Positive Aspects of UCSD

kihyle
Fri, 12 May 2006 00:14:52 +0000

inflated prices and overbearing TAs can be found at any campus, right?

Some of the positive aspects of UCSD are:

goal-oriented peers who on average are hardworking, smart, and interesting people (and you want to surround yourself with people like that)

a big choice of classes, professors, and majors to take to explore opportunities

may be this was just me, but i never had trouble enrolling into classes because they were too full – at some places classes fill up very fast but at UCSD there was never such a problem

a heaven for pre-med or biology/chemistry majors because of booming surrounding biotech industry, TSRI graduate school, 3 hospitals in the area, UCSD medical and pharmacy schools (for professional development, volunteering and employment)

friendly laid back students and rather safe and beautiful environment

good weather, location near the beach between two wealthy areas, La Jolla and Del Mar

many companies located near UCSD employing student interns of various majors – many research labs on campus in all kinds of majors

career services center available to consult you on career development and what to do after college, website with student job postings

great facilities for sports, many recreation classes available as well as two gyms (for which you pay anyhow, so you have more reason to go exercise once in a while)

UCSD offers a lot of various programs to get masters and doctorate degrees - some of those programs are very good on the national scale so after bachelors you can just apply to UCSD again, stay in the area and continue your education

big library and access to almost any journal you’ll ever need – course books may be placed on reserve for students so you don’t even need to buy that $130 textbook – you can use reserves

on-campus bookstores

lecture notes can be bought cheaply for the entire quarter for some popular courses (usually to complement your own notes, but also if you have a conflict and cannot attend all or some lectures for a particular course, these come very handy)

a lot of choice wrt housing and dinning on campus and near campus

convenient free shuttles and free bus zone extending well into north Clairemont and areas near Pacific Beach where some cheaper housing can be found

various celebrations on campus such as Sun God and Fall Fest that include all day long festivities (whooo! Sun God is tomorrow!)

close to Mexico border so people go across to party and drink especially if they are under 21

may other events, exhibits, talks, free movie screenings, performances that take place on campus

many different student clubs and organizations to pick from

presence of greek life for those interested, no official houses but they exist unofficially

quarterly markets held on library walk where you can buy posters, rings, shoes, clothing, sometimes food, gifts, paintings and fotos, incense, and all kinds of other good stuff without having to leave campus

UCSD’s got money and they’ve got area so they are expanding and building which is good (as long as it is not under your window)

Some of the negative ones:

housing prices

san diego is a conservative urban area in otherwise liberal california

sometimes i feel like education has become a profitable business here - with some majors you can possibly get a better education than UCSD can offer (but hey, i’m european so my issue is that american education is 3-yrs behind everywhere in HS and college)

little problem solving involved as part of your college education - so in the end some people leave with bachelors while being unable to solve extremely easy word problems - well, no one want to do grading especially when there are hundreds of students per class (but seriously, some people get to somehow graduate here, holding misconceptions such as that vacuum is high pressure and NaCl is a base)

some profs don’t care to teach because this is a big research university so they want to spend time on their research rather than improving their lectures and teaching style

large student population and campus might mean you may feel confused and isolated - 10 minute breaks while it may take longer than that to walk b/t classes

stupid quarter system - you’ve got only 2.5 months to learn a particular subject you’re taking and time flies by fast - sometimes profs try to stuff in a lot of material into those 10 weeks so you have little time to do any problem solving - it all goes into just reading the material - typically your grade comes from just 2-4 exams

quarter system also makes it a bit harder to connect with people in classes to build friendships but for some people this is no problem