You know it’s midterm season when it’s 8:45 a.m. on a Monday and there’s a line for the test bank with no end in sight.

And you thought the line for the 300 pages of free printing per quarter was bad…

Early this morning inside the Student Activities Center, the line for the test bank had wrapped around the corner and up the stairs onto the second floor.

The Community Programs Office test bank, located on the first floor of SAC, provides students with free copies of previously administered exams in return for an old exam.

Steven Ly, a third-year computer science student, was one of the many students to climb up the stairs and join the end of the line.

Ly, who had come to the test bank to find practice tests for a midterm, said he had never seen the line this long.

He was hoping to get inside the test bank in five to ten minutes.

“You’re not going to make it,” the student in front of him said, much to Ly’s disappointment.

Near the front of the line, Sam Chuang, also a third-year computer science student, said even though he arrived at 8 a.m., he had been waiting for more than 45 minutes.

“The test bank is useful but you have to plan ahead because during midterm season (the line) can get like this,” Chuang said.

With less than 15 minutes left until the start of his 9 a.m. class, Chuang, who has three midterms this week, said he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it to class on time, but that was OK with him.

“This is worth missing class for,” he said.

Have you had a similar experience with the test bank? How are you preparing for midterms? Share your thoughts and experiences with us in the comments below or tweet us @dbmojo.

—Kassy Cho

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Most of us use Facebook, Tumblr, Google and Youtube every day, but how do we access these sites? They aren’t magically broadcasted on our laptops and phones with the touch of a button. Often we take the Internet for granted and facepalm ourselves when the wifi on campus works slower than we’d like, but imagine for a minute what the world was like before the Internet…

Phew, that was scary.

Thanks to a UCLA professor and his team, we now have the Internet. It all began in the funky year of 1969…

Let’s set the scene. It’s Westwood in the late 60’s and a spiffy, young computer scientist named Dr. Leonard Kleinrock is a teacher at UCLA. On Oct. 29, Kleinrock and his team of whiz kids made a huge contribution to the future of the web by developing a network called ARPANET. Sounds like some crazy alien stuff, but this groovy new technology used a method called  “packet switching” to send information from machine to machine. Kleinrock set up the first computer with ARPANET and sent its data to computer scientists at Stanford University. Little did Kleinrock know, this nifty network would be the foundation for some freaky, futuristic thing called the Internet, a tool that allows people to communicate at super high speeds. This cool cat made it possible for future generations to have the world at their fingertips. Because of him we can ‘like’, poke, tweet, google, wiki, and instagram…. A whole new set of lingo he could never imagine. What a righteous dude.

So, shut off the boob tube (that’s a TV, for those of you not hip to 60s slang) and book it over to Boelter 3240 today. The Kleinrock Internet History Center is hosting a shindig from 12 to 3 p.m. to celebrate the forty-third anniversary of Dr. Kleinrock’s success. The original hardware used by Kleinrock is on display and there’s free grub and coffee. Be there or be square, ya dig?

—Casey Bradford

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He now stands sentry outside Pauley Pavilion with his trademark game program in hand, looking up toward the Hill, casting a glare on all of us coming down Bruin Walk. If John Wooden were still with us today, he might look just as displeased, wondering why anyone would think to make a statue of him.

“He’s probably shaking his head going ‘Oh, I don’t deserve this,’” said Nan, Wooden’s daughter, after the unveiling. “And I would say to him, ‘Well, it’s hard to be humble, Daddy, but you can do it.’”

The unveiling of the statue of the legendary coach came Friday afternoon outside the newly renovated Pauley Pavilion. The day included speeches from Chancellor Gene Block, USAC President David Bocarsly, booster Jim Collins (the main benefactor for the statue along with his wife, Carol), Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, and Nan and Jim Wooden. Hall of Fame basketball player Ann Meyers Drysdale served as master of ceremonies.

Each shared their favorite stories of Coach, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 99. Meyers Drysdale refers to him as “Pop Pop” to this day. Bocarsly still has collections of Wooden autographs he got from going to UCLA basketball games growing up. Jim Collins, a longtime executive with the restaurant chain Sizzler, told of Wooden sitting on Sizzler’s board of directors for nine years, never missing a meeting.

As far as the statue goes, it’s a sharp representation of the man who hung 10 NCAA championship banners in Westwood. Sculptor Blair Buswell pored over scores of photos trying to capture his likeness in three dimensions. One in particular stuck out: a shot from one of Wooden’s final games coaching with him in a plaid jacket, sitting down and sporting a confident and intense look before a game.

“I loved the expression,” Buswell said. “I thought, if I can capture that, I’ve got it.”

Wooden’s quotes are oft-repeated and still serve as inspiration to many. One quote was inscribed on the nameplate: “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”

His humility was a trademark of UCLA teams during his reign as coach from 1948-75 and was fondly remembered.

“He would have been against (the statue), unless his whole team could be out there,” grandson Greg said.

In fact, a statue of Wooden was erected earlier this year in Indiana, his home state and where he played college basketball. That one depicted him kneeling in a huddle with his team.

Guerrero said that a statue of Wooden was never mentioned while the coach was alive (Greg said he knew UCLA never asked because his grandfather would have vetoed the idea), but was immediately commissioned once the plans for renovations of Pauley Pavilion were finalized. Wooden was a lifelong fan of baseball, the sport Guerrero played for UCLA when he was a student-athlete in the 1970′s. Their relationship started back then, with Wooden often dropping by to watch the baseball team practice, and lasted until the day Wooden died.

“Everyone wanted to be a little bit better when they knew coach Wooden was in the stands,” said Guerrero.

Maybe when we walk by Coach on the way to class, we’ll be a little better as well.

—Ryan Menezes

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