University of California-Santa Cruz Top Questions

Very beautiful campus. Beautiful hiking trails and secret nooks to find. I walk up and down hills all day. DON'T TAKE THE BUSES! Walk! It's a beautiful campus and you will LOSE the Freshmen 15 if you walk to class. It is a big campus but really only takes 20 mins to get across it. Some things to note: UCSC has been trying to cut funds for Humanities for years. It might be better to go here if you are going to focus on the sciences. The bookstore is mediocre at best. The library is satisfactory. Santa Cruz is a fun town if you can drink or surf. Otherwise it's only ok. Don't bother with the Boardwalk. Some hostile locals towards UCSC students, so don't throw huge keggers off-campus unless you want to get a party fine from the city. UCSC is NOT a party school unless your drug of choice is THC. Oh...and the Banana Slug is the best college mascot....ever.

If you love the forest and access to the ocean, this is the place for you.

When i tell people that I go to UCSC, they always ask how it feels living in the trees and if there really are hippies on campus. On campus I probably spend most of my time in my room either online or watching movies or studying. Off campus I am usually downtown at the movies and or eating dinner. I think the biggest recent controversy was the tree sitters and also the unfair worker's conditions that groups such as AFSCME are fighting for.

right now, the size of the school is pretty much all right. i'm worried because they have been trying to expand, and the small town of santa cruz can't really handle any more students. the metro buses from downtown are always full by the time they get to the base of campus, if not a mile before then. if i could change anything, it would be the expansion of the campus. the best thing about ucsc is the setting. i love walking to class through the forest and seeing doe and their fawn, though some kid did recently get attacked by a mountain lion at merrill college. my professors are amazing too. the professors in the psychology, politics, and feminist studies departments are my favorite! the most frequent student complaints concern the accessibility of the campus (the lack of parking lots and meters, and the fact that meters are at least 75 cents per half hour.) you absolutely can't drive to campus, and the expansion and surfeit of students riding buses from downtown make driving a serious temptation. i would say there is a lot of school pride, but it's a different kind of school pride than i'd expect students at big private universities with great sports teams to have. i love telling people i go to ucsc. ucsc provides a different kind of education--an education i'd be lost without. lots of people in my conservative hometown think i must be a communist anarchist (which doesn't even make sense) when i tell them i go here, and it's fun to play devil's advocate. i guess that brings me to another complaint a handful of students have--that ucsc is 'too liberal.' i think it's a silly complaint, as most of my professors are relatively unbiased.

The school is quite large, but the fact that it's broken into 10 smaller colleges makes it feel much smaller. The campus is beautiful and has many great places to sit outside and study under the trees and in view of the Monterey bay. If you don't want to be outside, there are several libraries, coffee shops, and sitting areas inside academic buildings. The school is often known by its stereotypes, but anyone who has ever gone here knows that the quality of education is very high, and students love their learning environment. Many of our programs are top-ranked. There are 2 big controversies on campus right now. The first is the school's plan to expand and build a new science facility on Science Hill. This is called the Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). Many students disagree with this because it was done in secret, and the plan calls for cutting down many of the beautiful redwood trees on campus. In protest, there are students living in the trees on Science Hill. The second is the AFSCME workers union renegotiating their contract. All UC workers are going on strike, which is a debilitating hit. This is currently happening on all UC campuses. There is a lot of school pride. Students absolutely love UCSC. We wear banana slug gear and get involved in the school. We have very few sports teams, but there is a great amount of support for the ones we have.

UCSC is a pretty good school, not only do you get a fair education, but there are a lot of social and philosophical classes that you can take to get a broader view of the world on the side. I am a bio major and still had time to take some of these classes. It has the same administrative bullshit and runaround of any university. There is no big central meeting area where you will see everyone, but each department has a center and so that's where you will spend most of your time. Most students move off campus their second year and SC is a beautiful place: The ocean, the redwood forests, the cliffs, beautiful. The community is very diverse, but there is a little locals vs. slugs (that's our mascot) rivalry that mostly happens in the water (for the surfers) but can come up on land and ruin a party. For the most part the westside is dominated by students and rich older people so its not so much of a problem, but if you move over to the eastside (where its a lot cheaper!) don't be a dick or someone might try to put you in your place. There is a strange dynamic between locals, students and tourists.

I think the best thing about UCSC is that many professors care a great deal about their undergraduate students. I have had talks with several of mine outside of the classroom and they generally the professors have had some really interesting experiences. It is funny when I tell people about UCSC they tend to laugh and ask me if we have had any good protests lately. If I could change one thing it would be how protesters mobilize. They shouldn't march on a daily basis and they should only march on the people who can actually change what they are trying to protest. The protesters also believe that their cause is just, so they violate the law and then get up in arms over police "brutality" when the police start to arrest them. The general atmosphere around protests is the one thing that I really hate about this campus. However, the environment is wonderful and I believe the campus currently holds the right number of students. There is a Long Range Development Plan which wants to increase the size of the school a great deal, but it is still many years away from being implemented. Hopefully it won't destroy the natural beauty of this campus. It has many fantastic mountain bike and hiking trails. Every fall the local AIDS group puts together a great road biking event which winds through Santa Cruz county. This campus puts you in the center of great things and I would strongly recommend coming here.

This campus is amazing, there isn't another one that can compare to its beauty.

UCSC is a BEAUTIFUL campus. So many trees and naturally gorgeous. It's big but I always seem to see people I know. I hang out in people's dorm rooms a lot. There are some coolish things on campus- Porter Caves, Tree 9, peace forts where people smoke, etc. Usually some kind of dance somewhere on campus if you like those. The town of Santa Cruz is OK, there's a lot of restaurants and clothes stores and a few movie theaters. There's always the beach but the boardwalk is really expensive. Not a whole lot to do though.

Its a beautiful campus that really offers a range of subjects and activites that you can't find most places.