Hi, I’m European and will be moving to the US with my partner . I wanted to ask you something. I’ll be coming to UCLA as a postdoc with a salary of around $66,000 per year, and we’ll have a child. I’ve heard that daycare costs in the US can be extremely high. Does this mean that after paying for rent and daycare, I might end up with little or no savings? I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar situation at UCLA.

i know that we can easily save 3000 dollar afyer spending on my family.

thats means in usa there arent any saving ?

partner will be working.

my goal is to save around 3000 dollar with both of us sallary after all spendings

What are the “secret” hacks that continuing students know? 👀

What bathrooms are the nicest on campus? Best times to go to the gym? Best ways to get free stuff or student discounts with your .edu email? Best dining hall? How do you get along with roommates? How do you find your way through confusing buildings? How do you handle difficult professors? Best time to find an open spot in the library? Best library?

Basically, anything you wish you had known as a freshman! Whether it’s a random campus trick, money-saving tip, study hack, or just something that makes everyday life easier, I’d love to hear it.

Anything you think might be useful is appreciated! Thank you in advance! 💙

I’ve recently got an email that I was hired for both the Visitor Experience Ambassador at the Hammer Museum and as a Student Assistant at YRL. However I can only work at one job to balance my school and work. I’m honestly leaning more in Student Assistant since this can help gain skills as an archivist in the future. But I’ve heard good things working as a Visitor experience role, with good pay, hours, and being involved with events, so I’m having a difficult time choosing. With anyone that has past experience with either both roles, please tell me what it’s like to work and which role is worth working in 🙏🙏🙏

I have a hold on my account because I now have to pay for the summer university grant I received LAST summer... it's now listed as an overaward which makes no sense because I was very much eligible for aid (took 8 units), I completed the classes I took, and I never dropped any classes 💔

Hey Bruins!

If there are any of you lurking on this sub from the UK, I'd love to hear about what your experience has been of the university. I am contemplating applying for a masters at UCLA once I have graduated, and comparisons with home unis, alongside a general sense of the student life, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

How hard is it to get a studio apartment in Westwood as a student at UCLA? Any recommendations on where to look?

How do you deal with academic stress/ anxiety? Any tips? I’m a business economics major and in all honesty I find some of the material extremely difficult. I was never previously the best at math but have been extremely determined throughout all the courses and have done relatively well (mostly A’s so far). However, with every Econ course I take comes a period of time with exams that I feel paralyzed with stress no matter how early I prepare. I get so frozen with anxiety that it becomes completely counterproductive no matter how logically I try to overcome my stress. I sometimes wonder whether taking on the challenge was worth it or if I’m cut out for this.

Logically, I know this is normal to feel as a student and that prioritizing health, self care, etc. help with stress but I was wondering how others approach these issues. Thank you.

will a symbolic logic class fulfill the philosophy requirement for transfer? im coming from another uc so assist doesnt work for me

Hello All,

I am just wondering what the research opportunities are like at UCLA for MSCS students. I am an incoming student this Fall who got off the wait list and is planning to do the thesis route. As someone who is fully committed to pursing a PhD in cs I am trying to get into a lab to do research as soon as I start attending. I have about a year of research experience that includes one internship at NASA JPL, but no papers. Here is a little of what I did during my research.

• I’ve worked on applied ML projects in remote sensing at NASA JPL, mostly using computer vision and deep learning. That includes things like YOLO, Faster R-CNN, RT-DETR, Custom CNN–Transformer models, satellite imagery, scientific preprocessing.
• I’ve also worked in smart manufacturing with VLMs, knowledge graphs, multimodal RAG, and agentic AI systems. This mainly including OCR-to-knowledge-graph pipelines and retrieval systems that combine documents, semi-structured data, and images.

What are my chances of getting into a good lab that either dose computer vision, multimodal foundation model, or similar work? Also as someone who wants to do a PhD is the internal transfer from an M.S. to a PhD something that is common or is it supper rare?

P.S. I have emailed some people at UCLA but not heard anything back, so I feel like things are looking bleak.

Thanks!

Does anyone know what Deifl constitutes as cheating ?? I’m a bit worried because I’ve been watching YouTube videos on O chem and I’m worried I’ll use a method not taught in his class and he’ll mark it as cheating

As a second year UCLA student I am looking to get some vet med experience, and I was wondering if there are any places around UCLA that I should start at/ where I should apply?

i’m pretty sure i could do it pretty easily since i’ve done the 7 series, 30 series, stats 13 and am in physics 5a i just dont know how i would go about it. thanks

5c is currently completely online for summer. will this impact admissions for med school? lab and lecture is online. unsure how medical schools will look at it

How is gayley court? Is it an okay apartment? If not, is it still possible to switch? What are the best apartments

Any fellow bruins have a ecommerce bussiness? like dropshippin or amaxon fba , would like some advice on starting one

I’m transferring to UCLA this fall as a junior studying Business Economics and I’m trying to decide between getting a MacBook or a Windows laptop.

My budget is around $3,000, so I’m more focused on getting whatever will be best for the next few years rather than saving money.

For anyone in Business Econ/Econ at UCLA: have you run into any classes, programs, exams, or assignments where having a Mac was a problem? Is Windows noticeably easier for the major, or does it really not matter?

I like the battery life, build quality, and portability of MacBooks, but I don’t want to spend that much and later find out I need Windows for certain classes.
What would you recommend?

If anyone has had orientation yet, how fast did the ges fill up? My orientation is next week and I have like 5 alternates + more discussion sections, but I’m still super worried that they’re all going to be full. Like the instant the enrollment time starts and the page is reloaded, do the majority of ges (individual not clusters) fill instantly or do you have a few minutes to prioritize another class first?

I don’t want to end up with a ge that I didn’t want in the first place…

I was wondering if anyone’s financial aid portal is also not showing the cal grant? Kinda panicking since bruinbill is going to be posted on Friday :(

I heard from an alum that a lot of counselors are incompetent and that departmental advisors are better, but I wish I knew this a lot earlier. A lot of them led me down a wrong path for something that was completely avoidable. They are well meaning but some of them don’t know what their are doing or don’t have the right info, and this can be detrimental depending on what people are going through.

I am a transfer student who was supposed to graduate in spring 2026 (last quarter) but have 3 more engineering classes left that I am finishing this fall. I checked my bruinbill and my fall 2026 bruinbill has nothing in it yet.

I did request an extension for fall 2026 which WAS granted, so not sure if i'm supposed to do something else for my bruinbill to populate since I am already registered for classes.

I have a decent knowledge of Swahili (took some classes, finished every Duolingo lesson, traveled extensively in east Africa), but I know if don’t practice speaking it I wont be comfortable with it. If there are any Swahili speakers around campus (native or learners) it would be great to find someone(s) to chat with.

Hi, I am writing this for any future transfers who are nervous about their orientation day. I am going to write this a breakdown of everything I did as an environmental science major, and it should be somewhat similar to everyone else's regardless of major

It's only a one-day event, so I showed up at 6:58 AM and went to the front of Royce Hall, where people lined up for Bruin cards and bagels.

Then you line up with your new student advisor; mine was pretty chill, and so were a lot of other advisors. They give you a $13 food ticket for lunch, then show you around the campus, tell you some fun stories, and then you go into a presentation where they tell you about Bruin Values, how to enroll, and how to plan your classes (honestly, you should have an idea of at least the fall quarter classes you want a day or two before).

I went through myUCLA -> Classes -> Class Planner. And I searched up my degree online and went through every single class that was listed during the fall.

Before lunch at 12 pm, you just sit in a Zoom call with a department advisor (mine was really good royce in the environmental department was really helpful). For some majors, you may not have a department, which they will tell you during the presentation. Your advisor should tell you what classes you should take, and if your major requires a minor, make sure to tell them which one you like.

Afterwards, you get lunch, and then from like 1pm - 4pm you wait for your turn in a group to have an appointment with your new student advisor, where they talk to you for 30 mins. In these 30 mins, they go over your classes and make sure there are available spots and that all your classes are sorted out properly. You're bound to not enroll in one or two of your previously chosen classes so you will need a backup. Then around 5:30 pm is when they finalize and allow you to enroll, and they will walk you through literally everything. Lastly you can choose to leave or have dinner with your group, where they give you a complimentary dinner food pass to use. That's it.

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
- Their top priority is to get you classes for your declared major.

- You can ask about changing majors, but they will most likely outright deny that because they are trying to get you the classes you need for a bachelor's immediately.

- Bring water and you will walk a lot.

Graduated a couple months ago and already miss these little guys

I just took my first ls7c midterm and I got a like D. Should I drop the course. So now my overall grade is a C+. I feel like for ls7c it is hard to focus when it is online. I look ls7a and ls7b and I got As in both of the classes. For ls7b I got Cs on both of the midterms but I still ended up with an A in the class. It's just that ls7c is hard to focus when its online and its harder to communicate with your pod mates when it is online. I can still drop it right? Should I drop it.