University of California-Santa Cruz Top Questions

There are tons of things to do here. Sports, clubs, extra classes..

The activities and party scene vary a little depending on the residential college you are at. At Porter there always seems to be something happening every night of the week. There are certain big yearly events such as First Rain (a naked run the first night of rain) and 4/20. Off campus there are usually concerts happening as well as a couple movie theaters. There is rarely a weekend when there isn't something to do.

Sports activities are not advertised and nobody goes, so if watching sporting events is your sort of thing...I guess there's always cable. There are definitely sports teams though, and I get the feeling that anybody can join. Frats/Sororities are here, but I think they're relatively small. People do join them though.

The dating scene is practically nonexistent here. Most guys are not here to meet girls, and the gay scene is very large. You can never tell who is lesbian, bisexual or otherwise, which makes meeting the opposite sex difficult.

Concerning the social life and activities on campus - it really depends on what you get involved in, and what college you live in. I personally sought out friends with similar interests to mine, which means I sought out people who are big video game and movie nerds. I heard about the stereotype that Crown is a nerd college, and while it wasn't 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} accurate I did meet a lot of people interested in that sort of thing. There is a plethora of activities and different things on can do on-campus, even if it doesn't seem so at first. (Depending on where you live, you might need to go looking for them - it's a big campus!) Dances are held, guest speakers come to visit, and usually your dormmates are up late at night. When I lived in the dorms, everyone on my floor left their doors open and people visited one another whenever they felt like it. (I also noticed that a lot of other floors didn't do that, though - so it might be a situational thing.) If you're the literary type, the Creative Writing department holds a Writer's Lecture Series event once almost every week for two hours in the evening, where guest readers come and read their fiction or poetry. And once every few months or so, a Rocky Horror Show is held somewhere on-campus for those who want to experience that. Drinking is not a big thing here on campus, depending on the friends you make. A lot of the social life on campus does seem to involve drugs of some kind, but they're not necessary. My friends and I play a lot of video games in our spare time together, or we go on walks, or we go downtown to the movies. Traveling off-campus to go to the movies or something can be a drag, though - everyone who lives on-campus (and don't have cars) tries to do that on Friday nights and the buses get horribly crowded and slow.

Unlike other universities, UCSC doesn't have a very large greek system (sororities/fraternaties) at all. The sororities and frats are more like clubs than anything; there are no specific houses that they live in, they meet once or twice a week and put on various events just like any other campus club. Other than those the more popular and large clubs on campus include (but not limited to) the GLBTI organization, the outdoor/hiking club, Slugs in Fishnets (UCSC's Rocky Horror Picture Show club), Rainbow Theater and the Ski and Snowboard Club, which I belong to. UCSC also lacks a few sports that tend to be more popular college sports, such as football and baseball/softball. The major UCSC sports that tend to draw the most crowds are water polo, lacrosse and soccer. Other than school activites, Santa Cruz offers many things for entertainment, including the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park, downtown Santa Cruz with a vibrant culture and fun stores and restaurants, an extremely large surfing community and many great nearby surfing beaches (though prepare yourself for some COLD water!).

I am part of the santa cruz ski and snowboard club which is the biggest club in santa cruz. it is a statewide organization that has "chapters" in the other uc schools as well. we throw big parties in santa cruz and generally have anywhere from 200-700 members yearly. we are the partiers of the school. ucsc doesn't really get crazy like santa barbara but as a club, we try. almost every student at ucsc smokes a lot of pot. we are not known for hard drugs tho. mostly just acid, shrooms, pot and the all natural substances. ucsc is not known for having extremely attractive students. (a lot of the women are hippies/lesbians and dont shave, but not all of us). id say there is a good ratio of men to women but the people in ucsc dont really care about looks as much as some other schools. it is not like high school. the greek life is stupid.

spring time = spring fever.

If large frat parties are your thing, and you have that "I'm in a frat/sorority and think I'm better than everyone else," complex, don't come here because we don't want you.

There are a lot of social gatherings on and off campus. On campus, there is "4/20" which occurs every year at the Porter Meadow. We have the naked run called "First Rain." And the dorms are known to have parties every once in a while. Santa Cruz is a really fun town. You can go downtown which has a bunch of cute shops and independent and mainstream theaters. The beach is right there, so there are many students that have bonfires on the weekend. Also, there is the boardwalk, which everyone should know about. It is famous for its rides, games, and appearance. You might recognize it from the 1987 film, "The Lost Boys."