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It’s crazy how much UCLA can change over four years. Whenever I talk with current freshmen about my own first year, I can’t help but sound like I was living in an archaic era.

The sheer number of students walking to class each day while listening to their iPods is probably the most insistent reminder that I was a freshman in the technological stone age.

Think back to a time when the majority of students still listened to Discmans rather than iPods for music on the go. And not only that, it was socially unacceptable to walk around campus with headphones on. Believe me, I tried. Several of my upperclassmen friends always reproached me for it, saying, “What are you, antisocial? You don’t want to have to say ‘Hi’ to anyone on campus?”

Exactly. Only now, it’s OK not to talk to people en route to class.

Another staple part of my diet were bean-and-cheese burritos and really bad coffee smoothies from Puzzles at 1:30 a.m. It was the only place open on the Hill for freshmen on meal plans to satisfy their late-night, alcohol-induced munchies. And even though you actually felt the food clogging your arteries as you ate it, Puzzles was usually packed. We would actually come back early from parties to go there before it closed.

When I was talking to some freshman recently and teasing them about having to eat there at night, they looked at me in horror. After all, they informed me, people eat at Bruin Cafe now.

They even serve Coffee Bean on the Hill. I used to have to hike a mile each way just to go to Starbucks or Coffee Bean for a latte when I was a freshman. But I suppose, considering the calories I consumed at Puzzles, the extra exercise was probably a good thing.

And speaking of healthy foods, there wasn’t a Whole Foods in Westwood my freshman year. Considering I go there pretty much on a daily basis now, I can’t imagine life before it. It’s like when I was a freshman and the seniors used to tell me about the time when there weren’t any grocery stores in Westwood and people had to take buses or find rides just to pick up food at a Ralphs.

In addition, the social life of freshmen has undergone several changes in the last couple years. Nearly every fourth-year-plus student has a story about Black Sunday, when almost all the frat houses would have a huge party before fall rush. Busloads of shady people from other schools would come to UCLA to party, riot police would line the street, and there was the general insanity to be expected when there are thousands of drunk people in a small radius. And while I’d wait in line for Maloney’s any day than be caught standing in line for a frat party now, I have to admit that it was an epic way to start off the school year.

Then there was Westwood’s third bar – Madison’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill on Broxton Avenue. It was forced to close after getting busted for serving alcohol to underage students. While it was known for its “Pint Night,” the bar had an 18-and-up night that gave underage college students a place to legally go out in Westwood.

But whether we went to parties in Westwood or to Madison’s, the walk home usually involved stumbling up the poorly lit Rape Trail. People would be clinging to the railing, tripping on the path and stepping on god-knows-what before they added the extra lights that make the walk between the dorms and the apartments a lot less hazardous.

Enough has changed in the past couple of years to make people in my graduating class sound like old survivors of a technologically unhip era – when I was a freshman in the dorms, we didn’t have Facebook. Thinking about that time is almost as baffling as figuring out how people lived before the Internet.

So whether or not a time when people are healthier and safer but don’t talk to one another on campus makes for a better freshman experience, one thing is certain – I’m really jealous that the coffee on the Hill is better now.

E-mail Rodgers at jrodgers@media.ucla.edu.