Monday, June 15, 1998
UCLA preps students for real world
EDUCATION: Living away from home, department counseling helps students go out on own
By Brian Fishman and Teresa Jun
Daily Bruin Contributors
You finally completed all those units. You've picked up your Gradpak and stood in line for your photo package. And in less than a week, you will officially graduate into the "post-college" world.
But are you ready? Did UCLA adequately prepare you for life in the real world? More importantly, for all the money and time you put into college, what did you really get out of your four, five or six-year adventure?
This year, U.S. News & World Report rated UCLA as the 5th-best public university in the nation.
But that magazine's ratings system, like so many others, is based mostly on academic criteria, when there is much more to a college education than what is learned in class.
For Jennifer Murray, a graduating English student, what she learned here wasn't necessarily limited to what she was taught in class.
"If you're resourceful, you can find what you need (at UCLA), but you need to be self-motivated," Murray explained.
She emphasized that UCLA has all the resources a student could ever need, but its enormous size can create access problems.
"I think it might be easier to find resources at a smaller university," Murray said. "It's easy to get lost (at UCLA)."
But fears that UCLA's size hinders its ability to help students may not be justified. Individual faculty members are as helpful at UCLA as they would be at a private school, Murray said.
Other students felt the same way, saying also that the rewards for searching out hard-to-find information is well worth the effort.
"You've got to find stuff. But I expected less than I got," said Taly Ravid, also a graduating English student. She explained it can be difficult to access resources at UCLA.
Using a department's resources, rather than the university's, may be an easier way to get counseling and job placement assistance that Bruins need after college.
"In the English department, there were several people who encouraged me to find contacts," Murray said, arguing that university counselors are often harder to get a hold of.
"That (advice) came from the department, not the university," she said.
In addition to the academic education and department resources students received from UCLA, Bruins will also take with them valuable lessons they received outside of the classroom.
Most seniors, like Elizabeth Le, a fifth-year international economics student, say they feel prepared to take on the real world independently because of their college experiences.
"College really teaches you how to live on your own," Le said.
"For most students, this is the first time you're away from home and it teaches you to rely on yourself in terms of everything."
"You have to learn to manage your own bills and finances. You're definitely on your own," she added.
Le said these practical skills were easy to learn at a place like UCLA.
"Here, you're not just thrown into the world," she explained. "There's so many others who are in the same situation."
Seniors say they also learned how to become more well-rounded.
"You come to UCLA. You study, you work out, you socialize," said Kamran Nahid, a fifth-year economics student.
"It's such a busy campus, and everyone's doing so many things."
After graduation, Nahid said he plans to continue this well-rounded lifestyle.
"Even after I get a job, I'll still continue to do community service and travel," he added.
UCLA also taught Nahid how to accept people from different ethnicities and backgrounds .
"At UCLA, I got to meet a spectrum of people," reflected Nahid, who came from a high school that largely consisted of a single ethnicity.
"The world isn't made up of only one ethnicity. The diversity at UCLA is like a small model of Los Angeles, so I was able to learn how to understand other cultures," he said.
Knowledge that students gained outside the classroom doesn't end there.
"I learned how to meet deadlines (and) how to manage my time," said Gianna Carotenuto, a fourth-year art history student. "They're really important skills that I didn't have before I came here."
For Doug Aoyama, a fourth-year computer science student, the educational experience at UCLA would not have been complete without learning how to stand up for himself.
"I learned how to challenge authority, (and) how to stand up and yell at your professors if you need to," he said.
Even UCLA alumni can vouch for the skills and lessons they learned during college.
Cathy Wilson, who graduated in 1975 with degrees in sociology and psychology, recalled an enlightening experience.
"In college, I tutored kids with learning disabilities," she reflected. "I learned how to look at small changes and always be positive about small successes."
This lesson is one Wilson still values today.
"Small successes can really add up, and this applies to everything," she said. "It's about seeing the good things and not focusing on the bad stuff."