)? The creative writing courses?</p>
<p>Thank you for the more detailed info, TWSA50. The writing program at USC is similar, in that it is run by lecturers rather than professors, with most having or in progress from their PhD.</p>
<p>To back up the claims by TWSA50, Writing Programs always seems to be one of the first to be named and headed for the chopping block, but is rarely cut. </p>
<p>This year, ALL LECTURERS were handed pink slips during the fall (to be acted upon in mid-June), but 75% were recinded by mid-February.</p>
<p>Look, your original comments were inappropriate and unnecessary. I know what you must be going through right now, waiting for the Ivies to come calling, so your son, whom I know you must love dearly, has more options than simply the UC’s that you, for whatever reason, feel is beneath your son, USC, and Northwestern.</p>
<p>Simply because your son was rejected from Stanford and waitlisted at Duke and that may make you, as the heliocopter mom of more than 3,000 posts, or your son, who may have really wanted to attend these two schools, feel bad and worried about what tomorrow might bring (possibly more rejection), don’t take that out on kids who have just been accepted to a stellar university like UCLA under the pretence of “caveat emptor”. That’s just wrong.</p>
<p>I don’t usually write admonishing posts like this, especially to parents who are at the tail end of this very long journey, but each post you add to this thread sticks your foot in it a little deeper. You need to apologize to these young brilliant students. Pretend they are all your sons and daughters. You need to take a deep breath! It will be over soon, and your son is going to be happy wherever HE decides he’s going to go.</p>
<p>This reminds me of an old Art Buchwald article he did that was in the L.A. Times back in 1981. I invite you to read it. It may relax you. It may even make you laugh.</p>
<p>Ok I had the similar problem when I was entering UCLA last year. First off, the estimation of 29K is pretty off unless you choose to spend your life at UCLA living in the most expensive plazas and with the biggest meal plan and if you plan to buy a lot of textbooks every quarter. </p>
<p>Try calculating on your own how much it costs to go to UCLA. Add your tuition cost, your housing cost (cheap if you live in residence halls, I suggest sproul), meal plan 14G or 19G should be fine unless you want to swipe your friends, textbooks at first cost around 300-400 bucks but you will reuse some textbooks especially if your a premed, and transportation and all that other stuff. It should be a lot less than 29K. For me it was, so I got covered.</p>
<p>Along the same digression lines as arklogic, since when did Internet users come up with “my D” or “my S”? I’ve tried really hard to abstain from using shorthand like “lol”, but how hard is “son” to type out? And for the uninitiated, looking up what “my S” means is next to impossible.</p>