Tag Archives: bruin pride

United on Bruin Day

April 17, 2012 – 9:28 am

This past Saturday UCLA held Bruin Day to welcome and introduce our campus to incoming Bruins that will officially start school this Fall. I worked the event on behalf of Bruin Ambassadors and I cannot say how excited and thrilled I was to welcome some of our new Bruins home. UCLA has had such a positive and marvelous impact in my life and I couldn’t be happier to share my experiences with all the new Bruins. My pride in UCLA stands in the fact of how diverse it is. I am so proud to call myself a Bruin and attend one of the very best institutions in the United States. Call me biased but I seriously believe UCLA is one of the very best all-around institutions in the world. I’ve met some of the most amazing individuals ever on this campus. Everyday that I step into campus provides me with the opportunity to learn something new and become a more knowledgeable person. To call myself a senior on Bruin Day gave me chills with just how fast time has flown. During the next 8 weeks I will fully embrace my time here as a Bruin. After all, our Undergraduate years are known as the Best Years of Our Lives!!!!!!!!

By Manny Macias | Posted in Life on campus | Also tagged , | Comments Off

Bruin Day and Engineering Open House Weekend

April 16, 2012 – 9:35 am

This last weekend was such an exciting and tiring weekend in the same time!! On Saturday, we had Bruin Day where we expecting 15,000 people coming to UCLA!!! That’s an insane number of people, but it was so much fun!!! I get to meet a lot of the future Bruins along with their parents. They were all very excited to be a Bruin, and ready to explore more as the Bruin Day went on. There were hundreds of booths from different departments, majors, student clubs and organizations. I was working at one of the Hospitality Tents where we handed out the programs, maps, and UCLA Bru!n Day bags. I can’t lie that I was dead tired at the end of the day, but it was so rewarding. It was such a pleasure, and was so exciting to meet all these enthusiastic and happy freshmen. I got to know some of their stories when they came in the morning: some of them had just got off the plane where others took the train to come to  Bruin Day! Again it made me  realize what a privilege I have to go to UCLA and to be a Bruin!!

I also gave a campus tour along with other Bruin Ambassadors. I was pretty nervous in the beginning. I was really scared at the possibility of the students and their parents not enjoying the tour. Luckily, it went really well. I ended up enjoying giving the tour, and it felt really good to be able to share my experience and story about UCLA to the parents and freshmen. Bruin Day ended around 4pm – 5pm. It was really such a blast to be able to experience Bruin Day. When I came as a transfer student, I didn’t get the chance to attend Bruin Day; however, when I was working on Saturday, I could feel the excitement and the pride that all these freshmen have in becoming future Bruins!!!

The next day, on Sunday, I came back to school to volunteer for the Engineering Open House. I specifically volunteered for the Bio-Engineering Open House. It was yet another unique and fun experience to do the open house. Again as a transfer student, I didn’t get a chance to experience the open house. I believe that Open House is a really great idea to welcome freshmen, and also inform them more about the department and the program that they were admitted to. The students and their parents were very excited to be at UCLA, and met and talked with the faculty and students, who are continuing to medical school, dental school, and graduate programs. We also did a tradition that the Bio-Engineer always do, which is the game BEngo!! Get it, Bio-Engineering Bingo!! :) It was such a fun day over all!!

The students and the parents went home with an Ipad-look-alike binder, a magic disc, and a fun and interesting experience since they were able to hear from the faculties and students.

I was really tired at the end on Sunday, and I have to be honest,  I’m not ready to start today,which marks the beginning of week 3; and that only means 1 thing: study time for the first midterm!! So wish me luck to survive this study week and my first midterm!! Go Bruins!! :)

By Olivia Harjanto | Posted in Academics, Life on campus | Also tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Camping out for Spring Sing tickets

April 13, 2012 – 9:57 am

Spring Sing is just around the corner! Spring Sing is one of UCLA’s oldest and fondest traditions. It is a huge talent show that takes place every spring quarter, and it is seriously one of the most incredible things that UCLA produces. There are singers, dancers, and bands that each perform a single song for a crowd of thousands. The best part though may not even be the musical acts! In between each number, Company, a comedy sketch team, puts on hilarious skits and shows hil-ar-i-ous videos. Company is like UCLA’s own Saturday Night Live.

I went last year, and I was just blown away by how well-done the entire thing was. The stage looked great, the acts gave me chills, and the stadium was just bursting with Bruin pride (oh yeah, did I mention that Spring Sing is held in our tennis stadium?).

Anyway, about a week ago I noticed that the group I was going with had not started organizing ticket-buying yet. There are several different kinds of tickets you can get, but it is pretty much sure that big groups of people always buy tickets together even if they end up getting general admission. My group hadn’t even decided if we wanted to buy general admission tickets or if we wanted to splurge and get the reserved seats. When I mentioned that someone should start organizing our group’s ticket-buying the responsibility of organizing suddenly fell to me (I didn’t want it, I was just saying someone should have it!).

But I was gallant and I shouldered the responsibility. After all, how hard could buying tickets be?

It turns out that it is kinda hard. I didn’t really know that much about the process and kept changing the game plan. First it looked like we were going to buy tickets in the morning (the Central Ticketing Office opened at 8am), but then it seemed like we should buy tickets online, but then someone pointed out that the online tickets would be $13 more expensive.

Finally, I just decided that we needed to camp out because getting there early in the morning wasn’t going to do us that much good – if we got there later, like 7, and got to sleep in we would miss out on the good tickets, but if we got there earlier, like 4, we would barely be sleeping that night and would be super cranky the rest of the day. At first, I was kind of nervous about the camp-out. I really didn’t think that very many people were going to be up for sleeping on concrete.

Wrong again! We had a huge turnout to the camp-out! People even came just to stay up with us until we called it a night. People brought us food and blankets and tents (good thing, too, about the tents – it rained literally the entire night). The camp-out was super duper fun, and we ended up getting really great seats!

I am so excited for Spring Sing this year. It’s already had such a great start!

By Charley Guptill | Posted in Life on campus | Also tagged , | Comments Off

Bruins in Vegas!

April 6, 2012 – 2:34 pm

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By Eleanor Fang | Posted in Life off campus | Also tagged | Comments (1)

Worrying about college admissions?

January 24, 2012 – 7:10 am

Winter really is here! It’s hard to tell in Los Angeles when the weather reporter is constantly saying 75 degrees and sunny, but no! The rain was in full force today. Aside from that, today I want to tell you readers a little bit about the different events that UCLA organizes for its prospective first-year students. I know you are all extremely anxious, nervous, excited, and losing hours of sleep at night (hopefully not) awaiting decision letters from colleges, but have no fear because you still have a couple more months of waiting so you mite as well stop worrying right now. Right now.  I mean it. Instead, you should look forward to all the great events UCLA has to offer.

My favorite event was definitely Bruin Day! Bruin Day is when UCLA rolls out the red carpet for all of its admitted first-year students and invites you to spend a beautiful Saturday here on campus. There are lots of presentations and workshops to attend as well as tours of the campus and the dorms. You and your family can also experience a meal at one of the highly praised dining halls for a discounted price. I still remember Bruin Day with my family. It was awesome and really helped me decide whether or not I wanted to attend UCLA.

Basically, what I really want to tell all who are awaiting admission decisions is no matter which college you are accepted to, you achieved task 1. You applied to college and that’s a big step. Many high school students end up not applying to universities for various reasons and it’s an accomplishment to take that step towards furthering your education. So congrats.  Also, no matter what colleges you have on your little list of “The Best Schools in the World that I want to call home”, it’s a great thing to have UCLA as one of your choices. I’m not just saying this because I attend UCLA; I’m saying this because it opens a lot of doors. UCLA Alumni take care of their alma mater and are always looking for ways to give back. It’s a pretty amazing network system that’s available to students here. That’s just one of the reasons that I decided to attend here.

Regardless of where you decide to attend (you still have plenty of time), just know that you should be proud of yourself and know that there are tons of opportunities awaiting you, so keep up the good work. There’s a lot to think about in the coming months, but ONLY think about them. Don’t worry. The admissions team is working extremely hard reading the applications from every applicant, all 91,512 of you.  Just ponder and have sweet dreams about what life will be like in a year when you’re a first-year college student.

By Kendal | Posted in Academics, General | Also tagged , | Comments Off

Beat ‘SC Week

November 24, 2011 – 8:15 am

Our campus takes some drastic measures to prepare for the USC football game. We are really lucky to have such a great school across town for a fun rivalry.

In order to protect our bruin bear, precautionary protection is implemented. What looks like an oversized cardboard box is placed over the bear with signs that indicate the bear is hibernating. I have elaborate heard stories that there are further security measures in place besides the wood, but I have my doubts on their legitimacy.

Next, we have the Beat ‘SC Bonfire and Rally put on by the UCLA Alumni Association. This is a very festive event with lots of bru-win spirit all around! As the name suggests, the highlight of the rally is the lighting of a big bonfire. This event is such a fun way to celebrate our rivalry in a positive manner.

This year the event coupled with the “Get-The-Red-Out T-shirt Exchange.” As the name suggests, students get to exchange red t-shirts for a UCLA blue shirt. New t-shirts are always exciting.

Go Bruins!

By Gina Provenzano | Posted in Athletics/recreation, Life on campus | Also tagged , , | Comments Off

Princeton Ly – On Football

November 9, 2011 – 7:57 am

Photo Credit: JM Rosenfeld Photography

Because of some family matters, I could not make the game this past Saturday. But being a good Bruin, I managed to catch it during dinner on one of the restaurant’s televisions – a stroke of extraordinary luck, given most fans probably don’t have the Versus channel.

In any case, it was a great, spirit-rousing win. But only one. As much as I like Neuheisel as a concept – a former Bruin quarterback coming back to revitalize a moribund, underachieving program – he has a 20-26 in Westwood, with 20 of the 26 losses coming by 14 points or more. Sometimes people, even UCLA students, forget that we dominated USC in our “crosstown showdowns” just a handful of years ago. And that’s how it should be, year in and year out. No more settling for mediocrity. UCLA stands for so much more than that.

In any case, there is always basketball to look forward to at UCLA, ha.

Until next game,

Princeton

By Princeton Ly | Posted in Athletics/recreation | Also tagged , | Comments Off

Homecoming Weekend

November 3, 2011 – 8:25 am

For the first time since 2004, we had a homecoming carnival. On Friday night, the Intramural Field served as a fair ground with games, obstacle courses and dance performances. More importantly, lessons to learn a dance for the flash mob were held. It was great to have an event on campus to celebrate homecoming, in addition to opening a great weekend!

Saturday was a great day! Beautiful weather, excellent school spirit and a victorious team. The homecoming game has a bit more excitement in the name alone. On top of that, it was parents’ weekend so Blue and Gold Spirit at the Rose Bowl was abundant! Back to the flash mob, students had been encouraged to learn the flash mob dance all week, with special dance instruction workshops and YouTube instructional videos. Led by the marching band and cheerleaders among tons of other students we all performed a dance to Lady Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory.” All in all it was just a fun way to show off some Bruin spirit!

GO BRUINS!!

By Gina Provenzano | Posted in Athletics/recreation, Life on campus | Also tagged , , , | Comments Off

My Big Dilemma

October 27, 2011 – 2:38 pm

After two years at UCLA, I pretty much bleed blue and gold. I’m personally involved in the athletics world and work for admissions, meaning it is okay for me to be crazy about UCLA all the time. For me it is a no brainer when getting dressed in the morning, wear a UCLA t-shirt!

Last Saturday presented a major problem. The UCLA Swimming and Diving team opened their season in a tri-meet with UCSB and Oregon State. Obviously, I would cheer for UCLA right? One problem, my younger sister just started her freshman year at UCSB. And she is on the diving team. To top things off, this would be her first NCAA Division 1 competition. School or family? Do I cheer against UCLA or against my sister? And what shirt do I wear?

Anyway, UCLA has both amazing swimmers and divers. Several are already qualified to next years Olympic Trials. They easily defeated both teams. As for UCSB, they just added a diving program last year. My sister has been a three-meter diver for less then two months. I couldn’t be more proud of her. She successfully performed all her dives and met her personal goals. She truly represented John Wooden’s famous words, “Don’t let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do.” Two great outcomes for this UCLA Bruin who happens to also have a sister on the other side.

Halloween, Parents’ Weekend, Homecoming, and Cal game this weekend!

GO BRUINS!!!!

By Gina Provenzano | Posted in Athletics/recreation, Life off campus | Also tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Princeton Ly – Water Polo

October 26, 2011 – 11:06 am

If you’re from Southern California, you’ve probably heard of or even played water polo. If not, you’re definitely missing out. Water polo is probably one of the easiest games to watch and appreciate – a very low barrier to entry, if you will, compared to football’s arcane regulations or the plodding pace of baseball. I would compare it to soccer or basketball – it’s mostly intuitive and you can “get it” with little background or introduction – the point of the game is to put the ball into the goal. There’s lots of continuous action, it’s physical, and athletic “wow” plays abound.

That being said, you don’t hear much about water polo in most of the United States except during the Olympics or if you’re from areas that support it (weather-wise, mostly) – California, Texas, some private schools in the East Coast. Luckily, at UCLA, you have a great chance to see this sport in person played to very high standards; we have great water polo teams. In 2007, our women’s team earned the Four Letters its 100th NCAA title, the first to that number in the nation. Our girls have won two more since then. Our men’s team is consistently a championship contender, and are currently (as of 10/23/2011) ranked #1 in the nation after a blanking of Whittier and a beat-down of Pomona-Pitzer. USC is ranked second, meaning the 11/18/2011 home matchup between the two will have playoff implications. So come watch!

(Not that it matters as much, but another draw is the beautiful, newly constructed Spieker Aquatics Center that our teams play in, located above the Sunset Village tennis courts and below the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center/Field.)

By Princeton Ly | Posted in Athletics/recreation | Also tagged , , | Comments Off
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