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Going to a school as diverse as UCLA can sometimes make people weird. Like they might think, oh well I attend an ethnically diverse school and therefore by association I have the diversity thing covered. But this is actually quite far from the truth.

I was sitting in Ackerman turnaround with my friend's little brother a couple of weeks ago and somehow the conversation turned to ethnic diversity. He started talking about how it’s really awesome that his older brother has such a diverse group of friends.

I never thought this kind of thing was actually said except in educational commercials, so when it really happened, I thought it was kind of cool. He went on to say that it’s nice because you get to learn about different cultures and get exposed to interesting new things. It’s possible to be like, yeah, yeah that’s very cliche and corny because we all know that diversity rocks, blah, blah, blah, but it's not really that easy once you think about it.

UCLA has an extremely diverse student population, but walking around campus, it is still typical to see large groups of friends consisting of one ethnic group. From a distance, UCLA seems extremely diverse, but once you get up close, this variation just turns out to be a lot of segregation on a campus that’s diverse on paper.

A large part of this segregation probably has something to do with clubs. Starting college is different for everyone, but it still takes time at the beginning for most people to adjust and get settled, acquire some kind of comfort zone, and start making new friends. It just sucks that for a lot of people this means disseminating into various ethnic groups that are largely exclusive.

I still remember that barbeque we had at freshmen orientation when there was that gauntlet of tables recruiting for campus club members. Of course clubs are always saying they welcome anyone who is interested in a different culture, rather than determining members solely based on race.

But for me, the experience was more of a process of elimination than anything else, “Okay I'm not that ethnicity or that religion or that or that.” And although I’m sure there must have been more, the fact is that about two years later, I can only remember one table there that wasn’t a club based on ethnicity or religion: some environmental club.

We hear a lot that UCLA is a huge school. And since that number can be kind of intimidating, we’re told not to worry because there are a million things that can make our college experiences more intimate. And while that’s definitely true, I think it’s important to remember that as intimidating as 33,000 students might seem, hanging out with a certain ethnic group exclusively isn’t the best way to take advantage of such a great population.

Even before my conversation with my friend’s brother, his group of friends had made an impression on me. They just seemed like an unnaturally diverse group of people, and it struck me as wrong that the notion of being very diverse is unnatural. On a campus that is as supposedly diverse as ours, varied groups of friends should be the norm.

Society is pretty narrow-minded if we have so many different kinds of people fairly dropped into our laps and all we can come up with are carbon copies of ourselves. And what good is an extremely diverse campus if we waste it by feeling superior or too proud about our own ethnic groups? So many people waste their time defaming and thinking poorly of other kinds of people, and by just not caring enough to meet new people.

And while hanging out with only one ethnic group or joining a club in which you hang out with only one ethnic group won’t kill you, it sure as hell can make you boring. Go join an environmental club or some other group where you can get a little something more from the diversity department.

We’re in the 21st century folks – segregation is out.