<p>What college you are in only affects what core course you take. It’s a one-quarter writing class that has a theme dependent on the college you are in. Except Stevenson’s course is two quarters long, but it fulfills the second writing requirement too.</p>
<p>Yes. The colleges are separated geographically. Each college has a sister college that is right next door, but any other college will take a 5 minute walk to get to at least.</p>
<p>The UCSC website itself is pretty helpful. [UC</a> Santa Cruz -The Colleges](<a href=“http://housing.ucsc.edu/colleges/index.html]UC”>UCSC’s 10 Colleges)
Some colleges attract more of a certain type of people, but there is always a decent mix no matter where you go. Crown gets a lot of academics and geeks, Porter trends toward art students and people with a more liberal opinion of drugs, and Cowell gets more of the jock type because it’s by the gym. </p>
<p>College 8/9/10 are all fairly similar with no particular stereotype, and you’d do fine at them. Crown/Merrill is your best bet at avoiding drugs/parties. Speaking as a Crown student, there are some very nerdy people here, but it is not at all hard to find people who are casual about gaming/whatever else. Many people here are like you- they game, but they’re mostly here for the engineering community aspect.</p>