It’s the last week of August which means (a) students all around the country are beginning the fall term or getting ready to, (b) all my friends who teach and work at colleges are lamenting the end of summer, and (c) most importantly, my birthday is right around the corner.
This also means I’m almost done meeting 100+ freshmen and getting them prepared for the fall quarter which begins in a month. My summer won’t be officially over until then, but I don’t feel like it ever really started as summers tend to be busier than the fall, winter and spring terms. (And I’m swamped with my own academic work… yeah, I’m still working on that PhD.)
Since I think I’ve learned something after 6 years of working with hundreds of college freshmen, I thought I’d impart a little advice.
I moved in to the dorms on August 3, 1998, well before the start of fall quarter. I’d been admitted to a summer bridge program for “disadvantaged” students. The experience was great and really helped me have a strong transition to college, but it wasn’t easy at first.
The Monday morning I moved in, Danny drove me to campus. He brought along Lori and Adrian to help. I don’t remember why my parents didn’t go, but it was probably related to work and the fact that few days later they’d be on campus for the 1-day parent orientation. Still, they weren’t missed at the moment. The siblings were more than enough help.
Once I’d checked in and received my key, we took my stuff up to my room on the third floor of the north wing. The floor was already busy with other students and their parents moving in.
I don’t remember if Lily had already arrived at the room. The details aren’t scribbled in my old journal. I do know she was in the room before we finished moving and the siblings left. Lily was one of several students from Garfield HS in the program. She left to lunch with some other students from her high school.
The siblings stuck around a little while, but soon they had to leave. I walked them out. They hugged me and wished me luck.
When I returned to my room, all that waited for me were a few boxes ready to unpack. I sat on the bet, a bit overwhelmed and feeling lonelier than ever. And I cried.
***
Every summer for the past 4 years I’ve gone back to dorms about once a week to meet incoming freshmen for work. I was up there this morning, admiring how “the hill” — the residence hall area — has changed. After my meeting, I walked over to the shiny, new Bruin Café and had a drink. I pulled out the Adrian Tomine book Sean lent me and got to reading.
Except for the newness of sitting in the Bruin Café, sitting by myself at table didn’t feel strange. I wasn’t embarrassed or terrified of it as I was on my first day at UCLA. I didn’t know anyone and didn’t want to eat at a table alone. Rather than go hungry, I bought a sandwich from the convenience store on the hill and ate in my room.
I still feel alone sometimes, far from my family, but I’m more comfortable with it. I’ve become quite independent and there are times when I relish in those quiet moments.
But there are still times when I want nothing more than to be back in Hacienda Heights with the parents and siblings. Invariably, those are the times when I get bad/sad news and just need a hug.
“In their honor we will pass the DREAM Act soon and very soon.” - Kent Wong
When I saw Matias at dinner on Sunday, he looked tired and weighed down with grief over the loss of two of his best friends. Despite this, he offered some advice and shared what he’d learned as a former chair of IDEAS (an advocacy group for undocumented students) and as an organizer for the DREAM Act. Before leaving, he reminded the new crop of student leaders of the memorial service for Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix.
“It’s in the Grand Salon right now, but we’re trying to get a larger venue.”
That didn’t surprise me. The Grand Salon fits 160 people and the event page on Facebook already showed a couple hundred who planned to attend. By morning, he venue was changed to Moore 100, a lecture hall which seats 419 people.
I showed up at 3:20. The room was already filling up. I found a seat next to my friend, Jessie, and waited for the memorial to begin. Soon, all seats were filled and latecomers crowded around the doors or sat in the aisles.
Kent Wong, the director of the UCLA Labor Center emceed. First he introduced Tam and Cinthya’s best friends, Dana and Susan. The two spoke together about the foursome’s bond. “We came as a four-pack,” Dana said about the group that could have been the poster children for diversity at UCLA. Susan and Dana reminisced about their Monday night fried chicken dinners and retold silly anecdotes about the two women many knew as filmmakers and advocates for undocumented youth. Susan told us that Cinthya outreached to high school students even though she really didn’t like kids. Everyone laughed. The full lecture hall broke out in laughter again when Heather admitted that many thought that she and Tam were a couple because they both had short hair and were inseparable. Dana and Tam worked on their papers together. “When we got stuck with writer’s block, we’d just switch papers,” she admitted sheepishly to the crowd which included administrators and faculty. “But it was okay, because we were the same person.”
It is with great sadness that I regret to inform everyone of the passing of Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix. These women were nationally active in the undocumented students Civil Rights Movement through their fight for the DREAM Act. Both were UCLA undergraduates and as graduate students Tam was a Doctoral Student in American Civilization at Brown University, while Cinthya was studying Public Health at Columbia University. These women were amazing activists and put themselves at great risk to fight for this just cause. Cinthya was a working class student from East Los Angeles, California and attended Garfield High School and Tam’s family had been displaced as a result of the Vietnam War and was from Garden Grove, CA. There is much more information in the links below about their lives.
Like many who havewrittenabout Tam and Cinthya’s passing, I didn’t know them personally. I knew of these two young leaders by simply being a fellow UCLA student leader and a supporter of the DREAM Act (both the federal and California versions).
Still, I was inspired by their courage to speak out and tell their stories.
Even though Tam and Cinthya passed on way too soon, I have no doubt they will continue to inspire more DREAMers.
A memorial service will be held on Monday May 17 from 3-5 pm in the Kerckhoff Grand Salon at UCLA.
“I’m so excited! I haven’t been back here in ten years,” my co-worker said with an enthusiasm I didn’t expect after traveling for nearly 8 hours.
“I haven’t been back since oh-four,” I offered.
We rolled our bags out of the Detroit airport, which we both agreed look different and much nicer from our previous visits. After checking out the rental car, we drove to Ann Arbor. As we entered his former college town, my co-worker excitedly listed the dives and restaurants he fondly remembered from his undergrad days in the late 90s. I listened, looking out the windows and trying to remember if any of the campus and city looked familiar.
I almost came to Michigan for grad school. I applied to five schools and was admitted to each, but soon Michigan and UCLA became the frontrunners.
During my trip to Michigan, Nahui, my host and good friend from UCLA, told me, “You know where you’re going. You’re just in denial.”
She wasn’t entirely right. I was didn’t make my decision until I spoke to another friend in the same shoes. After that it was all clear, sort of. But a week later, I still asserted on my blog that I’d yet to make a decision. The next day, I had it all figured out:
it’s official
04.07.04 // 4:55 p.m.
I’m not going anywhere. UCLA is the place for me.
Six years later (to the day), I leave Ann Arbor and return to LA. I’m not entirely sure I made the best decision. I certainly don’t regret it, but anyone who has read this for a while knows I’ve had a tough time in my program. I don’t blame the faculty, resources or even my peers. They’ve all been supportive. I’m just not sure I was mature enough or even ready for a PhD program.
Maybe I could have used the time in the [fully funded] Master’s program and additional work experience I would have gained afterward. Would I even be interested in a PhD at that point? Who knows.
Oh well. No sense in mulling over this now. Real life isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I can’t go back and see what would have been different if I chose Michigan over UCLA. I just know it would be different.
After lunch, I walked over to Murphy Hall to visit Marilyn. I worked closely with Marilyn over the last two years as vice chair and then chairwoman of the Student Fee Advisory Committee. Despite lots of headaches over budget cuts, I enjoyed my time on the committee. I learned much more about the student fee (and thus make more use of student services I pay in advance for) and university decision-making structure. The work satisfied my interest in higher education issues as well as my own need to feel like a student leader.
When I got to Marilyn’s office, I saw the current chair in the conference room. I had no idea that this week’s committee meeting was about to start.
Laila asked me, “So, are you just a student now? No appointments or anything?”
I laughed. “I’ve never been just a student.”
I can’t see myself just going to class and doing research. Instead, half the time I’ve been in graduate school, I’ve held down two jobs and several student leadership positions. Some positions were demanding and required a lot of meetings and travel. I received a respectable stipend compensating me for my time and other perks (friendships, office on campus, connections, lots of frequent flyer miles and knowledge about higher education politics). I miss that work sometimes and still find a way to connect with those friends.
This year, I’m working two jobs and serving as a graduate student representative to a systemwide committee overseeing undergraduate eligibility and admissions. I spend one Friday a month in Oakland looking at way too many tables with tiny numbers. The work fits nicely with my old job where I researched the same issue.
I’m pretty sure all these extracurriculars have delayed my time to degree. On the other hand, these activities have also kept me in school. In the times I’ve most wanted to leave graduate school, I reconsidered after knowing I’d have to give up my student leadership duties and would miss the great people I’d met through those networks.
Marilyn invited me to stick around for the meeting. I stayed for 45 minutes, until it was time to return to work (job2, in case you’re wondering).
I was tapped to write a few paragraphs on why fees at public universities should remain low, well lower. It’s been a long, long time since we’ve had low fees.
It was tough to limit myself to 200 words as I can write much more from different perspectives: graduate student in higher education familiar with literature on affordability, accessibility, financial aid and diversity; former board member with the UC Student Association; former chair of the Council on Student Fees and UCLA Registration Fee Advisory Committee; and just plain person concerned about the future (ha!).
I kept my argument focused to concerns that UC is moving to a model similar to the University of Michigan or University of Virginia, two “public Ivies” that enroll only about two-thirds of their students from in-state and have a much lower proportion of low-income students (based on who gets Pell Grants).
I didn’t get into the discussion on why Californians should fund “UC’s gold-plated facilities — the UC Santa Cruz Pilates studio comes to mind.”
Earlier today, the Regents of the University of California approved a 32% fee increase for UC students. Students are once again being asked to make up for the investment from the state which has declined drastically from the goals stated in the Master Plan. I wasn’t surprised that the fee increase was improved, the amount did surprise me. The most recent increases starting in 2003 were usually between 8-10% (not considering the professional students, e.g., law students).
Students protested outside the Regents meeting. Loud. They set up a tent city and even ocuppied a campus building. I didn’t show up to the meeting or protests, but am in solidarity with the students sitting in and disrupting the meeting.
Instead, I did the nerd thing when it comes to fee increases and re-read the Master Plan (1960), or as we higher education scholars like to call it, the Bible:
The Survey Team believes that the traditional policy of nearly a century of tuition-free higher education is in the best interests of the state and should be continued. The team noted with interest an address given in May, 1958, by President James L. Morrill of the University of Minnesota, who commented as follows on the desire of some organizations and individuals to raise tuition and fees to meet the full operating costs of public institutions of higher education:
This notion is, of course, an incomprehensible repudiation of the whole philosophy of a successful democracy premised upon an educated citizenry. It negates the whole concept of wide-spread educational opportunity made possible by the state university idea. It conceives college training as a personal investment for profit instead of a social investment.
No realistic and unrealizable counter-proposal for some vast new resource for scholarship aid and loans can compensate for a betrayal of the “American Dream” of equal opportunity to which our colleges and universities, both private and public, have been generously and far-sightedly committed. But the proposal persists as some kind of panacea, some kind of release from responsibility from the pocketbook burdens of the cherished American idea and tradition.
It is an incredible proposal to turn back from the world-envied American accomplishment of more than a century.
Although the Survey Team endorses tuition-free education, nevertheless, it believes that students should assume greater responsibility for financing their education by paying fees sufficient to cover the operating costs of services not directly related to instruction. Such services would include laboratory fees, health, intercollegiate athletics, and student activities. Moreover, the team believes that ancillary services such as housing, feeding, and parking, should be entirely self-supporting. (p. 173)
Whenever I met with a new student, I would always show her around the office. That included introducing her to Janet Brown, the director of the Writing Success Program. Janet stood out in the Community Programs Office filled with college students, recent graduates and a few adult advisors past the age of 30. Even though she was older than most staff members, students could relate to her advice when it came to writing. As I introduced my student to Janet, I’d tell them they should stop by to see Janet to discuss papers for their classes.
While I no longer had classes, I did follow my own advice as I struggled with my personal statement for graduate school. I shared a draft with Janet. Her praise — “I’d admit you!” — and comments left an impression and relieved some of my stress. I wrote about it on my old blog:
December 2, 2003
In other news, I’m not feeling so stressed about graduate applications. I showed my personal statement to Janet, the woman who runs the writing program here. She only had me change one thing and loved it. “What was your major?”
“Sociology and Chicana/o Studies.”
“And you write so well in spite of it!”
She went on to explain that all the sociology majors she’d run across were horrible writers. I must be an exception. I let her know that any of the things I learned to strengthen my writing simply came through practice, reading a lot of fiction and non-fiction, and creative writing courses.
Compliments are nice.
Janet passed away Saturday April 25th. I learned of her passing via Twitter from Ralph who wrote: “I will miss you tremendously Janet Brown. I am truly a better person for having known you. Rest in peace.”
I learned more about her passing and recent illness from Tony Sandoval, the director of the Community Programs Office. He closed his email (below) asking “us [to] remember the jokes, laughs, advice, reptilian stories and most of all her boundless kindness and thoughtfulness.”
Even though I worked with Janet for two years and had more administrative experiences sharing the woes of being an overworked project director, the exchange above was the first thing I remembered.
I’m glad I got to work with her and thankful she gave me that much-needed boost of confidence. It may have been more than five years ago, but it’s never worn out.
The Regents of the University of California recently voted to change the eligibility policy. Some people hailed the change as a step in the positive direction while others criticized the decision.
My friend and fellow higher education nerd (er, scholar), Oiyan, breaks down the changes to be implemented for the fall 2012 class (or today’s freshmen):
By the end of your junior year, you need to be done with 11 of 15 college prep courses. Like I said before… get thee to your guidance counselor!
Just like before, you’ll have to maintain a weighted GPA of at least 3.0. So take lots of honors and AP courses!
Take the ACT writing test OR the SAT reasoning test. That’s right… no more SAT subject tests, unless you want to be a superstar and take some anyway. The UC will still look at them, and think, “Wow! Super Achiever! We’ll count these tests like we count AP test scores.”
(Emphasis mine)
Oiyan’s six part series is a candid and snarky conversation with Asian Americans (and conservative pundits) concerned about how the new eligibility policy could hurt their respective communities. So far, she’s posted parts one, two, three and four. I assume parts five and six will be posted soon.
Earlier today, the Regents of the University of California approved a 