One way to describe my overall existence is organized chaos. But goal-setting steers me more towards organized and less towards chaos. Here are a few of my goals for the immediate future and also for later in my professional career!
My goal for the next year is to write for the Daily Bruin Sports men’s basketball beat. UCLA MBB is my favorite team--I attended my first game in Pauley Pavillion when I was six months old and haven’t looked back since!
I was inspired to apply for DB Sports this quarter because reporting on my favorite team, conducting post-game interviews, and writing features sounds like the ultimate role!
I will definitely need to establish myself more as a journalistic writer and hone my skills. I just completed my three-week training as a DB sports intern and am so excited about what the future holds!
Another one of my goals for the near future is to research under Professor Kelly Lytle Hernandez. She leads the organization Million Dollar Hoods with other faculty, staff, and students at UCLA, so I hope to get involved with that while a student at UCLA. Million Dollar Hoods uses data and mapping to document the fiscal and human costs of mass incarceration in Los Angeles.
Ever since reading her book, City of Inmates, Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965, as part of USAC Academic Affairs Commission's Books with Bruins social justice book club last summer, I was inspired to learn more about the ways in which Los Angeles’ history is rooted in human caging, a precursor to the current age of mass incarceration.
The first step to achieving this goal is to take Professor Hernandez’s course, HIST 12A Inequality: History of Mass Imprisonment. From there, I hope I’ll be able to develop a relationship with her and the TAs and learn about their work in Los Angeles and beyond.
Part of being a UCLA student is being a member of the Los Angeles community. Growing up in Thousand Oaks, CA, I was about a forty minute drive from UCLA and the greater Los Angeles area. I was born and raised in a Bruin family. I came and went as I pleased, going into the city for basketball games and alumni events then retreating back to the comfort of my suburb.
But now that I am a UCLA student myself living in Los Angeles, I believe it’s integral to take certain steps to become involved in the LA community not just on a superficial level, but with a desire to create tangible change.
In order to realize this goal, I have been considering applying for the Community Engagement and Social Change minor at UCLA as well as becoming involved with the JusticeCorps program. I hope to declare my history major and apply for the CESC minor by winter quarter of my second year!
But by far my longest term goal is to be a published author. I hope to write a series of essays that are compiled into a book. I am inspired by Cathy Park Hong and Jia Tolentino, who both write about their experiences as Asian-American women in critical essays, published in Minor Feelings and Trick Mirror, respectively. I am also inspired by Mira Jacob’s candid memoir, Good Talk.
I’ve written a few personal essays on the model minority myth, microaggressions, and the American Dream for one of my projects, DeFacto Multimedia.
DeFacto Multimedia is also a Wixsite, and it’s dedicated to exploring the de facto experience of individuals. It’s a gallery that celebrates diversity and acceptance and features book reviews on anti-racist texts. A few of book reviews and reflections that I’ve written include those on Color of the Law, Just Mercy, and Between the World and Me.
I originally founded DeFacto to further my skills as a writer, and it's been an awesome way to develop my writing ability and confidence, working towards my goal of seeing my essays in a book one day!
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