Day 98 - Finals

After what feels a while since my last entry, fall quarter has come to a close and I’m now back home in the UK to spend time with family for Christmas break. My final exams, which were all compressed into two intense days, went rather well. They were structured in a very similar way to those tackled in my midterms with an emphasis on short question answers, an assessment technique I believe not to be a good way of testing depth of knowledge and understanding of a topic. I hope to have received my final grades by the publication of my next post. As highlighted in my last blog entry, this post seeks to merely summarise my findings from my first quarter at UCLA. Firstly, it is important to emphasise that thus far It has been a thoroughly enjoyable first few months in the United States, I have made many friends, acquired new skills, seen amazing sights and importantly acquired useful knowledge around the subject that interests me most, geography. I have had mixed feelings towards my experience of geography at UCLA to this point. My experience in Food and Environment has enlightened me to the fact that there are really interesting courses that are being taught here within the geography department, covering areas that are not so well explored at UCL. However, my experiences of physical geography thus far make it evident that department strength in this area is not as strong as UCL. This proved to be bittersweet as although it was partly enjoyable feeling knowledgeable about what was being taught, it was rather frustrating not being able to advance ones knowledge in a topic area which interests me a lot. In terms of Spanish, though initially I found it rather perplexing, in the end I managed to overcome these challenges and feel confident in speaking Spanish fluently. I believe the teaching and assessment methods employed here have enabled me to advance my fluency in the language, one of the main reasons why I wished to study at this establishment.

In terms of Los Angeles as a city, my first impressions are it is a fabulous place, however it is not all what is portrayed in movies and media. Despite the glitz and glamour of more affluent areas, there are areas where poverty, unemployment and amount of homeless is really high, culminating in ‘food deserts’ and the disappearance of investment and capital (Cockrall-King, 2011). High levels of disparities are very evident; the city is not based around an affluent business centre like London per se. I find it a fascinating city that I intend to explore a lot further in my final two quarters here.

Edit: poor Internet connection meant this post didn’t publish when initially intended.

Cockrall-King, J (2011) Food and the City: Urban agriculture and the new food revolution, New York: Prometheus.