@fleetfeet2016 I don’t think UC students like their schools at all. That doesn’t mean there isn’t school pride - the UCLA people I work with say that the negative experience is what actually bound them together, as everyone that goes through a public school experiences the struggle of graduating, to varying extents. I transferred to USC out of a public school and they make it sound like I should be ashamed that I didn’t put myself the rest of the way through some masochistic struggle to prove something. It’s not like my engineering classes don’t also get curved down to a C+/B- and also have incompetent TAs but at least I can get my classes even as an entering student, and when I walk into an advisor’s office, I get a smile rather than dagger-eyes because I disturbed their solitaire game.
It’s like a rite of passage - they feel proud to have earned their degree from an academically rigorous institution when the entire school, from administrative staff to competitive students, are trying to fail them or prevent them from graduating. This doesn’t give them the atmosphere to “love” the school, or the people at that school outside of their circle of friends and roommates. They do get to talk about how much harder they have it than private school kids though, and I think their mutual hate for USC and Stanford are amongst their strongest unifying qualities.
I’ve also heard the perspective that the UCs are equal-employment opportunity employers as mandated by govt. funding stipulations, so they are forced to hire some highly underqualified individuals into positions that have a direct influence on student’s lives. Supposedly, these individuals are incredibly bitter and mean towards students because they never had the opportunity themselves to attend the institution at which their job is to help these kids achieve great things.