<p>The first few days were kind of a let down for me. I wasn’t exactly homesick, because I definitely did not want to be back at home. But I suppose you could say they just weren’t what I expected. The whole stereotype of being socially dead isn’t true. I’m not one who really enjoys partying, but even I wouldn’t find it difficult to find a few parties a night to go to on weekends. I think it takes some getting used to, but overall the whole college experience is what you make it. I agree with a few who have posted on here that friends really make the experience rather than the actual college, but again, UCSD has some great things to offer. Just make sure you really get out there during welcome week and make an effort to meet people and everything should be fine.</p>
<p>themoonisdown what high school do you go to?</p>
<p>i went to university city high and ended up going to UCSD, its pretty sweet. Its nice not having to adjust; san diego still stays san diego. When you start you are already ahead of the curve, with a car and knowledge of the city. Its a great place, im pretty happy there. If you get in I would consider going.</p>
<p>I go to Bishop’s. Do you live at home, Arctic? Do you ever regret not leaving San Diego?</p>
<p>I love the school so far, many fun events for each college and univ wide, i have made a lot of friends, freshmen, transfer students… dorm apartments on campus are actually better than i ve thought, bad things are damn expensive food, not being able to find a parking spot S for students from 8:30 AM to 4:30PM, sometimes i wasted for like 30mins to 45mins to find a S parking lot, and i ve thought of hit and run all of the cars in parking structure, seriously (there are many B parking spaces available for staff tho) Girls quality and UCSD Beach is a plus. Revelle, ERC and Warren have many cute Asian girls. UCSD is pretty cool with engineering majors.</p>
<p>“not being able to find a parking spot S for students from 8:30 AM to 4:30PM”</p>
<p>Oh man, this. I have to get there so damn early just to get a spot. If you ask me, freshmen should not have cars. They’re already living on campus, and more often then not treat the spaces like their own personal parking spot. </p>
<p>There’s one car that hasn’t been moved since move-in day… </p>
<p>Oh, and the quality of the UCSD driver is really subpar, there was a rear end collision in the ERC parking structure earlier today. How bad of a driver do you have to be to rear end someone in a parking structure?</p>
<p>eh, stuff happens.</p>
<p>i knocked off a 3-foot-long section of a fender off an old ford taurus in the revelle parking lot while attempting to park one day (sungod 2006, no less). five years of driving and that was my only accident. not even a speeding ticket until that point. :)</p>
<p>Being a Freshman here for a lil more than a week, this is my synopsis:</p>
<p>The Socially Dead stereotype is NOT true for the most part. If you want to search for parties, they are VERY welcoming and are not hard to find. Its just everything happens off campus at night. On opening week I attended about 2 frat parties and on the weekends I just party in the suite with a bunch of ppl.</p>
<p>However, if you don’t make an effort to get out and get involved, you WILL be stuck in your dorm with nothing to do and rant about how its so socially dead here when YOU are the one who is, in fact, socially dead. </p>
<p>Workload has been PRETTy tough (not necessarily challenging YET mind you its only the beginning of the year). I already got bombarded with work the first weekend when my friends at UCLA were partying still. I really think the academic atmosphere here is ALOT stronger than that of UCLA. Again it really depends on your schedule and major but the science majors usually mean you are gonna work HARD. </p>
<p>Overall, you just have to make your move and try to make your mark here. I have been open and made lots of friends and done lots of activities. It is what you make of it because no one is going to hold your hand in a university this big.</p>
<p>I walk in myself, but have you all tried the Regent’s lot? Shuttle service is very frequent, and whenever I walk through I see plenty of open spots.</p>
<p>–Joe</p>
<p>holy crap, this school’s food sucks balls</p>
<p>Really? I didn’t think it was too bad. CV in particular is good.</p>
<p>themoonisdown, yea i live at home with my parents. i live on la jolla village drive, its about a 10-15 minute bike ride to campus. i dont regret it because i had a job lined up and i knew a bunch of people who were older at went to UCSD. plus whats not to love about san diego. for the first 3 days i had 2nd thoughts about not living on campus because everyone was in each others dorms meeting people, but i just stayed in one of my friends dorms. everyone is pretty welcoming there, you just gotta put your self out there. living at home is nice because parents will cook for you and do your laundry, etc. i dont regret staying at home anymore</p>
<p>Are you kidding me? The food is awesome! I’ve always wanted to eat hamburgers every day. It is pretty expensive though…</p>
<p>Meh, I’ve made it a mental note to avoid Muir, Revelle, and a couple of others on my way in.</p>
<p>ERC is my go to spot for now.</p>
<p>@astrina: Ha, stuff happens? I’ve nearly been clipped twice by UCSD drivers (on foot and in car). It hasn’t even been a full week yet. </p>
<p>I’m not kidding when I say I’d rather be driving behind an 80 year old bind/deaf/mute woman, than I would a UCSD driver. I get the feeling most folk here are book smart, but not any other kind of smart…</p>
<p>Oh well, as long as I absolutely smash everyone in my O-chem class, it’ll all be worth it.<br>
(Putting in six hour days, son. Well ahead of the rest of the class… =D )</p>
<p>@Regarding the food:<br>
Not enough variety. For every one Indian/Mexican/etc food place on campus, there’s 5 coffee shops/asian eateries.</p>
<p>There is a common cognitive bias where people prefer past decisions they have made.</p>
<p>[Dan</a> Gilbert asks, Why are we happy? | Video on TED.com](<a href=“http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html]Dan”>http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html)</p>
<p>That was fascinating, especially since my major is cogsci.</p>
<p>He wrote a fascinating book titled “Stumbling on Happiness.”</p>
<p>interesting…</p>
<p>I like SD. For some reason I was expecting UCSD kids to be unfriendly. But they’re not. </p>
<p>Haven’t gotten tired of the food yet - there’s not too much variety, but when you’re hungry, everything is pretty good. I don’t like how the stores are so overpriced, but the dining hall prices are pretty fair. </p>
<p>I really like the weather down here. It’s never too extreme. The past few days have been kinda hot, but compared to Norcal hot, it wasn’t THAT bad. And it’s never too cold either. Really nice environment too. </p>
<p>A few things I’m not entirely satisfied with is the lack of clubs. There was a club fair a while ago and there really weren’t many. There was a ton of Christian orgs and greek houses and circle k and some premed clubs, but other than that, there wasn’t much to choose from. But I think there’s some bigger organization fair on 10/10 so I hope that’s when all the clubs will show up.</p>
<p>Another thing I guess is the walking - although the campus doesn’t seem that big anymore. I feel like I spend so much time just on walking from class to class, back to dorms. Might get a board or something. (but the hills! ah)</p>
<p>But overall, I really like SD. There’s always quite a lot of things going on. Between hw, classes, movies, events, visiting ppl in other buildings, you don’t have time to be bored. My first choice was UCLA, but now I’m quite glad I’m at SD.</p>
<p>I’ve been a social recluse so far this quarter basically living in 2 labs</p>
<p>I like it</p>
<p>Eh, UCSD is okay. I sometimes regret not choosing UCLA. But then again, UCSD does have its high points. Like the library for instance, I love the library, the shape of its so interesting, plus it sorta reminds me of when I was a kid and I had this tree house that sorta looked like it 
On the negative side. I do agree with Jelly Belly. Lack of clubs to choose from. Hopefully there will be more. But, sadly, I did a little experiment for my soc course and I found that the clubs I have seen thus far have been pretty shallow (excluding the community service and church clubs,they were really nice). Shallow meaning they would only pass out there fliers to certain individuals who fit the “rich preppy student look” wearing brand name clothes. I ran my own test, one day, I passed by this same club (I won’t name it) three times right in front of the dude passing out fliers. All I wore was my gym clothes. Got nothing. Next day, I wore my A/E clothes. Wow. No surprise, same dude from yesterday passing out fliers gave me one. I did this test on three other clubs. My experiment ran for three days. On the plus side, I did get an A on it 
I think you meet most of your friends either in the dorm or your classroom. I did not like my suitemates, therefore, things didn’t work out. And blahblah, no more dorm for me. lol. Its all good though. sometimes you get along with people. sometimes you don’t.</p>