Discovering Campus Life, Made Simple

September 12, 2025
Newsroom

Introduction

As part of the UCLA Digital & Technology Solutions (DTS) AI Innovation Initiative, a team of UCLA students has developed BruinXplore, an AI-powered app that helps students cut through information overload and find extracurricular activities that match their interests and schedules.

The Challenge

UCLA offers a vibrant array of events and activities, from performances to athletics to student clubs. Yet these opportunities are scattered across dozens of departmental websites and visually cluttered calendars. New students often struggle to sort through the noise, and many miss out on experiences that could enrich their campus journey. The lack of simple filtering by time and interest further discourages engagement, leaving students frustrated when exciting events do not fit into their schedules.

The Solution

BruinXplore brings clarity and personalization to UCLA’s extracurricular life. Using a chatbot interface powered by language models, students can describe their interests in plain language and filter events by availability through an intuitive drag-and-select time grid. By combining natural language prompts with precise scheduling filters, the app delivers relevant, UCLA-specific recommendations without overwhelming users.

Behind the scenes, the team implemented retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to inject curated UCLA data into the system, ensuring accurate and timely results. The design focuses on simplicity, personalization and reliability, helping Bruins discover what matters most to them.

The Impact

BruinXplore is designed to:

Simplify discovery of campus events with a single, user-friendly interface
Personalize recommendations using natural language inputs and real-time availability
Encourage engagement by lowering barriers for new and prospective students
Strengthen community through broader participation in UCLA’s cultural, athletic and social life

Feedback from students and staff has been overwhelmingly positive, with many noting that the tool offers a more intuitive, accessible alternative to existing calendars and listings.

Looking Ahead

The BruinXplore team is preparing for a Fall Quarter deployment, with aspirations to expand beyond student use. Looking forward, the project could also serve prospective students researching UCLA’s campus culture, providing a welcoming, comprehensive view of extracurricular life.

To achieve this vision, the team hopes to collaborate further with UCLA partners for access to richer event data, cloud resources and technical support around security and privacy.