Steven Bech
Steven Bech is an international student from a small municipality called Sinzheim, Germany. In 2020, he successfully transferred from Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) to UCLA with an Associate Degree for Transfer (AA-T) with highest honors in History. Today, he is a senior determined to earn his bachelor's degree in History, with a special emphasis on military history, and minors in Film, Television and Digital Media and Anthropology in the summer of 2022. Inspired by filmmakers such as Clint Eastwood and Randall Wallace to become a storyteller in the entertainment industry, he hopes to evoke the same fascination for history and film in other people that he feels today, especially the younger generations.
Deeply invested in historical research—the foundation of every history-based screenplay—he initiated a research project in the past about the living situations and experiences of the orphans in the Japanese internment camp of Manzanar, California during World War II, titled “Orphanages and State Control: Manzanar’s Children’s Village.” For the History Honors Program at UCLA, he is currently spilling rivers of ink over a yearlong thesis about the reactions of East and West Germany to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. With this research project—considering Germany’s significant geopolitical position as a diplomatic Cold War frontline with the Berlin Crisis of 1961—he hopes to reveal additional driving forces from overseas to explain the growing urge among the American and Soviet decisionmakers to disarm this situation peacefully.
Beyond academics, he is the Website Editor of the Phi Alpha Theta (PAT) History Honors Society and a member of the History Undergraduate Advisory Board (HUAB) to give the student body—especially transfer and international students—a voice in the decision-making process of the history department and help new students navigate the academic landscape at UCLA. He is also a participant in the UCLA Honors Program along with the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP).
Steven Bech is an international student from a small municipality called Sinzheim, Germany. In 2020, he successfully transferred from Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) to UCLA with an Associate Degree for Transfer (AA-T) with highest honors in History. Today, he is a senior determined to earn his bachelor’s degree in History, with a special emphasis on military history, and minors in Film, Television and Digital Media and Anthropology in the summer of 2022. Inspired by filmmakers such as Clint Eastwood and Randall Wallace to become a storyteller in the entertainment industry, he hopes to evoke the same fascination for history and film in other people that he feels today, especially the younger generations.
Deeply invested in historical research—the foundation of every history-based screenplay—he initiated a research project in the past about the living situations and experiences of the orphans in the Japanese internment camp of Manzanar, California during World War II, titled “Orphanages and State Control: Manzanar’s Children’s Village.” For the History Honors Program at UCLA, he is currently spilling rivers of ink over a yearlong thesis about the reactions of East and West Germany to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. With this research project—considering Germany’s significant geopolitical position as a diplomatic Cold War frontline with the Berlin Crisis of 1961—he hopes to reveal additional driving forces from overseas to explain the growing urge among the American and Soviet decisionmakers to disarm this situation peacefully.
Beyond academics, he is the Website Editor of the Phi Alpha Theta (PAT) History Honors Society and a member of the History Undergraduate Advisory Board (HUAB) to give the student body—especially transfer and international students—a voice in the decision-making process of the history department and help new students navigate the academic landscape at UCLA. He is also a participant in the UCLA Honors Program along with the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP).