By Brian Lowry
Having graduated from UCLA in 1984, I now have the unique
perspective of having lived as much of my life since that hot day
in June as before moving my meager belongings into Rieber Hall four
years earlier on an equally hot day in September.
It seems strange, then, with so much time having passed, to
realize that I and most of my college friends still tend to discuss
our lives in the following terms: before college, college and after
college.
The significance of those four (or in the case of most of my
contemporaries, five) years apply to pretty much every college
experience, representing a time in life to be savored and enjoyed,
despite the understandable apprehension associated with bridging
the gap between youth and adulthood.
Attending UCLA, however, brings its own unique joys to college
life, and its own rich history to the experience.
Granted, there are no ivy-covered walls, but UCLA benefits from
a breadth that provides every aspect of college that one can desire
““ providing the opportunity to immerse oneself in school
while still having access to all the benefits of a major
metropolitan setting.
And while UCLA is a relatively young campus, the school offers
its own proud history, with virtually something for everyone.
Accomplishments range from the schools of medicine and engineering
to a pioneering contribution to the Internet to the numerous
filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola, who cut their teeth
here.
Personally, having grown up with a parent and older siblings who
attended UCLA before me, I take the most glee from the 11 national
basketball championship banners dangling from the rafters of Pauley
Pavilion, as well as the storied list of athletes who excelled in
other sports, among them Olympian Rafer Johnson and multi-sport
star Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier.
My own years at UCLA remain a blur of activities and events. The
most vivid range from football games at the Rose Bowl (including a
couple of trips to the Rose Bowl itself) to sleeping outside Pauley
to ensure choice seats for key basketball games to late nights in
the offices of the Daily Bruin, where I served as entertainment
editor and, thanks to movie screenings, financed most of my social
life during those years.
Perhaps what’s most telling in hindsight is the imprint
that attending UCLA left upon me, even if it wasn’t always
readily apparent at the time. Obscure issues I studied frequently
come to mind in my role as a journalist, making me appreciate the
concept of a general liberal arts education more now than I did
back then.
Moreover, the skills I honed, simply in terms of problem solving
and being able to tailor solutions to different classes and
situations, have served me in unexpected ways throughout my
career.
My fondest memories, however, have little to do with such
practical considerations. Many of them involve screaming crowds or
groups of friends, but some are as simple as strolling from the
dorms down to the library (which I admit to visiting once or twice)
on a balmy spring night.
In short, having been away from it as long as most of you have
been alive, all I can really hope to convey is a sense of envy that
I can’t line up in those crowded registrar lines with you and
start the whole journey all over again.
Lowry, currently a reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles
Times, graduated from UCLA in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree
in communication studies.