Looking for Bruin Steve

[pammo]

After reading these boards I know you can give me some advise!! We are spending 2 days in LA before our cruise and would like to check out UCLA. My son just informed me that this is his first choice for law school which he will be applying to in the fall. We are from the East Coast and certainly can't be sending him out just for a tour so thought we would do it for him.. Is the law school located on the main campus? Can we do an adequate self tour?? Where might we find information about housing in the area?? etc.etc. Know you are a wealth of UCLA info so thanks in advance for any advise you can give. We will be staying in the Manhatten Beach area and are basically clueless on how to get around.

[Cruisin' Chick]

Until Steve shows up, let me post the link to a map of UCLA:

 

http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Tours/Self-Guided%20Tour.pdf

 

The law school is on campus, on the east side.

 

We checked out the campus the winter before I attended and looked at the different housing options, but as an undergrad who wouldn't have wheels, I went with the dorms. I'm guessing your son will want an apartment, but I know there was a graduate dorm back in the 70s that was south of the science buildings on the east side. Can't remember the name and I don't see this one on the map, but it could be in the cut off area. The dorms on the north west side are undergrad. Maybe with the internet, there's an electronic bulletin board that matches up potential apartment renters....

[pammo]

Great map - thanks for your reply. Hopefully Steve will check in and I can add to this info !!

[Bruin Steve]

Sorry...I didn't see this thread until now...

 

Yes, the Law School is pretty much right in the heart of the campus...the "center of campus" is the Royce Hall Quad--the area between Royce Hall (the old Auditoruim building) and Powell Library (the old main library)...If one continues in the line of buildings extending Eastward from Royce, one finds the Law School...

 

As parents of a prospective student, I would contact the Law School directly and ask if they are willing to meet with you and show you around...For the school as a whole, you can arrange a tour...or you can do a self-guided tour...The campus is quite large...and a lot depends on what you might want to see...Check out this page for tours:

 

http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/tours.htm

 

For graduate student housing, the old graduate dorm that Cruisin' Chick was referring to was Myra Hershey Hall--but I don't think they're using it for grad student housing anymore...

 

There is a new complex of grad student housing (for single grad students) called Weyburn Terrace...If you're looking at a complete campus map, like this one:

 

http://www.ucla.edu/map/map.html

 

...then it's in that area in the lower left (the Southwest corner) that looks slightly separated from the rest of campus by a wedge of Westwood Village...(Okay...it's virtually immediately next to the In'n'Out Burger...and Sepi's Submarines)...

 

http://map.ais.ucla.edu/portal/site/UCLA/menuitem.789d0eb6c76e7ef0d66b02ddf848344a/?vgnextoid=5c13064a9a7d1010VgnVCM1000008f8443a4RCRD

 

http://map.ais.ucla.edu/portal/site/UCLA/menuitem.789d0eb6c76e7ef0d66b02ddf848344a/?vgnextoid=6e13064a9a7d1010VgnVCM1000008f8443a4RCRD

 

Very nice...and located adjacent to Westwood Village, sort of the other corner of campus from the Law School, but convenient nonetheless...there is a shuttle bus...It runs about $900 per month, including utilities--which is far cheaper than nearby off-campus housing...

 

For off-campus housing, the prime student apartment area is west of Campus, behind Frat Row (Gayley Avenue)...Everything East of campus near the Law School (aside form the Sororities along Hilgard) is prime single family residential--multi-million dollar homes...

 

A lot of students avoid the expensive rents near campus and choose to live in places like West Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Palms and Culver City...but all of these areas require a car and coping with traffic...or using public buses...

 

If your son gets into UCLA Law School, I would strongly recommend he look to get into Weyburn Terrace...at least for the first year...

 

Anything else, just ask...

 

And good luck to your son...

 

ps.: BTW, to get to UCLA from Manhattan Beach, head over to the 405...Take the 405 North and exit at Wilshire ...The Wilshire off-ramps give you the choice of "West" or "Westwood"...You want the Westwood one...When exiting, you will likely be merging into a lot of traffic--Wilshire may be the busiest surface street in LA...and it's about 4 or 5 lanes in each direction at this point...You need to maneuver quickly to the left lane...You can then turn left at either Gayley or at Westwood Blvd...both streets take you through Westwood Village and onto the campus...If you go up Gayley, you are, eventually, on the Western edge of campus...the Weyburn Terrace complex is just behind the row of Village shops to your left...You can make a right on Strathmore into the heart of campus...If you are on Westwood, this leads you directly into the heart of campus...A turn onto "Circle Drive" in either direction will basically take you into a loop that winds its way through the whole campus...

[pammo]

wow - thanks so much for all the info- you did all my homework for me. We will probably do a self tour as we are more than a year away from this with my son - just seems like a good opportunity to check it out for him.

I must admit the driving in LA sounds daunting - glad it won't be me!! Perhaps we should rent a tank instead of the compact !!!

Is that $900 a month per person or per apt?? We thought Boston was expensive!! The upside of this is that grad school is his dime not ours. We do the first 4!!

Thanks again for your help and if you dont mind I will keep you in mind for more questions.

[Cruisin' Chick]

Hershey Hall, that's it. The campus looks slightly different each time I'm there (which is not often enough). My graduate dorm at Missouri is no longer used for that purpose (it's now part of the hospital complex somehow). Hopefully, the Mizzou grads now have a co-ed dorm.

[Bruin Steve]

wow - thanks so much for all the info- you did all my homework for me. We will probably do a self tour as we are more than a year away from this with my son - just seems like a good opportunity to check it out for him.

I must admit the driving in LA sounds daunting - glad it won't be me!! Perhaps we should rent a tank instead of the compact !!!

Is that $900 a month per person or per apt?? We thought Boston was expensive!! The upside of this is that grad school is his dime not ours. We do the first 4!!

Thanks again for your help and if you dont mind I will keep you in mind for more questions.

 

That's a bargain on the West Side of LA at around $900 PER PERSON!...

 

And, we would have gladly taken that...Our older daughter is currently in Grad School at Columbia U in Manhattan...her university-owned studio apartment is running us approximately $1500 per month!!!

 

And WE are paying it... And tuition...and expenses, etc.

 

I just wrote a check to Columbia for $23,000...for the SEMESTER...

And we're putting her younger sister through school at the same time...

How we have money left to cruise, I don't know...

 

But, tradition in our family says this is what we do...

My parents put four of us through undergraduate and graduate school (okay, in those days, I guess it was cheaper--but they earned less as well)...

My in-laws put four kids through undergraduate and three through graduate school (The fourth, my wife, I PUT THROUGH graduate school for two Masters' degrees--she went back to school after we were married and had the two kids, so it was on our dime...)

 

When my mother used to say anything about paying for my school, I would tell her "I'll pay you back" and her answer was always "The way you'll pay me back is by putting YOUR kids through school"...

[pammo]

I feel your pain - we also have 2 in college now!! Thanks again for your help. We are looking foward to checking it out. How does your daughter like Columbia? My son is also interested in that and NYU. He wants entertainment law and those 3 (UCLA, Columbia and NYU) seem to be the biggies in that field.

[Bruin Steve]

How does your daughter like Columbia? My son is also interested in that and NYU. He wants entertainment law and those 3 (UCLA, Columbia and NYU) seem to be the biggies in that field.

 

Heather LOVES Columbia...She's in the "Teachers' College"--the Graduate School of Education, getting a Masters' in "Higher Education Administration"--her eventual goal is to be the Dean or Chancellor of some major university. She's actually blowing through what is designed as a two-year Masters program in two semesters, taking six courses each semester...First semester, she finioshed with STRAIGHT As (we're so proud!)...she's now interviewing for full-time jobs for next year with various universities around the country...

 

Last year, when we were going through the grad school application process, she decided to apply to only six schools...mostly based on reputation and ranking--Columbia, Harvard, Boston University, NYU, Michigan and UCLA. We took her on two trips back east--one to the four schools in Boston/NYC and a second separate trip to Michigan. Everyone told her not to get her hopes up, they all prefered their grad students to have a few years working in the industry first (the average incoming student at Columbia, for example, was 29). Heather told us "Well, they accept SOMEBODY straight out of undergrad--and it's going to be ME"...

 

She was right...She actually was accepted into five of those six schools (to my dismay, the ONLY one that didn't accept her was MY alma mater!)...After considering the relative rankings of the program, the particular emphases of the curricula and other factors, she narrowed it down to Columbia versus Michigan...She told me she liked the professors, the students she met in the program, etc...But I could tell that she had a particular desire to be in NYC...

 

She actually has several friends in grad school at NYU...but the particular program there didn't rate as hiigh as Columbia (which is #1 or#2, depending on which ranking)...

 

The area around NYU is a little more "exciting" than the area around Columbia--more bars, restaurants, nightlife, shopping, etc...it's in Lower Manhattan, near the "Village"...but it's also a very urban campus...really just a collection of high-rise buildings...Columbia has more of a college campus feel...but it's also pretty urban...and on the edge of Harlem (the security, however, is outstanding)...With all those friends on the other end of the island, Heather does take a lot of cabs and subways...and has learned to walk a lot...and is getting used to the cold (This is a girl who was born and raised in SoCal and who did her undergraduate years at UC San Diego!!!)...

 

But, I guess the contrast is what she finds exciting...at least for now...

Later this month, she is interviewing for positions at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Santa Barbara and Duke and Texas...and, hopefully, others...so, things will likely change again...

 

Your son is applying to some very good law schools (My brother-in-law graduated from NYU Law School and now practices out here in SoCal--but not in entertainment law--he's a prosecutor for the INS)...Entertainment Law is a very difficult field to crack into...I considered it while in Law School...but ended up with my OTHER choice--I am a transactional real estate lawyer (not an easy field to crack either, but easier than the entertainment law biz...and it's all contracts in some form or another)...

 

Good luck...