Author: Alexa Damis-Wulff
Admissions season is once again upon us. As the guided tours weave around campus, some students reflect on what first drew them to Oxy.
In addition to being a valuable source of information for the class of 2012, the official Occidental website provides an interesting glimpse back into the mentality of a first-year applicant. The website boasts of rankings and teacher to student ratios and describes programs and facilities that set the campus apart. It includes an account of Oxy’s history as a selective, diverse liberal arts school and its growing national recognition as such. In short, the profile highlights the best parts of the school to make a pitch.
For current students, the description on the website speaks to an element of the Oxy experience whose relevance remains a topic of constant debate on campus: the unique placement of a small liberal arts school within a large metropolitan city.
The pitch of the Oxy website contains all the expected elements of the liberal arts model: small classes, hands-on and interdisciplinary study, and, of course, a commitment to the well-rounded graduate. However, Oxy’s location separates it from the batch of otherwise indistinguishable small-liberal-arts-schools-who-really-care-about-you. Enter Los Angeles, the city of dreams.
Under a picture of the gigantic Hard Rock Café neon green guitar, and the heading “Life in L.A”, the website boasts of the unique activities available only in Los Angeles.
“Whether it’s museums or music, eating or shopping, Los Angeles is where national trends are born. Just minutes from downtown, Occidental’s location in Los Angeles offers you a dazzling array of opportunities to enhance your education and to have fun,” the website reads. “Urban life, internships, community involvement and proximity to beaches, mountains, and the desert: it’s all here.”
Yet for many students it feels like it’s all over there, somewhere in a distant land entirely removed from everyday life. No one disputes the many and varied delights of the greater Los Angeles area, but in a city notorious for its sub-par public transportation system and horrible traffic, what exactly does the dazzle of LA have to do with us? And equally important, are we taking advantage of our opportunities?
One college guide calls Occidental an “urban oasis” and yet the word on campus is a little less friendly. As a new crop of high school seniors and their parents give Oxy the once-over this fall—evaluating the school on academics, extra-curriculars, and without question, location—the current student body ponders the question: Do we live in an urban oasis, or is it more like a bubble?
Walk through the halls of the all first-year residence hall, Stewart Cleland, and the answer is clear. “We live in a bubble,” said Michael Mahoney (first-year).
Sarah Kushner, a fellow first-year from the Portland area, sitting across from Mahoney in the common area agreed. “It’s really frustrating having the opportunity to live in such an international and happening city but feeling like I live completely removed from everything outside campus,” she said. “Public transportation around here is really expensive and inconvenient and I feel bad always asking for rides from friends.”
The benefits of having a car on campus are undisputed. Those that have cars are grateful: “I love having a car. I go off campus at least once a week,” said Sarah Amri (first-year), who shares a car with her twin sister Daniela. “I’m really happy I brought my car because I do get sick of being on campus all the time. Sometimes I feel like twenty people go here,” Amri said.
First-year Senator Xoichil Ramos can relate to both experiences, as she spent the first month of school without a car and then brought hers back from her hometown of Bakersfield, California on a weekend. “Once I brought my car everything became more accessible,” Ramos said. “I do feel more connected to LA now that I have a car.”
Not every Oxy student has the luxury of having a car at their disposal, nor is it practical or socially responsible for a fleet of 1,850 automobiles to serve a population as active as the Oxy student body. Public transportation does exist in nearby Eagle Rock and there is school-sponsored transportation into LA (the Bengal Bus).
Mallory Kaufman, a first-year from Colorado, told of an excursion she and a group of friends took into Pasadena via public transportation a couple of weeks into the school year. “The bus system was sufficient I guess but it was a challenge to figure out how to use it. There wasn’t any information on campus and it was hard to figure out from the public transportation website,” she said. “We had to wait in the heat for 30 minutes on the way back because we’d just missed a bus, and this was in the middle of the heat wave. The buses are air conditioned though, which you wouldn’t expect.” Kaufman added “there aren’t really school-organized efforts to get people off campus. Or at least not well-advertised ones, and the ones I have heard about are pretty random.”
The lack of off-campus programming and transportation seems to be a consensus among students despite Occidental’s Bengal Bus service, a free shuttle available to all students that runs at scheduled times during weeknights and weekends to restaurants, shopping districts and other locations.
Rainey Banick (sophomore) offered a second year of perspective along with friend Katie Griffin (sophomore) over cereal in the marketplace. “I’m a Bengal Bus driver, and not that many people use it,” Banick said. “People don’t take advantage of it.” Banick blames the low level of Bengal Bus use on a lack of student awareness, “People don’t read their digests,” she said. “I do feel like we are in a bubble but it’s possible to get out. They’re places you can go if you make the effort.”
Griffin cited the need for a car to take full advantage of the area. “We’re close to everything, but it is hard without a car or if you’re afraid to take public transportation.” Griffin can relate to the frustration of first-year students about the public transportation system. “My freshman year I rode the bus once and I was like, ‘I never want to do that again.'” But this year, she gave it a second try with her friends. “It’s fine once you get to the stops, you just have to get there,” Griffin said. The bus stops in Eagle Rock are generally a 10-15 minute walk from campus depending on which one you’re using.
“Everyone’s really helpful on the bus and there’s a metro link on the Oxy website where you just type in your destination,” Banick said. “If you really want to experience LA, you should take public transportation.”
David Martinez (junior), an RA for Stewie, places the emphasis on the motivation of the individual student. “It sucks if you don’t have a car because it’s convenient, but it’s not like you don’t know someone who has a car,” he said. “There are enough means to get off campus. It comes down to how willing you are to make it happen.”
Lisa Bullard (sophomore), a first-year mentor for Stewie, said she likes to leave the campus to add new things to her daily routine. “I do feel the need to get off campus, but not necessarily because there’s not enough going on here,” she said. “Oxy is great, but it’s just a lot of the same thing.” Bullard said that she knows people who have gone to Oxy for multiple years and still don’t leave campus often. “There’s a lot of opportunity, but it’s not always accessible opportunity,” she said.
Access to the offerings of the greater LA area may not be ideal, and some students may feel isolated from all the dazzle they envisioned their LA lives would hold. However, there is huge potential for fun on weekend outings. “A lot of the programs available on campus are available because we live in LA,” Martinez said. “It’s a lot easier to see speakers and artists here because of where we are.”
So, is Oxy a bubble or an urban oasis? “You get that bubble feeling when you don’t go off campus,” Martinez said. “The thing ab
out getting off campus is that it makes you appreciate the bubble.”
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