<p>@Protein</p>
<p>In general, some schools in the UC system especially UCLA/Cal are known to be harder than many of ivy league and other ‘top ranked’ universities. We get crappy grade deflation while many private schools have huge grade inflation. </p>
<p>And as someone who has seen the atmosphere at two very different Universities, students at UCSC are VERY relaxed. Even the engineering and pre-med students at UCSC have a lot of free time to chill and do whatever. This doesn’t need to be a bad thing… but it is nevertheless a fact. You have more time to get involved and network. You would think the $30k/year price would be an incentive for students to study hard, but this is not always the case (especially when parents are paying in full…some students don’t have a sense of how much college costs). </p>
<p>@just4college
It really depends on 1) your major 2) your courseload. If you take 15 units full of theater classes, it will be easy. 20 units of science classes would be considered quite difficult. Somewhere in the middle should be challenging but manageable. All the stoners that would rather not do any work end up in fluff majors (the ones that end in studies). Many of the students with high aspirations and decent work habits end up in business economics, math, chemistry, etc.</p>