In a campus as large and expansive as UCLA, there are a wide variety of clubs and organizations available to support students through their career journeys, including consulting, engineering and pre-law societies.
One of these is the Bruin Group, a club that consults startups.
According to the Statista Research Department, the global consulting market – which involves forming solutions to business problems – is estimated to be worth $132 billion. The Bruin Group works to increase student exposure in this highly valued field.
Recently, the Bruin Group worked on a project for a new app that matches influencers with other influencers looking for collaborations.
Nari Tung, a second-year mathematics and economics student and the Bruin Group’s director of recruitment, said the club provided services to the startup that aimed to increase profit margins.
“Our main responsibility would be helping them raise funds,” Tung said. “So for the past quarter, we’ve just been … helping them do white label sales deck, just researching what we can do to help with raising capital, basically.”
In order to get involved with the Bruin Group, Tung said the application process consists of information sessions, consulting workshops and resume drops. After resume reviews are complete, qualifying applicants are selected for a coffee chat followed by a final interview consisting of behavioral and casing questions.
Tung said her own experience applying to the Bruin Group involved doing her own research about the club and its tasks as well as learning on the spot.
Reflecting on her experience applying, Tung said preparation is key, as freshmen should conduct industry research and be aware of the club’s early recruitment, while sophomores should have technical experience.
Despite the competitive process, Tung added that her participation in the club has been rewarding.
“Being in the club helped me be around a group of people who are all working towards the same goal,” Tung said. “So there’s always someone to ask for, and there’s always someone to work with.”
UCLA also has engineering-focused clubs, one of which is the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at UCLA.
Alexander Pak, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, said ASME can help members receive professional and technical skills through projects. These technical projects can range from testing a robot underwater to designing an original project, known as X1 Robotics.
“We believe that it’s very difficult to find a purely creative and interactive kind of project like that anywhere else on campus because it’s truly a chance to build something from the ground up with no direction, and it’s purely left up to imagination,” Pak said.
Furthermore, Pak said members can choose whatever aspects of the club they would like to engage in as well as participate in many projects over the academic year.
“You can join one or multiple of them if you’d like,” Pak said. “You can also forgo those and participate in our professional development events with our Career Fair, our info sessions, and (the) like. Or you can also forgo that and participate in some of our socials and our outreach.”
Additionally, Bruins considering applying to law school can look towards the UCLA Pre-Law Society.
Ashlie Andrade, president of the UCLA Pre-Law Society and a fourth-year political science student, said the organization aims to help students along their journey to law school.
“You get exposed to all different kinds of fields,” Andrade said. “Even over COVID year, we had environmental law lawyers come speak. We had entertainment lawyers come speak. So then you can kind of get a feel for what the field is like and the day-to-day of it, so you can understand if it’s for you or not.”
Andrade added that the society will host events where students can ask questions to deans from different law schools in the fall. The organization also connects students with LSAT preparation resources.
“We remove the barrier of entry into the legal field,” Andrade said. “We’re working on creating a scholarship to help students pay for at least one of their law school applications because it gets pretty expensive.”
Even though it may be overwhelming to sift through all of UCLA’s clubs, each organization can provide a support network for like-minded Bruins, especially those new to navigating the university experience.
“(We’re) trying to get people back together and meet each other really,” Pak said. “Because UCLA is a very large place. College is a very large place.”
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