Fresh from finishing a Bachelor’s Degree, Feliz Aguilar examines the “unlevel playing field” of graduate school and wonders if, as a “first gen, disabled, working class student,” it is even worth applying.

Undergraduate Corbin Li writes about university as a time of reinvention–and escape from abuse.

Undergraduate Helen Barahona interviews the directors of UC Irvine’s Dream Center and Basic Needs about their centers’ histories and missions, and about the obstacles that have stood in the way of their efforts to help students

Sharing their experiences with medical negligence, incarceration, and the long, sometimes harrowing journeys to get an education, UC Irvine students Lisandra and Ryan Rising talk with Lucid editor in chief Rachael Collins about the transformative potential of a community-centered approach to teaching and learning.

UC Irvine MA alumnx Martha Trujillo shares diaries she composed between the ages of 13 and 18. One of the most raw and real pieces of writing we’ve ever seen, the diaries function as documentation, poetry, art, and resistance.

With his multimedia, autoethnographic essay, UC Irvine graduate student and artist Alberto Lule shows what is possible in undergraduate writing. Identifying with the Palestinian American writer Edward Said, Lule explores what it felt like to be the child of Mexican immigrants and later the incarcerated adult who, “exiled in his own land,” finds himself through education.