what’s so good about it do you think? all aspects, not just academically?
<p>Great academics, great athletics, great weather, Westwood is a good part of town - near the glamour of Hollywood. The beach is not too far away.</p>
<p>it’s very pretty.
academically, it’s suppsoed to be right behind berkeley.</p>
<p>Each student need to asks her/himself if this is the environment they want for college. Internal reports and surveys at UCLA show problems that are common to large U’s. </p>
<p>UCLA has some surveys prepared by the college and departments available online that can give you some information about the undergraduate experience. Also you might want to browse thru some issues of the Daily Bruin to see what a sampling of students are saying. </p>
<p>Let me give you 2 links: </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.saonet.ucla.edu/sao/heri1.htm[/url]”>http://www.saonet.ucla.edu/sao/heri1.htm</a> according to their web page “The College Student Survey was designed to assess students attitudes and perceptions about their undergraduate institution and educational experience.” This survey was done about 5 years ago. And for a example of an internal department study see <a href=“http://www.econ.ucla.edu/8threview/8yrreview.pdf[/url]”>www.econ.ucla.edu/8threview/8yrreview.pdf</a> for a self-review by the Economics department done a few years ago. </p>
<p>A big question that arises at any large state school is how much of the instruction is done by the regular faculty. In an article in the Daily Bruin, <a href=“http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/db/articles.asp?ID=18160[/url]”>http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/db/articles.asp?ID=18160</a>, the UCLA Distinguished Faculty award honoree says “Most students learn quickly that classes are rarely taught by the award-winning professors UCLA advertises, but by lecturers and teaching assitants. The UCs are creating this two-tier system of professors and lecturers that may result in undergraduate destruction” , adding that some full-time professors do not make undergraduate education a priority. </p>
<p>When you read thru the 1st link, the HERI survey, you will find that 81% of UCLA respondents noted that their experience was “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory,” and nearly 85% said they would re-enroll at UCLA if they could do it over again. This is a positive. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the survey notes that only 35% of UCLA students were satisfied or very satisfied with class size. Furthermore, although UCLA undergraduates expressed satisfaction with formal instruction, **less than 40% of UCLA respondents assessed student-faculty relations as “very satisfactory” or “satisfactory.” Students were routinely disappointed by perceived lack of support from faculty. ** Only 35% of UCLA students expressed some level of satisfaction with a “sense of community on campus,” with 32% noting their dissatisfaction."</p>
<p>In a Student Welfare report summarizing the survey quoted from above, <a href=“http://www.saonet.ucla.edu/sao/stuwel1.htm[/url]”>www.saonet.ucla.edu/sao/stuwel1.htm</a>, the authors said: “Many among the faculty are concerned with what they perceive to be a student culture that is sometimes apathetic
intellectually. Too often faculty observe students merely going through the academic motions in their course work, and meeting minimum expectations. Do some students seek large, anonymous courses where grades are based on multiple choice tests, where required texts are never purchased, much less read, and class participation is never called for because
these students are apathetic and disengaged? Or, do such students become apathetic and disengaged when from their arrival, they experience too many course situations where they are not asked to participate, have little direct faculty contact, and are not held to rigorous intellectual demands (writing, speaking, critical thinking) that they expected to encounter at a great university?” </p>
<p>Tight budgets and climbing enrollments are problems at many state schools these days. If you examine the report from the Econ dept you will read the following: “*Economics undergraduates must contend with a dearth of ladder faculty, a lack of diversity in the courses offered, and limited student-faculty interaction. Our honors program is moribund, with less than 1 percent of our students completing senior theses. Students can easily choose a course of study that will excuse them from having to write a term paper or from having to make a significant oral presentation during their undergraduate years, despite the fact that we know that writing and communication skills are the cornerstones of successful careers. These conditions are also essentially unchanged since the last review. The share of undergraduate teaching done by ladder faculty plummeted from 40 percent of students in the early 1990s to a mere 25 percent by the middle of the decade. Obviously, with upper-division class sizes averaging 100, few students develop either the skills or the contact with faculty required for them to contemplate devoting time to independent research. We continue to struggle to deliver an adequate number of courses to students in our four undergraduate majors, let alone meet the demands of students in other programs at UCLA. Clearly, the department cannot hope to offer a quality education in economics without a major change either in the supply of courses or in the demand for economics as a major. *” </p>
<p>A major problem at UCLA and most other large publics is the dearth of personal contact between students and the school (faculty, advisors, etc). At privates you will be in small classes from the get-go, while at UCLA classes with 200 or even 400 students are quite common the first few years. And for popular majors like econ, even as an upper-division student you’ll still be stuffed into classes with 100+ students. Maybe thats why only 1/3 of UCLA students were satisfied with class size. If you value feedback from the profs, the ability to participate in class discussions, and want your essays and papers graded by your prof and not a 24-year-old grad student, a school like UCLA is not for you. Less than 4 out of 10 UCLA students were satisfied in this area. At many privates and LACs you will get a faculty advisor assigned to you from the first day you enter; you will meet with this person regularly and get advice and help on picking your classes and so on. At UCLA you’re on your own; each department will have an “advisor” but you’ll share that person with everyone else in the major. </p>
<p>Bottom line, the person that enjoys and thrives at a school like UCLA is a self-starting
person eager to make decisions on her/his own or willing to bang on doors to get the info they need, extroverted in order to meet people in the sea of students since few will share classes with you and in-class interaction is non-existent, someone who doesn’t particularly care about classes being small and personal. On the other hand if you perhaps need some guidance thru the college maze, enjoy hearing others ideas in class and vigorous discussions, want professors that know you as more than an entry in their gradebook, other schools may serve you better.</p>
<p>Being at UCLA can be overwhelming. Classes are huge (my Econ lecture has 328 students), and moshing through the crowds on Bruin Walk is a nuisance. Academics are fiercely competitive here, especially among pre-meds and pre-laws. North campus students tend to be self-absorbed, although it’s because they’re goal-oriented and tend to think of UCLA as a stepping stone to their future plans. South campus students are more diligent and tend to distance themselves from the greek/social scene. There’s hundreds of student groups and it’s pretty easy to find your niche. Living and shopping in Westwood Village is very expensive, and the local food is mediocre. UCLA has a pretty good reputation among job recuiters who come on campus regularly. Classes tend to be curved around a B-/C+ median here, so it’s easy to fail if you keep up with lecture material. I guess this is what the “college experience” was meant to be…</p>
<p>UCLA is too competitive. Go to an easy school like USC or Santa Barbara. You’ll be happier. People at UCLA aren’t any smarter than those “lesser” schools, they just are more desperate to succeed. In the long run you’ll learn just as much somewhere else and be a socially more well adjusted person.</p>
<p>How good is USC, compared to UCLA?</p>