Students shouldn’t have to compete for major

Arterburn is a first-year undeclared student.

By Jessica Arterburn

You worked your butt off for four years in high school to get
into UCLA. You’ve sweated, cried, bled and ached over exams,
papers and grades to finally obtain acceptance into a top-tier
university. At last, after so much drudgery, you are ready to
pursue your academic passion. You have already selected your
perfect major: communication studies in the College of Letters
& Science.

Communication studies is the only major in the College of
L&S that provides a business concentration in the mass media
industry. It sounds like a dream come true, except the
communication studies major is one of many impacted majors at UCLA.
This means that more students want to be in the major than there
are positions available. The program must approve requests from
students before they can declare the major.

As a UCLA student, you might be forced to settle for a major
that you are less interested in. Unfortunately, this happens to
many students who attend UCLA in a quest to further their
education.

Communication studies at UCLA is popular because it is an
interdisciplinary major that encompasses aspects from four academic
divisions. It is also directly related to the mass media and
located in the entertainment industry’s capital. More than
1,000 apply to the communication program each year.

Before last year, only 250 of these students, including transfer
students, were accepted in one year. Last year, the program
accepted just under 500 students, but the goal is to reach 700
students soon. Unfortunately for the aspiring communication
students, acceptances are still far below that objective and each
year the number of student applications increases.

The average GPA for freshman applicants is about a 3.5 and a
slightly lower 3.3 for second-years The committee within the
program reviews applications then makes a clean cut, taking only
the top students. It is based purely on statistics.

Eugenie Dye, undergraduate counselor for communication studies,
stated that if more resources were available, more students could
be admitted. Communications is not significantly different in class
load or upper division requirements from any of the other L&S
majors. The program is simply so popular that it doesn’t have
sufficient funding and faculty to admit every student who applies.
Attempts have been made to increase faculty and available
resources, but the numbers are still too low.

Students are only given two chances to apply to be accepted into
the major ““ at the end of freshman and sophomore year. During
their first two years, students typically start or sometimes
complete the communication prerequisites. If, however, students are
not accepted into the major by their second year, they have to
abandon the attempt.

Dye advises students to consciously plan out a backup if they
are not admitted. Students who are denied generally transfer to the
sociology, psychology, or political science departments because
some of the courses overlap. But a majority of the classes taken by
second-year students don’t fulfill requirements for other
majors.

These post-communication hopefuls now have empty credits and are
far behind in their second choice majors. This exact situation
could happen to me very soon. Since I’ve taken the lower
division courses, I have no choice but to start upper division
communication courses to stay on track. If I don’t get into
the major, I will have invested two years and completed many
courses that apply to nothing but the communications major.

By getting into a prestigious university such as UCLA, students
provide evidence of their passion for knowledge and the ability to
succeed. Program committees are denying capable students of the
chance to follow their aspirations. Denied students turn to
alternative majors simply to graduate, but often change too late
and fall behind.

Students should be able to study the major of their choice. The
communication department is working to improve and expand the
program, but the changes are not happening quickly enough to keep
up with the increasing demand.