Life at UCLA isn't so bad

Published: Monday, June 15, 1998

Monday, June 15, 1998

Every day, many of you walk past it. You look at it and wonder what's inside. For some it's an obstacle between North and South Campus. Once in a while, nicely dressed students walk into it. What is it? It's the Career Center! The place that is supposed to help you get a job.

The advertising starts out with the campus tour that many of you might have taken before deciding to go to UCLA. Then there is orientation and soon those wonderful flyers come around saying that the Career Center should be your friend for the next four years.

Before you know it, it is your senior year. Guess what? You now have to decide what to do with your life after three more sheltered quarters at UCLA. You finally decide to enter the Career Center.. Everyone tells you that the job market is excellent and companies don't really care about majors. You quickly start to believe it because every where you look, every graduate is getting a great job. You think about how going to a prestigious university will help you out there. The odds have to be in favor of you. Soon life after UCLA starts to look great and not so scary.

It all starts out with the job finding process. After going through hundreds of listings, you find at least one that fits you. You apply to it and so does half of the senior class.

After submitting about two hundred resumes and going to many interviews, so many that after a while you know exactly what they ask, you realize that it is winter quarter and you have a few more weeks before being released into the wild world.

The good jobs are not coming your way and now you start to wonder about the economy. Is it really that good?

This is the time to think of a second plan. Graduate school? Parents? Another quarter in the UCLA shelter? How about a double major?

For all those who came in here thinking that four years was enough, guess again. After your first year, you start counting the number of quarters left. You make lists of classes that you need to take just to graduate on time. During your third year, you start thinking about life after UCLA. You admire those who are gradating and start counting the days until you can get the fancy announcements, the frame with your diploma in it and all the other cool things that come with graduating.

Before you know it you are a senior.

You are the big person on campus. You start to hear horror stories about those who left UCLA and quickly came back. Will your major really help me out there? As all these weird thoughts go through your head, you realize that your senior year is coming to an end.

Soon you will be released. You will be expected to make it out there without any help. Many will go on to graduate schools and professional schools. The lucky ones. At least they have a few more sheltered years.

For those of you who are entering the real world after this week, I wish you good luck. For those of you who are going on to higher education because they were scared like me, well we have to get out there someday.

And for those who are planning to get out of UCLA ASAP, slow down! It's not as good as it sounds.

Everything becomes more complicated and you start to realize that the opportunities pick you and that you can't pick them.

So, I guess my words of wisdom are; enjoy your life as a Bruin because you can only do it once in your life.

Aelia Khan