The campus can best be described as a “city within the city”: huge (you need 15 to 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other), lots of beautiful buildings, lots of green spaces / parks, shopping center, hairdresser, Restaurants, cafeterias etc. etc. Simply amazing! There are also two huge libraries with specialist departments on all kinds of topics. Since I had to write a term paper on a political topic in Korea during the semester break (I’m studying a combination of East Asian Studies and Business Administration in Bochum), I did it there without further ado. On one of the first days I went in without much research and came out with an armful of books.
Since I broke my foot shortly before my summer sessions (was only discovered there, which also meant three visits to the UCLA Medical Center), I was more or less tied to campus almost the whole time and actually can’t do much about it to say. It takes about 45 minutes to get to the beach by bus.Otherwise, LA is a typical American. Big city with a number of high-rise buildings, huge, often eight or ten-lane traffic aisles, a few social problems (but it works) and poor local public transport. In principle, a car is compulsory, but it’s just not worth it for six weeks (and especially not with my foot). LA doesn’t have a real center either, but it does have some highlights such as the Getty Center, the recently opened Walt Disney Concert Hall (you should have seen the architecture alone) or the Petersen Automotive Museum (for car freaks). In addition, LA is quite centrally located in California, so that within a few hours you can be in San Diego / Mexico, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Death Valley or Yosemite National Park by car. So boredom shouldn’t arise, otherwise you still have a pool or gym on campus. Oh yes, “It never rains in Southern California!” and bikes and surfboards are also available for hire on the beach. So boredom shouldn’t arise, otherwise you still have a pool or gym on campus. Oh yes, “It never rains in Southern California!” and bikes and surfboards are also available for hire on the beach. So boredom shouldn’t arise, otherwise you still have a pool or gym on campus. Oh yes, “It never rains in Southern California!” and bikes and surfboards are also available for hire on the beach. Read more student reviews on Andyeducation.
Since it was the summer sessions, the campus was pretty deserted, which had the advantage that you could almost always have a computer (internet is available as a network connection in the room, in the dorm computer pool or in the library), the pool (for swimming !) comparatively empty and you were almost alone in the library (especially when you are looking for something exotic like me). On the other hand, the opening times of the library and other facilities are limited and you don’t run into too many Americans. The summer break is sometimes used for construction work, which sometimes leads to restrictions. And in order to still use the building as much as possible, various conferences etc. are held at UCLA, including some “cheerleading conventions”, so that at the beginning of hundreds of 16… 18 year old girls were “welcomed”. Overall, it was absolutely ok. The workload for the individual courses is significantly higher than in Germany: If you do all the suggested homework, text reading and group work, you can expect three to four hours of preparation and follow-up per course and session, especially since there are intensive courses during the summer sessions are. The mid-terms and finals, which also follow every three weeks for six weeks, do not help to relieve the workload. I had originally booked three courses, but then had to give up one and was completely busy with the two courses and the housework for Germany (because of my feet, I couldn’t travel around so much). On the other hand, what makes the work easier is the good organization – almost everything runs online: You choose the courses online, you can cancel them online, you can change your contact details online, request and extend books online and view your grades online – a real boon in contrast to some (including my) German universities. One downer is the limited choice of subjects during the summer sessions: no graduate courses at all are offered for management during this time, which is why the summer sessions hardly make sense for people shortly before their diploma. But the courses are very small with around twenty people. In the courses themselves, the Americans were the absolute majority, in the dormitory the international students were more or less among themselves: About two thirds of the dormitory residents were Japanese, the next largest group were Germans, then quite a few Italians, a few French, Swiss, Austrians, Koreans, Taiwanese, Chinese and of course a few Americans. Many of the Asians in particular “only” attended the English courses – with appropriate knowledge of English. Since I already speak Japanese pretty well because of my studies, I had less of a problem with the high proportion of Japanese and, conversely, I was able to enjoy quite a few rather perplexed faces when suddenly a Westerner started speaking Japanese…
I was housed in the Dykstra Hall, the oldest and cheapest dorm on campus, which was pretty much wood class: The room consisted of two beds, two closets and two desks, no air conditioning, but at least a network connection. In the corridor with fifty rooms each (100 students) there is only one (!) Washroom for men and women with toilets, showers, etc. Under the window there are air conditioning compressors running 24 hours a day and there under the window too was a supply road, some garbage trucks begin to maneuver at 6:30 in the morning (and American trucks beep when they drive backwards!), so that sleep is no longer an option. So I absolutely cannot recommend this dorm. All other dorms on campus have air conditioning and are not so wrong on the street, so they are a much better choice. You can also live off-campus, which friends found very useful. Or, if you have enough time and nerve, you can try to get an amerik. Looking for shared accommodation on site… The advantage of Dykstra was that almost everyone was accommodated there, so you can quickly get in touch with other students. The canteens are also very good with a huge buffet each morning, noon and evening, only after a while it repeats itself quite nicely. The advantage of Dykstra was that almost everyone was accommodated there, so you can quickly get in touch with other students. The canteens are also very good with a huge buffet each morning, noon and evening, only after a while it repeats itself quite nicely. The advantage of Dykstra was that almost everyone was accommodated there, so you can quickly get in touch with other students. The canteens are also very good with a huge buffet each morning, noon and evening, only after a while it repeats itself quite nicely.
Overall, I really enjoyed the six weeks, they were very productive and I am currently using some of the things from my auditing course again in a lecture here in Bochum. Due to the sometimes rather limited course selection – I would have liked to have heard a graduate course – it was in some respects more of an “appetizer for more”… a master’s or even an MBA at UCLA would be a dream…
