We asked students where they love studying the most. Here are 10 study spots (in no particular order) around the UCLA campus you should check out.  (A map is included at the end.)

Book stacks at the Young Research Library (Photo: Flickr/AlaskanLibrarian).

1. Young Research Library

The newly renovated first floor study lounge has a modern look that students will appreciate. In case you start feeling too cozy while studying, there’s also a cafe on the first floor.

2. Engineering Library

“They have that calm, cozy, and silent-stormy mood and atmosphere,” says  one student. The library is less packed during study season, as not many people know about it.

3. Powell Library

The library is beautiful inside and out. Some say it’s easy to focus here. But this is one of the first places people hit up to study. So during midterms and final seasons, try to exhaust your other options before looking for space here!

4. Kerckhoff Study Lounge

The study lounge can be found on the 2nd and 3rd floors of Kerckhoff, an ideal place for MSA-ers to study if they want to stay close to the Mozlums. It’s also one of the few study spots close to the prayer area behind Kerckhoff.

5. SAC (Student Activity Center) Basement

Good place to study during finals week as they have study hall hours until 3 a.m. They also have their own Vanpool service to drop students off at their dorm or apartment (available only if you study there for at least 1 hour).

6. Lawn next to Janss steps

If you need some fresh air or Vitamin D, you can study in the lawn next to Janss steps. Plus, the view is fantastic!

7. Botanical Garden

A view you will see at the Botanical Garden at UCLA. Can you spot the sunbathing turtles? (Photo: Flickr/cindylu)

The Botanical Garden is a beautiful place every student must visit before graduating (the garden even holds some very rare species). It’s open to public during certain hours, students are free to study there. My personal favorite spot is the “tropical” section. If you are close enough to the water you might spot a few turtles!

8. Kerckhoff Patio

It’s out in the open, you get fresh air (and still remain relatively close to your second home, the MSA office). It’s also right next to the Kerckhoff Coffee shop. Go here only if you are not easily distracted.

9. Starbucks in Westwood

If you are sick of studying on campus, there are plenty of cafes in Westwood (many of them come with free wifi). One student’s favorite is the Starbucks.

10. “Cafe Med” at Center for Health and Sciences

View Study Spots on Campus in a larger map

These three declarations –rather, these three absolutes– popped into my head one after the other during my first juvenile detention site visit through the Incarcerated Youth Tutorial Program (IYTP).

SubhanAllah

The drive up to Camp Fred Miller is a long, slow uphill trudge. You wind through the hills of Malibu, going higher and higher until the neighborhoods below you look like plots of land and grass nestled in the mouth of one giant valley. When you get to Camp Miller and step out of the car, you notice two things.

One: it’s very cold and it’s barely 5:00 pm. Two: the high barb-wire fences; the old, military-style intercom and the uniforms–the guards, the parole officers, the students.

Everyone is in uniform, 1,800 feet in the air, at a chilly 40ºF and miles away from the nearest cul-de-sac, the nearest movie theater, the nearest restaurant, the nearest street light. Miles away from anything fun, or happy, or even normal.

At this point, you try to imagine yourself in their shoes, but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t. At this point, you have merely been introduced to their plight, you’ve only barely become acquainted with their circumstance. Glory be to Allah.

Alhamdulilah

When you first see the students, many of the truths you were once told about the inherent injustices of our government’s socio-economic tendencies and educational policies finally materialize, and any of the skepticism you once held against this fact vanish.

You witness for yourself the failure of the education system, the intricate racism of the institutional society we live in. You see the Black and the Brown, but not the White. The only white you see is the Porsche in the Warden’s parking spot. Then you sit down to begin your session.

You meet your student and start working on his trig, but then you hit a wall. We all believe firmly in our hearts and minds that we should be grateful for all that we have, but what about all that we know? When was the last time we felt grateful for knowing what a ‘ratio’ was, for what a ‘radius’ is? When was the last time we thanked Allah for knowing how to add and subtract, multiply and divide, because some of these kids sure wish they could.

How blessed are we to know these things and to have had the opportunity to learn and grasp these simple concepts? We are very blessed, but many of us are completely oblivious to this blessing of ‘knowing’ because we really truly take it for granted. All praise is due to Allah.

Allahuakbar

You sit down with your student with the intention of getting through 2 or 3 sections, but by the time you must get up to leave you’ve only gone through 2 or 3 problems. You think to yourself: Is it really that hard for him to solve that question, to even understand what it’s asking?

The answer is yes. It really is that hard for these students to evaluate problems we would find very easy. As you walk out and return to the van, you notice all the inmates are gone. It’s nearly 7:00 pm and they’ve been herded back into their dorms–it’s almost their bedtime.

One more time you try to envision yourself in their shoes, and again, you fail to. You wonder why they’re in the situation they’re in. You ponder why you’re in the situation you’re in. You think about the freedom Allah has given you to control your life (to some extent) and fix your own schedule. You think about the knowledge Allah has gifted you, even if it’s as small and simple as knowing what a diameter is.

And you think about the greatest favor Allah ever gave you: guiding you to Islam, and how that guidance kept you out of incarceration camps as this. Allah is the Greatest.

(Featured image credit: C.M. Gonzales)

Part 1: “Non-Violent Movement”

Part 2: “Revolutionary Ideas”

Part 3: “Tangible Demands”

Part 4: “Direct Action”

Part 5 & 6: “Bruins in Tents”

Part 7: “The State of Our Education”

(Photo: Filckr/decade_null)

The American incarceration system has made it a point to imprison people, bar them from outside contact, isolate them from society and bunch them together to have “tea-parties”. Meanwhile, they fail to provide them with proper rehabilitation programs and a safe environment to foster development and change.

Put simply: this system just does not work.

How effective can prison be if its only purpose is to house criminals for the duration of their sentence and after their sentence is complete, release them back into society? Not very effective at all.

The fact that up to 60% of inmates are rearrested within 3 years of release only attests to the flaw in the incarceration system. Prisons need to be places that encourage and facilitate change and development within each inmate on a personal level.

Their primary purpose should be to provide inmates with rehabilitation programs, counseling services, educational forums, and real-world mentoring.

Their secondary purpose is to be the medium for criminals to serve their sentences. What happens if the incarceration system continues to fail to invest in inmate refinement? Well, the average cost to house a single adult inmate is nearly $50,000 a year. With nearly a quarter-million inmates (217,000 to be exact) of which over 80% serve more than 5 years, 70% serve more than 10 years, and 40% more than 15. You do the math.

And don’t forget that there’s a 67% chance they’ll go right back in. This system hurts everyone, taxpayers pay from their pockets while inmates pay with their lives.

How do you try to tackle this problem? Changing the system entirely will quite literally take a national revolution. The corporate grip on the government will not loosen easily, there’s just too much money to be made.

But there is another way.

We can target the at-risk youth who would otherwise grow up to become the adult inmates that fall into the hole of cyclic incarceration. We can provide them with the services, skills, and environment they need to develop and mature into productive people will prevent them from filling up prisons and becoming a burden not only upon society, but also upon themselves.

***

(Flickr/ EU Social)

Al-Talib interviews Kelsey Paxton, a second year Psychobiology major at UCLA, about her experience living in post 9/11 America. Although she is not Muslim, she feels the need to defend Muslims and encourages others to be more accepting and understanding towards people of all faiths and backgrounds.

A-T: Did you feel the effects of 9/11 right away?

Paxton: At first, no. I was shocked, I didn’t believe it was happening. As I watched, and we saw the street view of the people crying, I felt the effect. I have a family of people who served in the military, served the country working as police officers and firefighters. My father was in the military so my family is very prideful for this country. We have this love for the country, even though it has things that it needs to work on. It was very disheartening because not only was this happening to your country all of a sudden, these are your fellow American citizens, even though you may not know them, you automatically feel sad for them.

A-T: Did you start seeing changes in your environment?

Paxton: I did. People are more kind where I come from compared to Los Angeles. Everyone was even more kind to each other, trying to help people. The community came together and tried to help people. We put care packages together for the firefighters. We saw more patriotism in my town, flags, people wearing American colors. It united my community.

A-T: You’re not Muslim?

Paxton: No, I’m not.

A-T: So when did you learn the attackers were Muslim and how did you react to that?

Paxton: I actually found out that same day because my dad likes to analyze everything. I asked him who did it, and he said it was a terrorist group, and they’re Muslims. You saw people throughout my community talk about Muslims like they were bad people. My parents raised me to always defend myself and others who can’t defend themselves. So I said,” just because this person is Muslim doesn’t mean you should talk about them”. I would go home to my mom and my dad, and although I was young, I wasn’t super young, and I would say to them, “People are saying that all Muslims are part of this terrorist group.” I remember my parents sitting down and they said that it’s not true, because it’s like saying that all white people are a certain kind of way.

My dad said, “These particular Muslims are radical, they’re terrorists. Not every Muslim in this country is like that. So you need not to judge people when you first look at them, because you don’t know.” My parents told me that at times when people go into airports and see Muslims, they may get frightened or scared, because they don’t know and terrorist attacks are happening through the airport system. They said it’s only natural but you can’t turn around to that person who is Muslim, or someone who looks of Middle Eastern decent and accuse them of being a terrorist. Just like you can’t accuse someone who looks like you of being a Nazi.

A-T: What do you look like Kelsey?

Paxton: Blond hair, blue eyed, white person. And so, I really took that to heart. My parents raised my to be open minded and understanding towards others of different religions and cultures. They always taught me, you don’t judge other people. That’s not your place, that’s God’s place.

I wasn’t afraid of Muslim people, I always felt bad for them. Even if people wouldn’t outright call them terrorists, they would still make derogatory jokes about them. Some people would say they didn’t really care if they made those jokes, but you could see that others really took it to heart.

I actually have a close friend who’s from the Middle East. She would be upset a lot of the time because she would say, “Just because you’re from there doesn’t mean that you’re automatically a terrorist.”

Many are kept to this one-minded track and I always try to talk to people about it. I say, “Look. what if I came up to you and said, ‘Because you’re Mexican you must mow my lawn.’ You would not like that, would you? So why are you saying that about people who are Muslim?” I always try to play Devil’s advocate and make people look at things in different ways.

Photo: Flickr/ buddawiggi

The taxi driver looked at me in a panicked state and exclaimed, “Quran! Quran!” Frantically attempting to communicate with me in Arabic, he hoped that we would at least understand each other through a commonality of faith. I nodded in agreement and felt a sense of relief.

Although we were worlds apart due to our language barrier, it all disseminated at the sound of the Quranic recitation. Thankfully, I found a hotel.

My Casablancan experience wouldn’t begin until two days later, after spending the entire time between the bed and the bathroom. Once I was back on my feet, I met up with a friend, Oussama, who was suggested to me by Aya, a friend I met in Spain. Oussama eagerly awaited to be a sort of Moroccan tour guide for me.

We began our journey by walking through the maze of the souks, or Moroccan bazaar, which usually signify the existence of a medina, or old city. As Moroccans proclaim, the souks are easy to get into, but very difficult to get out from due to the winding ins and outs of the paths.

I must admit, I had to put aside my American “I’m-an-independent-woman” attitude when following behind him through the souk. I also had to put it aside when I relied on Oussama to translate my bargaining skills while shopping for some Moroccan jillaba, or long dress. Somehow, the bargaining was lost in translation and I paid higher than I felt I should have.

Amelia Noor supplicates in front of the Hassan II mosque.

Compared to Fez, the weather in Casablanca was very pleasant. I felt the oceanic breeze coming in from the Atlantic which was just meters away. Oussama and I ventured to the Hassan II mosque the next day. We decided to walk three kilometers from my hotel to the mosque, which allowed me to observe Moroccans. In the hour long walk it took to reach the mosque, we witnessed a car accident and dusty winds. The minaret of the mosque was visible for at least half of our walk, signifying its grandeur.

I walked around the courtyard of the mosque, imagining how it could hold 150,000 worshipers at once, since it is the third largest mosque in the world. The tile work on the walls of the mosque were intricately connected by a turquoise-green color that dominated the palette vividly. It seemed that the mosque was only one color from this view. The smell of fish from the ocean and the sound of raging waves literally embraced the perimeter of the mosque.

Outside the courtyard, I was hopping off of large stones that were placed to form a man-made beach near the mosque. I sat on one of the stones and watched as some youth in swim shorts dived from the courtyard of the mosque, now a make-shift diving board, into the Atlantic.

Source: Flickr/ Itinerant Tightwad

As a member of the South Asian community, I have attended numerous iftars that seem more like parties than iftar gatherings. If you’re a Muslim you’re probably thinking, “Iftar ‘parties’ and ‘gatherings’ are the same thing, dummy!”

Sadly, our community has failed to distinguish between the kind of parties we host during most of the year and the kind of gatherings we should host in the blessed month of Ramadan. An extravagant iftar “party” ends up taking a big chunk of our night away from gaining the good deeds Allah offers to us so generously in this wonderful month.

At these parties usually so much food is prepared for the iftar andthe dinner that by the end of the night, many have adjusted their belts and buttons to accommodate their full stomachs. Sometimes people take more food than they can handle and end up throwing it away.

We seem to forget that in these short summer nights there’s not that much time between the start of maghrib and ishaa. At these type of iftar parties, the ishaa and taraweeh prayer at the masjid are usually missed due to the lengthy duration of these parties. Appalled by this excessiveness,  my family decided to host a different kind of iftar this year. By utilizing these techniques, we were able to have a more successful iftar gathering:

• Tell guests beforehand of your intention to attend ishaa prayer at the local masjid.
• Make a couple of signs to remind everyone not to waste food. For example, one sign can remind the guests of the condition in East Africa. Another can remind that God does not like wastefulness.
• Make a moderate amount of food dishes so as to not take too much time from your worship in cooking. This will prevent overindulgence and wastage of food at the iftar.
• Break the fast simply with dates and milk. Then, pray maghrib in congregation with your guests.
• After prayer, serve dinner. Gentlemen, try to let ladies and children go first!
• Try your best to make time for a small halaqah or Islamic reminder about Ramadan. You can serve tea and sweets with the talk. Imagine how much Allah swt and the angels will love listening to us talk about our religion rather than gossip or politics!
• Keep an eye on the clock to make sure you do not miss the ishaa prayer at the masjid!

Previous iftars I have either been a part of hosting or attending have usually left me feeling guilty at the end of the night. This kind of carefully planned iftar, on the other hand, ended up enhancing the productivity of the night and allowed us to also earn extra good deeds for feeding our fasting guests!