University of California-Santa Cruz Top Questions

I do know my professors by name. I found that most of them are very approachable and friendly. My favorite class was History-148: Satyajit Ray, which was a film class in some sense. I got to see a lot rare films that are not available to rent or buy. I think there is a substantial amount of students that study. Almost all do around midterms and finals. Class participation is common in my anthropology courses, but not in my history courses. Students are not competitive. Most unique class is my HAVC class: museum cultures. I find it very interdisciplinary. The anthropology department is great. I felt they made an effort to welcome me to the department by informing me about their orientations before I arrived. The advisor is helpful and the faculty is great. I spend some time with professors outside of class, mostly during office hours. I feel UCSC's academic requirements are fine, although I'm speaking as a transfer student who was able to fulfill their requirements with IGETC. Education at UCSC is geared towards learning.

The classes can be huge in freshman/sophomore classes, 200 or more, but as soon as you start hitting junior/senior classes (especially in physics or math or other sciences) the class size drops considerably, and professors will start to learn your name. Office hours is a great way to get to know your professors and get help. My favorite class would have to be anything with Adrienne Steinacker. She's a great astronomy teacher. My least favorite class...well I haven't had a really awful class yet, though Onuttom Narayan's classes are very difficult. It depends on how often students study. I wouldn't say they study more or less than average. A lot of students start homeworks as few days before the homework is due, unless it's really hard. I probably study more than the average student, and I study almost every single day except Friday night and Saturday. Physics students are pretty out-spoken, so there are usually lots of questions and comments (sometimes annoying, sometimes really helpful). UCSC students do seem more interested than usual in learning outside of the classroom. People talk about important relevant issues, like science and technology in society, or the environment, or politics, or social issues. They really seem to care. Students can be a little competitive and they can be a little stuck-up. But most are very, very helpful, willing to help you and show you what they did, etc. There's always the few who are elitist, but I'd say the majority are nice and friendly. My major is physics, and I love my department. The teachers--while some are hard--are so far all at least nice. They will help you if they can. You'll work for a good grade--oh yes you will--but they'll help you as much as they can. Most of the administrators--especially Hua, who is usually the undergraduate adviser for physics majors, though she's out on leave right now--are great. I don't usually spend time with my professors outside of class, unless it's at office hours. Sometimes I'll stick around after and chat briefly with them, but usually I'm far too busy. I think that UCSC has a pretty good academic requirement, but here's a word of advice--if you're transferring in, make sure you finish the IGETC, otherwise you have to finish UCSC's General Ed requirements, and that can be a real pain in the butt, because they do require a lot of GE classes...on the other hand, a lot of classes can satisfy up to three requirements in one shot, so you don't always have to take one class for each requirement. I think the education at UCSC, from a physics standpoint, is pretty practical. They want us to get internships, they want us to do research, so that when they release us into the world we'll do better, whether we work or go to graduate school. Some teachers, I know, change the class schedule and lecture time to focus on things that are important in physics right now so that we'll be better prepared to work in those fields.

Classes are pretty personal.

Half of my professors so far know my name. My favorite class would be C2 writing because of the topic my least favorite is math. Students study between 15 hours a week.

They are what you make of them. Though advising is sometimes difficult to come by, and not so helpful, if you have a little initiative it is very easy to figure things out on your own.

Classes are about 50/50 very large or fairly small (40 students). Lots of interesting elective courses taught by engaging teachers, lots of general eds taught by boring teachers. Environmental studies has a lot of interesting classes, but they may not satisfy the more rigorously-minded student who wants more organismal biology classes. Students, by and large, are somewhat apathetic, but those who are academically interested are a unique kind of student who opted for UCSC over other colleges. Yes, I spend some time with professors outside of class. Professors are mostly very accessible.

Upper division humanities courses generally seem to be of a decent size. And all that I've taken have been taught by professors and lecturers, and not graduate students. However, the humanities (and possibly the social sciences) get shafted in favor of the more profitable sciences. Sometimes there's slim pickings when registering for classes.

Do UCSC students have intellectual conversations outside of class? I recall a huge discussion I had with some students waiting for a class to start outside Stevenson Coffee House and we began talking about our favorite professors. Somewhere between that conversation we began to realize how interdisciplinary our majors were. In one history class it seemed more like a sociology or anthropology class. In another, we talked about how some professors are such eloquent speakers while some preach to the choir. However, though filled with opinions and personal perspectives, we began to talk about Foucault and social constructions. And slowly but surely we began deconstructing Foucualt using our stories and how we related to our experiences and they us.

Students study more toward midterm and finals. The sections are usually considered boring, because no one talks. But, i had two great sections this quarter. And its important to know your TA because they're the ones that grade you at UCSC. My history professors seemed disconnetced with the class this quarter, because the TA's run the show. The professors just lecture and form the class ciriculum. Studenst are very laid back and not competitive. We have a great range of academic majors, and plenty of classes to take. But, i still feel forced to take required classes, and not classes i want because only certain classes forefill major requirments. I feel there is a lot of freedom to make your own opinions in classes and teh classes are often philosophical.

Some professor will know your name, especially in upper division classes, but not so much in the huge general education satisfying lower division intro classes. My favorite class was talk by a funny skinny gray hair professor, it was California and Californians, and mostly he told us funny stories. Student at UCSC study every night or never, entirely depending on the person and the major. Science majors study endlessly, history majors are always reading books, politics majors and psych major are writing papers half the time, but you can kind of find your own major based on what you like and how often you plan on actually acting like you're in school. Some student have intellectual conversations some don't, it really depends on who you hang out with, i have friends who never do and I have friends who love nothing more then drinking and discussing politics. Student aren't too competitive here, it's a pretty relaxed environment. There are too many unique classes here to recall them, most likely sailing was the most, i learned how to sail a boat. Politics is heavily based on teacher designed readers with a collection of long academic articles from academic journals, the readings are dry, but not overwhelming and a lot of your grade, in fact almost all of it depends on written work, using interpretations of the readings. Never talk to my professors outside of class, why would i want to? but professor seem rather eager to chat with students outside of lectures. I like their academic requirements overall, but education at UCSC, in most departments are geared mostly to learning, but the economics and sceince departments tend to be more job orientated.