Event 1 | Campus Walk

    I don’t fully believe that I have walked all the way throughout campus in my entire time as a UCLA student. The campus was really just a stroll through the parts of campus I knew, not wanting to walk alone amongst the parts of campus that I did not fully know my way around. However, after walking through campus this whole quarter with all the protests and such going on, I find myself noticing no differences.

UCLA is No. 1 — on Instagram! | UCLA
Royce Hall, UCLA

    My favorite spot on campus has to be Tongva Steps, where I routinely used to go to lay out and tan whenever the LA weather was “weathering,” and the only real thing that I find that changed is how I feel about that area with an active protest going on. I am all for the protest, and support it in my own ways besides being on the front lines like the brave students (some of which I personally know), but being anywhere on campus, even my favorite spot, felt unethical when so much was going on. And while there are more protests and more events going on that impact that space, I feel like there are very few days which I feel like enjoying the weather when I know the people there are fighting for people who don’t have that luxury and are being displaced from their homes, losing loved ones, seeing everything they love be bombed in front of them. Not enjoying a part of campus as much anymore was really the least of my concerns.

U.C.L.A. Declares Encampment Illegal, Says Protesters Should Leave - The New York Times
UCLA Pro-Palestine Encampment protesters

UCLA buys new campus to address crowding, increase enrollment
UCLA's Tongva Steps with Royce Hall in the background

    But, I did come to a realization that the disparities between North campus and South campus reflect the real world’s awareness of current socio-political challenges. North campus is really beautiful, with the Sculpture garden and the fun collaborative spaces, the Young Research and Powell Libraries, pretty building structures, more emphasis placed on nature and architecture working together to create a pretty environment. It looks like what they show you on the flyers… but few people take North campus majors seriously. South campus is very STEM based, and North campus is considered very humanities heavy (though most of my STEM classes have taken place in North campus). Everybody takes advantage of the South campus resources but nobody gives them their fair share of praise for the work they do, deeming it unserious. Yes, physics is probably more intellectually challenging to learn than english, but neither is more important than the other. And with these rigorous classes, the STEM students find a supremacy in themselves in the fact they have no time to stop and notice the sky or the trees, or architecture, or art, or anything in the matter. And thus, North campus and South campus are vastly different as you can tell which majors they’re catered to and how much either “stops to smell the roses.”

UCLA South Campus Student Center - landLAB | landLAB
UCLA Court of Sciences

    I notice now that these behaviors have stemmed from early on in childhood. STEM students who never cared to pay attention to their english and art classes who are very book smart but failed to care about classes that were trying to teach them how to discern the credible from the not credible and the logical fallacies from the truth, and to appreciate the beauty in the art that covers the world around them.

    Truly, the campus walk reminded me to appreciate campus more, both North and South, and I believe that if everybody did the same and appreciated the beauty, there would be more scientists that enjoy the beauty in the world and more people for artists to reach. Realizing the other isn’t inferior and that slowing down in life is okay is a gift that maybe a “measly” campus walk can give anyone.

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