Stefanie Moye

For some incoming freshman like Stefanie Moye, deciding to come to UCLA has been a decision a lifetime in the making. This is a fact made evident by a picture hanging in her house of Stefanie as a 4-year-old in a UCLA cheerleader uniform sitting on the lap of John Wooden during a basketball game. For her, and other multi-generational Bruin families, UCLA has played a role in their lives long before they ever received a letter of acceptance or signed up for classes.

For Stephanie’s mother, Amy Moye ’86, ’88, UCLA was a place where she not only received an undergraduate degree but also where she received a nursing degree, a place where she worked as a nurse and a place where she met her husband. Even after graduating, UCLA events and games became a way for the family to get together and celebrate the campus that had brought them all together.

No matter what the team’s record looked like through the years, the Moyes continued to come to basketball and football games. According to Amy, it wasn’t about whether they won the game “it was about being together as a family, it was about the spirit and the band and the beauty of being part of something that you can’t leave once you are already a part of it. You don’t just abandon something when it gets tough.” That UCLA spirit kept them coming back for decades.

Amy and her husband Chris ’85, who met at UCLA as students, shared this love for their alma mater with Stefanie as she was growing up. Stefanie attended UCLA sports camps, spring football games and even played with UCLA legos as her toys. Amy understood that the UCLA of today is a very different place than when she attended school. Many things had changed, such as viewing acceptance letters online rather than waiting for them to arrive by mail.

On the day that notifications came out, Stefanie logged in on her smart phone and found out the same time as all her classmates that she had been officially accepted to UCLA’s freshman class of 2018. She was then invited to Bruin Day, a day dedicated to welcoming accepted freshman on campus and supplying them with information in the hope of convincing them to commit to UCLA. As a multi-generational Bruin family, the Moyes were invited to a special breakfast which was a way for families to re-experience the special community that the parents may have seen during their time as students.

Sharing her mother’s interest in healthcare, Stefanie will enter UCLA in pre-med. When she decided to come to Bruin Day last April, she made sure to attend a session about the resources available to her. Her mother Amy says that hearing from people who are in the program and want to help was invaluable. It was also a great way for her to catch up on what’s going on at UCLA.

Starting their activities at Bruin Day with the multi-generational breakfast was not only a way for Amy and Chris to experience a homecoming of sorts, but it also symbolized a passing of the torch on to a new generation and to a daughter who was molded to become a True Bruin. Before they came back to campus they made sure to bring with them the photo of Coach Wooden and their little girl, an image that foreshadowed these next four years of Stefanie’s time at UCLA.