Submission: Lack of USAC knowledge should not disqualify worthy candidate

Around week one, a transfer student asked me why I was running for transfer representative without much USAC experience. I answered that learning and understanding are two different concepts. Learning is based on fleeting memorization, while understanding is grounded in skill and aptitude, which I have.

I don’t know every USAC office name or elected official or the specific bylaws that other candidates casually refer to in their speeches. But that information is only a Google search away.

I understand the workings of a student government because I’ve worked through its politics and bureaucracy before, with scars to prove the adversities I’ve faced. I should know, as I fought tooth and nail with my community college only a few months ago over legal codes and finance, and with my high school administration when student activities were being censored.

I am an unaffiliated transfer student committed to supporting and representing transfer students, not lobbying and kowtowing to the slates or special interests that politicize this position and all others.

I will push to find space for a transfer center and staff of transfer counselors. I will establish the needed measures to create an overarching transfer mentor program. I will bring together competing student organizations, USAC and staff on the Hill to create an overarching legislation that benefits the transfer community.

I will make a town hall meeting for transfers so that their voices can be heard, not filed away. I will expand the New Student Orientation so that transfers can take a better first step at UCLA.

The election for the first transfer student representative is upon us. As a new transfer student running for an office that is important in fostering the transfer community, I stand as an independent, outgunned by political machines of intricate design. My platform is vague, staff limited, funding gone and prospects low. But I will continue to stand for the true interests of transfer students at UCLA. Transfers have a voice, and they deserve proper representation. I am the proper representative.

Kew is a fourth-year political science student.