“It’s always ‘Go Bruins’ and never ‘How are you, Joe?’”
Last year, we presented a New Yorker–style cartoon and asked you, our loyal readers, to provide ideas for a caption. It was so successful — and just so much fun — that we decided to do it again this year. And once again, a few hundred people submitted entries via Instagram. We’re proud to present the winning caption, above, courtesy of Brianna Plancarte ’20 (she earned a degree in civil engineering), who is currently a part-time graduate student at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She says the image reminded her that people are always asking, “What are you doing?” rather than “How are you doing?”
“I thought it fit the cartoon, since Joe obviously needed someone to talk to and for someone to check in on how he was doing,” she says. “I casually mentioned the caption to my partner and they found it funny, so I ran with it.”
Briana wins a framed print of the illustration!
Of course, that wasn’t the only prizeworthy entry we received. Here, the top two runners-up, both written by the same clever Bruin:
(Submitted by Nikhita Prabhu)
“They told me college would be the best four years of my life … I’ve been here since 1919.”
(Also submitted by Nikhita Prabhu)
Read more from UCLA Magazine’s Fall 2025 issue.
