University of California-Santa Cruz Top Questions

One of the best things at UCSC is the academic conversations you get into inside and outside of class. In classes teachers hold discussions which allows for a better flow of ideas, solutions and conversation. Intellectual thoughts are taken in, debated and edited for a wonderful outcome. Class participation for me is a MUST in college classes. You get more out of class everyday and feel like an academic when you participate and share ideas. I try to take at least one different class each quarter in order to broaden my knowledge on subjects outside my major. Interestingly during my last quarter I took a Afro-Latino class which discussed issues, legislation and the history of Afro-Latina/os. I would have never learned about this topic at all and been so awe struck had I not been able to enroll in such a class.

Academic life varies by department. The J. Baskin School of Engineering is pretty amazing, and has state of the art facilities. We just added a new major in robotics engineering, all all those majors are supposed to be very strong. Science, particularly astronomy and astrophysics is phenomenal here - a UCSC astronomy recently led a team that was responsible for discovering a new planet, which is a major point of pride for the university. Psychology is great here as well, but it's by far the biggest major, which means getting into classes can be problematic to say the least. As for social sciences and humanities, it is a mixed bag. UCSC is funneling a lot of its money to research in the sciences, which means less money for other departments. This year the school cut the American Studies department due to lack of funding. It's very possible the school will be cutting more of these kinds of majors. Professors are generally accessible, though you have to go see them - they're not going to seek you out, nor should they have to. In my first year here, I've had some amazing professors, as well as some very lackluster ones. Definitely read reviews of the professors before signing up for the classes - in my experience, the quality of an instructor can make or break the course. And even though UCSC is not the most prestigious UC, a lot of the professors are leaders in the field, many of whom attended Ivy Leagues before coming here.

It's easy to get a research position with a professor as an undergrad. That is a huge plus of coming to UCSC. Professors here love undergrads (for the most part) and enjoy teaching them and hearing them talk in class. It's not uncommon to meet a professor at a coffee shop to discuss an assignment or more peripheral material.

Professors will know your name if you take the time to introduce yourself, talk to them after class, and/or go to their office hours (all of which I highly recommend!). There are some really awesome (and incredibly accomplished) professors teaching there. A few of my favorites were Anthony Pratkanis (Social Psychology, he is incradibly intelligent AND entertaining), Bettina Aptheker (Feminist Studies, she was one of the leaders of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley and has an amazing autobiography called Intimate Politics-its awesome, read it- as well as many other interesting experiences and accomplishments share), and Ralph Quinn (Humanistic/Existential Psychology, EVERYONE loves him, he's an amazing lecturer and a very compassionate person-his class is full every single day b/c no one wants to miss!).....The list goes on but those were a few of my favorites. My favorite classes were Social Influence (Pratkanis), Intro to Feminisms (Aptheker), Intro to Social Psych (Pratkanis), and Child Psychopatology (Saposnik-also another great prof with a lot of really interesting and insightful information to share-and he's entertaining to boot!). The #1 worst class I took was Cultural Psych taught by Per Gjerde, which was my senior seminar! Such a shame for this school b/c somehow he is a tenured faculty member. His work is impressive but his teaching is bad to say the least. I do NOT recommend this class to anyone, it was a complete waste of money and time. I learned more from student projects that from anything he "taught". The second worst class I took was Psychology of Poverty taught by Irma Waugh. This class was a big disappointment for me. It was basically a sociology class (not psych) b/c we didn't really learn anything about how poverty affects people's psychology. The class was very biased to the extreme left and other opinions were avoided. There was a day when I was blatantly ignored during a discussion: she saw my hand in the air, made eye contact with me, and looked to the other side of the class and asked "Does anyone have a comment on this, I thought I saw some heads nodding.." When no one else said anything she excused the class 5 minutes early. This was very upsetting for me b/c I had spent between 30-45 minutes in her office hours talking with her for the last three weeks so she knew me and I think she just didnt want to call on me because I sometimes had a different point of veiw than the one she was trying to endorse. Needless to say, I never tried to contribute in class again for the entire rest of the quarter. She eventually noticed this and also the cfat that I hadn't been to her office hours for a few weeks but had nothing to say about why she thought that was. Overall, though, I'd say we have a very good faculty at UCSC and are privileged to be able to learn from and intereact with many of these people.

As a Business Management Economics major with an emphasis in Accounting, I can say that I've been to handfuls of Business job fairs where many bay area firms and companies from Silicon Valley were eager to meet with me and see what I was all about. Because UCSC is one of the nearest UC's to Silicon Valley, one looking to get into jobs in Business, Economics, Accounting, Technology, Computers or even Natural Sciences after UCSC will find themselves with plenty of opportunity for success.

all of my professors were very good... most were funny, too.

UCSC has very sound academic credentials with some strong teaching degrees

If it's an introductory course, the professor probably won't know your name unless you go to hers/his office hours. But most classes are much smaller and the professor will learn your name. So far, I've loved all my classes for my major and minor. They open up your eyes to a lot of interesting things. But one of my favorite classes has been Psychology 80B: Human Sexuality. It's offered only in Winter. Take it. But I've actually enjoyed all the classed I've taken. All professors and TAs are pretty competent. The only classes I didn't like were Chemistry 1B and Math 3 (Pre-calculus). They were a waste of my time. I thought I was going to major in Chemistry and boy was I wrong! You either don't have a life in that major, or you're under a lot of pressure to do a ton of work and attend a whole bunch of tutoring hours and lab hours, unless you're super-duper smart and have a great memory (then you'll just have a lot of homework to do). Many classes here are not competitive though (unless they're impacted, like psychology and some physical science majors) because many professors want all students to succeed. I really like that because it allows you to do your best by helping out other people instead of just lying to them and mislead them about the answer to a question they don't even understand, for example. The professors all have office hours and TAs who also have office hours, and you can form your own study groups too. So in reality, there's no reason why YOU shouldn't pass any of your classes. I like all the people here that see this as a community in which we all win. Unfortunately though, we sometimes get those weak links that ruin the community spirit. BUt most importantly, there is a lot of out-of-class education here. There are so many chances to learn about SO many things just by attending all those free events that students and faculty plan.

There are a lot of excellent departments and majors. I had a great experience with the Creative Writing Department, and know people who had great experiences with the Politics Department and Computer Science Department. Too many GE's though, I did not get anything out of them. Would have liked a language requirement, because I didn't have time to take any languages because of the pointless GE's. Some majors are competitive, most are not. There are not enough TA's for big classes. The best classes I ever took were with Louis Chude-Sokei and Jody Green (Lit). Smaller majors, such as Creative Writing, will give you better access to your professors. Don't expect to get buddy-buddy with the biology department though. But I think this is true for most schools.

Classes start out large and get smaller as you progress along your major. Students can be competitive, but its not cut throat. There are some very progressive classes, the most interesting one I've taken is Intro to Queer Theory. Learning at UCSC is often geared toward learning for it's own sake (especially in the humanities) but if you love the idea of getting a job, then there are some boring majors available like business or economics.