University of California-Santa Barbara Top Questions

UCSB offers challenging courses and wants to put its students to the test. It continues to get more competitive to get admitted because it's a challenging school and freshmen/transfers need to be prepared for it.

No. Not really any favorite class. Students study all the time. LIbrary is esp. packed during midterm sessions and finals. Class participation is common. Intellectual conversations outside of class: of course! Students are not as competitive collectively compared to UCLA. The most unique class: Intro to biopsychology biopsychology major in psychology department. Very biology-based psychology. focusing on neuroscience. It's still a growing major. I don't spend time with professors outside of class. Academic requirements are alright. It's up to how the students wish to take UCSB's education.

Professors don't know my name. I go out of my way to introduce myself though. Favority class- Psychology. Love the material and Professor Fridlund. Least favorite Math 34A. Did not care for professor at all (Ms Wei.) Students study daily. Class participation only common in certain people 3-4 students in each class. Yes UCSB students have intellectual conversations outside of class. Yes students are competitive. Opera is the most unique class I have taken. I love it. Major in business have not taken classes in it yet so I will find out soon. I don't spend time with professors out of class. UCSB's academic requirements are perfect. Definitely geared towards getting a job.

Some Professors do know my name, it really depends on the class size. My favorite class so far has been Greek Mythology. The teacher was great and it was very interesting. Some students are very competitive for grades, but the majority are not. Depending on the class I may spend time in the professors office trying to figure out what they meant or what to study.

Usually professors do not know my name, but I'm still in the lower division classes. My favorite classes are the psychology ones. The profs are hilarious. Amount of time studying really depends on the major. Hard science students study a lot...probably 15 hours a week. Other majors may study less but often have more papers. Class participation is common in discussion secctions and sometimes in the smaller lecture halls. Students have a lot of intellectual convos outside of class. My experience has been that when a student likes a class, they really want to tell other people what they've learned. Plus there are plenty of political and other types of intellectual conversations. students are competitive. Lots of classes are graded on a curve and you need to do well compared to the other students. The psychology major is very popular. All lower division classes are graded on a curve so it can be difficult to get into the major if you don't do well in a class. The professors are really engaging and funny. And there is plenty of opportunityto get involved with psychology research on campus. I don't spend time with profs outside of class. I feel that UCSB's academic requirements are challenging but far from impossible. At first all the GE's seemed overwhelming, but now I'm finished with them. For the most part, education at UCSB is learning for its own sake. But every major is different. Engineering majors are more job oriented than the English major, for example.

There is saying here that is "study hard, play hard" and it seems a majority of the students follow it. Students study rigorously during the week and the weekend is a time to let go and have fun. As an undergrad the professors don't really know my name since the classes are large. When you do talk to professors though they are usually extremely nice and answer your questions. UCSb is competitive but not as much as CAL, UCSD, or UCLA.

Professors in lecture halls only know you if you make an effort to know them. There is no way a professor is going to try and remember all 250 students in a class. However, in smaller classes, all of my professors have made the effort to know the students names. My favorite class so far was Women's Studies 20 because of the professor and because of the interesting topics. My least favorite class was Geology 20 because it was boring, not engaging AT ALL, and the professor made no effort to interact with the students. I think students study quite a bit, but not necessarily the same way students at other university students do. Since we are right next to the beach, it's not unusual to see a group of girls laying in their bathing suits on the grass studying. Unorthodox, yes, but it works. I see class participation more in smaller classes rather than big lecture halls. I think lecture halls are just more intimidating, so I think having sections are a really good addition to a class. I don't know about other people, but I have intellectual conversations out of class.

UCSB is pretty huge so the first year or two of classes feels overwhelming. Most survey courses are huge - - up to 800 kids in one hall. It’s hard to get to know those professors. Almost all interaction is through TA’s because they grade everything anyway. But as you become an upperclassman, classes shrink and you learn which professors and classes are good because you start seeing the same people in classes. My favorite class is British Literature, early novels with Professor Carlson. We’re reading Austen, Edgeworth, Shelley, Bronte and Gaskell. Carlson’s hilarious, brilliant and hates men, which makes the class really entertaining, even though she’s probably one of the toughest teachers I’ve had. A close second favorite is definitely Professor Hiltner, who I have for Metaphysical Poets. I’m usually in the middle of a couple of novels, anthologies and papers at any given time so I definitely can’t put stuff off. During the week, I put in 2-5 hours of reading/studying and writing. More, of course, during midterms and finals. Class participation is really the biggest problem at UCSB. There usually isn’t much participation. The good TAs and professors generate discussion but the bad ones just give up and there’s a lot of silence. It’s weird because students are pretty competitive. Maybe they want to keep it to themselves? I make an effort to see my professors during office hours at least 2 or 3 times during the quarter. I definitely go in to see them for papers, to make sure I’m on the right track, but usually it’s just to talk about a poem or part of a novel that I’d like their opinion on. I can’t say enough good things about English professors I’ve had; they’re really insightful, friendly and accessible, as long as you make the effort. Since UCSB is so big, I’d say there’s a split between the education geared toward getting a job and learning for its own sake. Definitely for English, it’s the latter. Although I love the curriculum, it’s hard to imagine when I’d have to dissect a Donne poem in the real world. But I’m sure I’ll be able to use the analytical tools I’ve learned. It’s mostly the engineering, business/economics and science students that talk about how much they’ll earn. A lot of them are already interviewing for accounting, banking and consulting jobs. Among humanities and liberal arts, most talk is about grad school or law school.

A lot of the lower division classes, the ones that freshman and sophomores start out with are large lectures, with upwards to 900 people in the class. But there are also a lot of small classes with only 20 people per class. These classes are usually upper division for a particular major. In the smaller classes it is easy to get to know your professor by name. In these classes, it is also easier to ask for help from your professor rather than a Teaching Assistant. I enjoy working in the English Department. The Undergraduate advisor is very helpful and almost always available. Class participation is common in small classes because students feel more comfortable with the professor. It is also very difficult to manage a discussion among several hundred students. My favorite types of classes are ones when the professor is very passionate about the subject. It is easier to sit through a lecture if the person giving the lecture enjoys the subject. My least favorite classes are ones when either the professor or the TA is boring or does not explain difficult terms. The education at UCSB is geared toward learning as much as you can about a particular subject while information on how to apply this knowledge to a career comes later. The general education requirements allow you to take a wide range of courses before determining a specific subject of study. Once you select your major, you will take many classes in that subject and depending on the topic, it could gear you towards a career. Overall, students are not aggressively and outrightly competitive, but the curve of a test can always be skewed.

So UCSB now has five Nobel Prize winners and is known for academically for its contributions to research. As an average student would you be able to tell? I would say yes. Overall, most professors I have are engaged, with their research and their students. Most professors let their students in on their work and often even ask for student participation. Perhaps as a Communication and Sociology major my classes have been more social and participation driven, but from friends in other majors, I get the feel that you'd be lucky if you could find a class where participation was not encouraged. Interested in Communications? The Comm department is absolutely wonderful. The faculty is all about their students. My favorite classes have been those taught by the Afifi's. They are husband and wife who teach on Family, Interpersonal, and Nonverbal Communication. They are all about participation and both have done some amazing research, which they share, in their field. One thing to keep in mind with this major is that it is very research and theory driven. If you're looking for practical skills in advertising or journalism then you might reconsider. However, I have learned a lot and it is not hard to apply the theories and research to those job markets. The education at UCSB widely differs. A biology or political science major is naturally going to find themselves studying more than a communications or linguistics major. But overall, people balance their studying well with extracurriculars and fun. Professors will get to know you if you make an effort to know them (which I recommend you do because they are all unique and have something to offer). I would say that students are less about competing with each other and more about their own personal accomplishment. Unlike Berkeley, you don't find students checking out books just so that other students cannot.