When Jessica Nazar first arrived in Los Angeles, she was a 17-year-old emancipated minor with no friends or family in the city and no place to live. Nazar said she had dreamt of coming to UCLA since the age of 10 and hoped that attending a school far away from her native New York would help her to escape the personal hardship she experienced there. Read more...

Photo: Currently unenrolled, Jessica Nazar is a self-sufficient out-of-state student who deals with the complications of balancing work, student fees and filing for resident status with the university, which requires students under 24 years of age to be financially self-sufficient for two years before gaining residency.

Students yearn for a stress reliever during finals week as they struggle to stay awake for countless nights, memorizing historical dates and mathematical equations. Read more...