Maegan Carberry Carberry is a
fourth-year political science student and is Daily Bruin Senior
Staff. E-mail her at [email protected].
Before you start roaming the streets of Westwood apartment
searching in herds of four and sometimes ““ gasp! ““ six,
shuffling from two bedroom/two bathrooms to two bedroom/one
bathrooms and making plans to buy your bunk beds, do yourself a
favor and consider moving somewhere else. (Note: Every UCLA student
should experience Westwood life at some point.)
Not only are some other Los Angeles communities more diverse,
cheaper and busier ““ they have the added benefit of being not
here! While the crowds of students and high-rise professionals are
definitely a part of Los Angeles, they are indeed only one
part.
When I think back on my four years as a Bruin, I marvel at how
limited my experience in this city was in my first two years and
how much better I am for having moved out of Westwood to see what
else Los Angeles has to offer.
My two favorite places are to the South and East. Just down the
coast are fun beach communities (El Segundo, Manhattan, Hermosa,
Redondo) equipped with volleyball, surfing, biking, running and
sunshine. It’s a little pricey, but still comparable with
Westwood rent prices. And if you’re going to pay the same
amount, why not change your scenery? Besides, for those of you who
are lazy like me you can run on flat surfaces, instead of
hills!
And east of here is Hollywood, where I live now. It’s
where some of the world’s best hipsters and nightlife collide
with residential areas. Every day is a lesson in sociology,
politics and human nature that I never could have experienced
living only with college students in Westwood. There are sprawling
pads in the hills filled with wealthy professionals intermixed with
working class homes and people ““ a contradiction I have yet
to make any sense of. It’s amazing how all of these different
people can call the same place their home even when they seem to
have so little in common.
I don’t want to leave out other cool places nearby like
downtown L.A., Pasadena, the Valley, Culver City, Inglewood or
Santa Monica either.
It’s not that the experience in Westwood is bad. All
students should live there at least once, as they should live in
the dorms, too. It’s fun to fraternize with other students,
to be able to walk to your friends’ places at a
moment’s notice, to conveniently stumble home from the
Westwood bar scene or apartment parties. But it’s also
worthwhile to move elsewhere. Even though there are drawbacks to
commuting to school like traffic, travel time, parking, bus
schedules and so on, I find so much joy in the vitality of L.A.
that the benefits far exceed the costs.
Moving out of Westwood isn’t necessarily for everyone, but
everyone should at least think about it. Plus, it beats shady
landlords, driving around looking for nonexistent parking spaces,
getting tickets, dirty streets, overcrowding and everything else
that the Westwood apartment community is. And above all else, it
seems like such a waste to have the only diversity in your living
experience be Kelton, Veteran, Ophir, Midvale and Landfair.