In most ways, the UCLA experience is defined by a wide variety of choice: Students can select their majors from 121 fields, join any of the hundreds of campus groups and organizations, and choose their friends from a university population that exceeds 25,000 undergraduates.

But many students have complained about one area where UCLA’s characteristic flexibility does not extend – housing contracts.

With all university housing agreements made for the entire academic year, students can be financially committed to arrangements that are not conducive to academic success or personal happiness.

“It’s too long a stretch of time,” said first-year undeclared student Eric Chaghouri.

Chaghouri’s first quarter at UCLA was marked by a seven-week struggle to find an adequate living situation after initially being placed with incompatible roommates.

“I got second-year roommates (who) stayed up until four in the morning playing video games,” he said. “As an athlete on the volleyball team, I needed to rest.”

Of course, roommate differences and dormitory dissatisfactions such as those experienced by Chaghouri are endemic to college life.

What is salient, however, are the contractual restrictions and other difficulties faced by students placed in such circumstances, who are trapped in a commitment to university housing, regardless of how socially unendurable they find it.

Chaghouri, whose family lives in Santa Monica, contemplated leaving the dorms after the university was initially unable to provide him with a suitable housing alternative.

But the financial costs of such an action kept him in university housing, despite the personal and academic costs living in such an uncomfortable situation might incur.

“I was going to live at home, but how am I going to do that – I already paid for the year,” he said.

After nearly two months, a spot in another room opened, and Chaghouri was able to moved into a more tolerable situation.

Nonetheless, the memory of his initial housing experience continues to resonate. The struggle that consumed much of his first quarter has left him with serious concerns about housing policies at UCLA.

The broadest issue of concern is the contract length; some students have wondered why UCLA does not provide the option of shorter contracts, such as a quarter-length arrangement.

Jack Gibbons, associate director of the Office of Residential Life, defended the length of housing agreements, saying that it was the accepted policy at most universities.

Gibbons explained the rationale for this practice lay in the university’s interest in establishing a campus community.

“We like our residents to develop a greater sense of stability with where they live,” he said. “Having an academic year contract fosters that concept.”

Gibbons’s assertion is supported by Angela O’Dorisio, director of the housing department at Northeastern University in Boston. Northeastern is one of the few schools that offers semester or quarter-length contracts.

“The semester-by-semester system does make our residence halls very transient and the community does suffer a little bit in terms of the educational component of the residential life,” she said.

Gibbons said UCLA has no plans to change its contract policy.

Yet the calls for shorter contracts are not based simply in the desire for increased flexibility; more complex criticisms of housing policies and practices underlie these demands.

The inability of the university to provide adequate alternatives to students unhappy with their current situation is foremost among these concerns.

Chaghouri, who waited nearly an entire quarter before his situation was rectified by university housing, was critical of UCLA’s efforts to improve his living environment.

“It was an extremely slow response,” he said.

Fadwa Rizek, a third-year English student and a resident of university-owned apartments, found herself in a similar situation earlier this year, and emerged from her toil with similar complaints regarding the university’s accommodation of her needs.

Overtures to university officials did not produce appealing options, so Rizek remained in a tense situation plagued with roommate strife and other troubles; she says the living difficulties had a direct, detrimental effect on her studies.

Officials cite the logistical challenges of providing housing for thousands with sometimes slowing the speed of response and limiting the number of options available.

John Byrne, housing assignment manager, said UCLA’s efforts to be flexible with housing arrangements can only go as far as the last open bed.

“We can’t make more space than we have,” he said.

Shirley Wong, associate director of the University Apartments, stressed the need for compromise in securing comfortable arrangements, saying a different arrangement is always available if housing is available.

The problem, she said, comes from students who are very particular about which accommodations they will accept. If none appeal, these students will often criticize the university for leaving them embroiled in a horrible situation when, in fact, other options do exist.

Another criticism made by students unhappy with their housing accommodations is the methods the university uses to pair roommates. Typically, a survey of a few basic questions relating to sleeping, studying and recreational habits are sent to students soon after admittance.

Chaghouri points to the shortness and simplicity of the survey as one of the primary reasons he believes he was placed with such incompatible roommates when he first came to UCLA.

“How much can they learn about someone in three questions?” he asked.

Gibbons said the university has no plans to change the policies used to match students in the resident halls and university apartments.

Byrne questioned the utility of an expanded questionnaire or other efforts to bring compatible pairs of students together, saying problems with present methods would also be inherent in a broader effort.

Byrne said parents often influence – or even outright do – the housing surveys, meaning that any survey, whether three questions or 300 long, frequently falls victim to parents’ misrepresentations of their children.

Also, the rapid change often seen in 17- or 18-year-olds makes the information collected sometimes irrelevant just months later.

“How someone answers a question in April of their senior year in high school could be much different from how they are when they get to college,” Byrne said.

But these considerations ignore an important fact about university housing: Though the concerns expressed above are raised with some frequency, most students find themselves unburdened by such concerns during their time at UCLA.

Despite the problems that may emerge between UCLA as a landlord and students as tenants, housing officials are quick to state that their priority is always student well-being.

“We are here to help people,” Wong said. “We don’t want to make students miserable.”

Wong added that the university living experience, whether hellish or heavenly, should be appreciated as a component of college education, teaching students life lessons that go far beyond what is found in a chemistry lab or a history text book.

“Part of the education of going to UCLA is learning to cooperate and negotiate – learning to live together,” she said.