University of California Los Angeles - Bruin Life / Southern Campus Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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VIEW PEOPLE From all over the world and from all across the country people converge on UCLA. People from all different cultures, religions and ethnic backgrounds all intergrate and blend together to make up this university ' s student body of approximately 32,742 (give or take a bruin or two). UCLA is a potpourri of people and is reknown for its diversity. yet, we are all here for essentially the same purpose—to gain a degree of higher education (or may be even a spouse!) Yes indeed, we are all here together and whether we are black or white, red or yellow, brown or pink, punk or preppy, we somehow manage to adapt to the same university customs. Yet, learning to adapt is a little harder for some students than it is for others—especially if you are a foreign student. There are many cases in 20 STUDENT LIFE

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expected of minors, much less undeclared majors. Their lecture notes? Not quite—if you need these to find out when the summer solstice is, you ' re already in trouble. No, the guiding principle behind the evolution of the UCLA student is that inevitable step beyond Darwin: Survival of the wittiest. Sure, extra sensory perception, that sixth sense, may get you on That ' s Incredible! , but it takes a finely honed sense of irony to make it at UCLA. How else can a student face the staggering blow of having the computer go down just as his turn comes? Or listing an out-of-state address and still getting Lot 32? Students have learned to deal with these crises through a special curriculum—Subject S or remedial sarcasm. Every morning, the UCLA student downs his Scorn Flakes, fortified with ten essential vitamins and irony, and hikes to the campus. He checks his schedule—Art, how to draw rhetorical moustaches on the moon-faced decrees of Murphy Hall; Military Science, how to remain stoically inattentive; Linguistics, how to ferret out the bourgeois origins of professors ' names; Meteorology, how to make lightning-fast retorts. Certainly a well-rounded schedule, but alas, the System rejects the course credit petition by simply pointing out that repartee merely fills a breath not a breadth requirement. You make a 180° turn. Coming to your senses, you realize that the next four, five or six years cannot be spent gathering cocktail party material. UCLA is rather a place to cultivate your sense of self, not to vegetate in. And in a society whose greatest reward is the expense account lunch, that idea becomes food for thought. —SJG STUDENT LIFE 19

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which foreign students arrive in Los Angeles with nowhere to live, no one they know, and no sense of how to get where they want to go (in other words, welcome to UCLA ). Above and beyond the aforementioned obstacles, the foreign student has to contend with the language barrier here, not to mention a whole new way of life. I honestly cannot even imagine what it must be like for these brave and adventurous students. I ' m sure it ' s quite a challenge for them just to face (what seems to the average Joe Bruin as) the ordinary aspects of everyday life. I mean, geez, it ' s not easy being a student at UCLA, let alone being a foreign one. Speaking of problems to overcome, let ' s not forget about the most courageous souls of all— the handicapped. This sector of diverse students is one made up of super-students. Can you actually imagine yourself traversing Bruin Walk without your eyesight, or trying to buy lunch at North Campus in a wheel chair? Life is extra tough for those determined and gifted students. The handicapped Bruins are just incredible, in fact if I had just half their will and perseverance, I could have graduated on time after all. Meanwhile back at the ranch, we all learn to cope with the college way of life, come hell or high water. And eventually we find that special place on campus we call home. Some may STUDENT LIFE 21