UCLA chapter of Thought Lounge facilitates dialogue between strangers

Four complete strangers met in a study room at Young Research Library last Wednesday to talk about everything from the experiences of first-generation immigrants to how language affects the way we think.

This was the first meeting of Thought Lounge, a new student organization at UCLA in which students gather to talk about whatever is on their minds.

In a typical thought lounge, four to six students get together and each proposes a topic. Each topic is discussed for 12 minutes. At the end of the thought lounge, everyone tries to find connections between all the topics discussed.

Thought Lounge began at the University of California, Berkeley. Axel Cramer, now a fourth-year student at UC Berkeley, founded Thought Lounge during his first year. He created the club as a way to get students from different fields together to share their ideas.

“Thought Lounge is a formatted dialogue with strangers on the urgent topics of utmost interest to them, efficiently and in a safe space,” he said.

Cramer, along with other students from Berkeley, are traveling across California establishing new Thought Lounge chapters.

At UCLA – their first stop – they set up a booth on BruinWalk last week and talked to interested students about the club. They also plan on visiting UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis.

At her first Thought Lounge, second-year psychology student Amulya Vadrevu wanted to talk about happiness. She said she was curious about why some people seem to always be happy while others never seem happy no matter what they have. She asked the other students in her lounge to share their happiest and saddest moments, and why they felt the way they did at that time.

“I think happiness could probably be categorized into short-term happiness and long-term happiness,” she said. “Everyone can seem happy in the short-term, but long-term happiness is what matters.”

One student, a first-generation Indian American, wanted to talk about the experiences of immigrants adapting to American culture. Another, fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese, brought up the idea that the language we speak changes the way we think. A third student asked the group to discuss what makes a good thinker.

For Cramer, Thought Lounge is a way for people to come together out of a love of learning from each other, and talking about whatever interests them most.

“It’s about believing that everyone has 12 minutes of something to say that will blow your mind or spark up an awesome dialogue,” he said.

Mia Semelman, a student at UC Berkeley and publicity coordinator for Thought Lounge, signed up for the club as soon as she heard about it.

“Thought Lounge is all about connecting with people, which is my number one favorite thing on earth,” she said.

She described Thought Lounge as an opportunity to hear what someone else is most passionate about at that moment in time, and an opportunity to connect with people on a deeper level.

“You get to see into their soul as much as you can,” she said.

Semelman hopes to see the UCLA chapter of Thought Lounge expand and thrive, and said her hopes are already coming true.

“UCLA responded really well,” Cramer said. “We had a total of eight thought lounges in two days.”

UC Berkeley student and lounge host Charles Niu said he sees Thought Lounge as more than a club. He said he considers it a culture and an approach to talking about things.

“It should be a totally normal cultural thing that people just do on college campuses,” he said.

Cramer agreed, and said he wants to see Thought Lounge expand across the country.

“My vision is to see it in every school in the United States, hopefully within the next few years,” he said.

At UCLA, Cramer expects to see thought lounges happening on campus nearly every day by the end of the quarter.