University of California-Santa Cruz Top Questions

The community at UCSC is pretty open-minded. Students come from all walks of life, and the student body is definitely diverse. Only 3{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of our undergraduates are from out-of-state, and the campus definitely leans far to the left. Be prepared to smell ganja - it's pretty common on campus. I don't see much around College 9, but at College 8 I smell it on a daily basis.

An INCREDIBLY open campus, no judgments, ever. Ware what you want, say what you want, believe what you want, this is a very liberal college, and with a liberal college comes new levels of freedom. If your shy, try to get over it, because not many people here are and you might be intimidated by it.

I am very impressed with how much emphasis is placed on having a non-discriminating community. Most of the time I don't think it's necessary. Students from city areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles would feel out of place. Most students from cities wear modern clothing, while students from rural areas wear thrify clothes. Different types of students don't interact unless they are from Oakes. Most of the UCSC students I have met are from northern California. Students are not politically aware or active. We don't talk about how much we will earn. We are apathetic in our school pride, athletics, and academics. The only people that work hard are those who want to transfer out of the school, the science majors, and those who have passion in the arts, and perhaps the hippies and hardcore vegans.

I am only familiar with "racial" groups on campus. I'd rather call them ethnic groups. El Centro is the Latino resource center here and it's a good resource for events. I think that lower-income students of color would feel out of place here. They seem sequestered at Oakes College and tend to stand out in class. I feel like I stand out in my classes. There are far more white students than there are students of color. Students wear a whole range of clothing to class: some look like they walked out of an Urban Outfitters catalog and others look like they robbed a bum of his/her clothes. I do think different students interact. Most UCSC students are from the San Francisco Bay Area or Los Angeles area. The most prevalent financial backgrounds are that of the upper middle class. iPods and iPhones are ubiquitous as are expensive leather handbags and designer clothing. You will definitely know if you are not from that sector of the student population. Students are politically aware and most are left leaning.

There aren't a lot of super right-wing radical religious people. You're more likely to find tree-huggers, tree-sitters, war-protesters, etc. It's very liberal here. The atmosphere is very LGBT friendly. While there are clusters of people--Asians, African Americans, Caucasians, Latinos, etc--people interact and cross racial boundaries. It's blended, which is nice. A student who is very religious or very conservative might feel a little out of place. There are religious groups on campus, but not many, and not many conservative groups either. It's very "save the planet, save the trees, save Darfur, help the underprivileged!" The teachers are liberal, too, and mostly secular. Especially in physics a lot of people roll their eyes at the proponents of Intelligent Design or make jokes about it. Most students wear whatever. There are definitely the "cool" kids, who were obviously the popular kids in high school, but mostly people wear jeans or slacks, or on hot days skirts and low-cut tops. Lots of flip-flops, though hiking those hills in flip-flops can be down-right dangerous. Most kids are pretty casual about what they wear. Four tables at the dining hall--depends on which dining hall! College 9/10 has more Asians than any of the other colleges, and Oakes has more African Americans/Latinos. Of course people eat at different college dining halls, but if you go to either of those you're more likely to see ethnic groups. Crown is more white, but not exclusively. A lot--at least a quarter--of students come from Southern California. A lot come from the Bay Area--San Francisco, and further north. There's definitely a blending of "So-Cal" and "Nor-Cal." There are definitely some Orange County people here. You can pick them out by how they dress--very movie-star-ish. Big sun glasses, fancy purses, skinny, tanned, waxed, etc. But certainly not all are like that. I think the financial backgrounds are mostly middle class. I don't think there are a lot of students who come from either very poor or very rich families. It's rather homogeneous in that sense . Students are VERY VERY politically aware and active. Lots of protests, lots of activities, lots of discussions--by the way, all the activities on campus are great. We have an amazing performing arts center, and lots and lots of sponsored events on various socio-political issues, every single week. You could spend your entire time here just seeing all of the events. LEFT! LEFT! In the words of one teacher, "Professors here range in their views from Left, to Far Far Left." Some, but not most, students talk about how much they'll earn. Students are well-aware they'll have to pay back their loans and such, but most are more concerned either with just graduating or with helping people, or doing what they want to do in life.

Diverse.

I think the campus is some what diverse. I don't know of any students who feel out of place at UCSC. Some diffent tupes of students do interact. Most UCSC students are from Southern California.

There are diverse groups with many different interests, and if you are looking for one group or interest in particular, you should be able to find it.

People say that UCSC is super white. While it may be true that the campus has a high percentage of white students, there is actually ethnic diversity on campus. As with most stereotypes and generalizations, this one is blown way out of proportion. This also goes for politics. The students here are not as ultra-left-wing as some will say. Liberals do seem to far outnumber conservatives (or at least vocal ones), but most liberal students are run-of-the-mill liberals--not communists and anarchists.

People don't shower here. Most students are from the Bay Area, Nor-Cal, So-Cal and some from the east coast. We are very white washed. Most students are white although their are still a lot of ethnicities. There is a huge amount of Asian students taking science-related courses. A fair amount of kids are wealthy-probably more so than a lot of schools. But, a lot aren't.