Chain-link around Pauley, caution tape around Bruin Walk… what’s next? Sheets over Royce? A plastic flamingo in Wilson Plaza? Here at UCLA, the administration seems more focused on revamping facilities and building sidewalks than on saving educational programs, and we as students have merely tramped along with it.  

Sort of like sheep, we’ve dutifully followed each construction sign. Oh, you want me to hike through the bike racks here, walk over a newly constructed wood plank there, and then take a ten-minute detour through a chain-link maze? Sure, why not, and while you’re at it, please throw in blaring horns, bulldozers with blades that come precariously close to student heads, and the omnipresent clanking of metal. Perfect! 

Well, it’s time I registered my complaint, instead of greeting each disruption with measured indifference. The construction is altering student life as we know it. Tearing up Bruin Walk for a few weeks may not seem like a big deal, but it wrecks havoc on club plans to flyer and advertise. Destroying the streets on the hill for two quarters may seem minor, but it’s extremely disruptive to the many drivers navigating through the hastily constructed alleys. Fencing off Pauley and moving graduation ceremonies for three years is simply a travesty. 

Has the administration considered its current students at all when adopting these renovation plans? At what cost will the university destroy the campus now to ensure slightly better facilities for students in the future? 

I don’t want to be selfish but my peers and I have always been told that UCLA is “our” university. We can grow and learn from it, but we also can contribute to its change. Yet what I seem now is the antithesis of this mantra: that UCLA is just borrowed property, that we have no say in the destruction or rebuilding of our campus. 

It’s not unreasonable to expect a dorm room where one doesn’t have to wake up to the thud of hammers, or to want to walk down BruinWalk without fearing bulldozers. It’s not unreasonable to expect our university to place us first, to hold true to its original promise of a beautiful campus and a pristine classroom environment.  

As students, we should expect more than a campus filled with artificial walkways and a landscape littered with metal cranes. We should expect more.