One student's take on the attendance problems

so what you mean to say is hit on those frosh UCLA students to get their tickets. I’m sure I can get a fake UCLA Student ID made somewhere in LA. GENIUS! :-)

I agree with the dream of transferring tickets. I would be at every single game if I had won the lottery!

Before accepting your “solution” we need actual data that supports your contention of what exactly the problem is at UCLA?

You wrote:

After my first year here, it was said the not just UCLA but the whole UC system would raise its minimum accepted GPA from High Schools, and I feel that has changed much of the demographic of the “average” UCLA student, who clearly are much smarter and have a heavy leaning toward studies as opposed to sporting attendance.

How the heck do you support that? Do you have numbers that support your argument that the demographic of “average” UCLA student has changed from 1991 (when UCLA was a top-20 academic institution) to 2009 (when UCLA dropped to top-25)? If you have them, let’s see the numbers before running with your speculation.

You wrote:

As a member of on campus Greek Life, I have literally seen the shift of the motives of the majority of males who attend school here, and by that I mean significantly less motivation toward socializing behavior, I’m not saying that all people who are social are Greeks here, but its not unreasonable to associate the two and I have seen the number of males who choose to be in greek life dwindle and dwindle throughout the whole coucil.

Uh, how did you notice the shift in “motives”? Your personal experience? Do you have anything more than anecdotes or your own speculation?

Then you went on to postulate:

I’m not a misogynist, but I know for a fact that the collection of women I know, I’m currently dating one and live with two, have very little interest in sports in general to the extent that they make statements such as, “I didn’t know we had a basketball game” yet… they do have the ticket plans and do receive emails about basketball games.And I know for a fact that this can only continue to snowball, as the years go on.

So you are generalizing again based on a girl you are dating and your room-mates?

You will have to do better than that if you want to advance your arguments here. If you are just going to identify problems/issues based on speculation formed by your personal observations, then you might as well not share it here. This is not the place to throw out generalizations without offering data to support them. You can always try that out on some message board where no one is going to ask you for actual numbers and facts.

The date of this game and the dates of finals are fixed before the start of the school year. If going to the UCLA-Kansas basketball game at Pauley is important, as it would be to any self-respecting Bruin student athletic fan, that student, especially being a senior student, would have marked the date on the calendar and prepared ahead of time so that the two measly hours it would take to attend the game wouldn’t be the “make or break” two hours needed to do well on their final.

Sorry, but I don’t have any sympathy here.

I was able to attend sporting events and also study for my tests…and I was an engineering student. It’s called “time management.” If my dumb ass can do it, so can everyone else.

I do like your solutions to the ticket problem, and I agree with your take on the student population. UCLA is becoming a nerd-fest.

We have about half the student population (graduate and undergrad) as you, yet continually have one of the largest student populations at sporting events in the Pac10. Our student section at football games is about 7,000, and sells out every game (even when the stadium itself doesn’t).

I have heard of plenty of issues of student seating at a number of colleges, especially Oregon. The common denominator seems to be a complicated ticketing system, which doesn’t sound like its any better at UCLA.

Oregon State’s solution? Student tickets are not only free (paid for through fees), but also on a first come, first serve basis. As the actual product has gotten better, the university has seen a spike in recent alumni season ticket sales (this is specifically related to football). Part of that is the experience of going to the games, which is something I’ll always remember. It may sound pathetic, but I don’t know if I’ll ever have more fun than being drunk at a football game, standing in a student section, surrounded by my peers, who are also blitzed, and rooting on the Beavs. I’ll continue to attend games next year even after graduation, and while I will enjoy the games, it won’t be the same experience.

Ultimately, I feel like UCLA could do itself a lot of favors by letting anyone who wants a ticket, have a ticket. No complicated lotteries or anything like that (I’m not sure how it works). Don’t make it complicated to get a ticket. For us, getting a football ticket is as easy as going to Reser the Monday before the game, handing your student ID, done. Camping out has become the norm, and for a school with only 21,000 combined students, selling out 7,000 tickets has become easy. Not many schools can say that 1/3 of their students attend football games.

One other thing that I have heard from this post is the distance factor. I don’t personally know what its like to go from campus to the Rose Bowl, but it sounds like its a pain? Reser Stadium is on campus, a mere 15 minute walk from the farthest of the surrounding campus homes. Going to the game isn’t a planned event. Its very wake up, start drinking, head over to the game before kickoff. No planned “travel”, like it sounds what goes on at UCLA.

Just my random take