From Bruin Walk to Dickson Plaza to lecture halls, UCLA will be buzzing with activity Saturday as nearly 15,000 admitted first-year students and family members roll into campus for the third annual UCLA Bruin Day.
Thanks to an impressive cross-campus collaboration of faculty, staff, students and alumni, everything that makes UCLA a world-renowned university — from top academic programs to unmatched facilities and vibrant campus life — will be on display for prospective freshmen and their parents to experience.
Bruin Day activities will include three information fairs across campus, more than 50 presentations, 18 different campus tours, open houses and one-on-one visits with counselors. A complete guide to Bruin Day is posted here.
"Bruin Day gives the nation's brightest and most motivated students an opportunity to explore the home of the Bruins and to interact with our amazing faculty, students and staff," said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management. "I am confident that once they have experienced the incredible spirit of optimism and innovation that permeates UCLA's culture, they will be Bruin bound."
All of the information prospective freshmen and their parents will need to make an enrollment decision will be at their fingertips, with workshops and one-on-one counseling sessions about academic programs, financial aid, housing options and campus safety.
And to introduce guests to just some of UCLA's more than 5,000 courses and 125 majors, faculty from the sciences and humanities will present abbreviated lectures on their respective fields of expertise. (More faculty are participating this year than in previous Bruin Days.) Also, many of UCLA's laboratories, as well as the Mildred Mathias Botanical Garden, will be open for lectures or tours.
"Very few universities in the world have the variety of academic and non-academic offerings that students will find at UCLA," said Patricia Turner, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education. "This is a place where students can and should get out of their comfort zones. For example, I'd encourage athletically oriented students who have eschewed the arts to take an opera class or develop fluency in a foreign language. As long as they work with an adviser and remain on track to a timely graduation, the opportunities to explore and grow are virtually limitless."
Turner added that another advantage for freshmen enrolling at UCLA is that they will be joining not only a family of current students but a network of hundreds of thousands of alumni who will continue to provide support long after they have graduated.
To ensure that enrolled freshmen can graduate in a timely manner, UCLA's administration is once again placing a high priority on providing sufficient numbers of core courses while maintaining the educational quality for which the campus is known.
Prospective freshmen visiting campus for Bruin Day will also have the opportunity to join the Bruin family right on the spot. A tent in Bruin Plaza will allow students to officially submit their statements of intent to register and ring the Victory Bell — a 295-pound trophy retained each year by the winner of the UCLA–USC football game — once they have completed the process.
Chancellor Gene Block will open Bruin Day with a welcome at 10 a.m. at Pauley Pavilion. In an email earlier this week, he thanked the students, alumni, faculty and staff who are working hard to ensure Bruin Day's success.
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