What's UCSD like?? current student opinions..

theartsytype
Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:56:38 +0000

I’m going to try to fill in the few details that operatic didn’t provide in their excellent response.

Social Life – Don’t let the “UC Socially Dead” stereotype perturb you. Social life at ANY college or university is what you make of it. Honestly, with 16,000 + undergraduates, it’s very difficult to not find a niche. You have to keep your eyes open during Welcome Week, however, because after the Welcome Week bonanza like Week 3 or 4 things quiet down on Library Walk and you don’t hear about all the opportunities available on campus as often. That is of course why they let you go for a week without class (Week 0); to give you time to settle into the campus and find people of your wavelength. People will always be flyering though. There are always ways to branch out.

I personally got really bored after Welcome Week, so I joined a co-ed fraternity that really molded my first quarter as a college freshman…I wouldn’t recommend doing that unless you’re sure in your ability to reconnect with people the following quarter because pledging takes up a hell of a lot of time. I definitely do not regret it though; the frat gave me a good place to start networking, and as a freshmen it’s always nice to make connections with third and fourth years who know more about the university than you do. And there are always other orgs or activities that you can do or join that require less time commitment than a co-ed frat or Greek life. Of course, there will always be things going down in the dorms/on campus. You just have to know where to look, but keep in mind a lot of wild on-campus stuff gets rolled…if you like to party, overall it’s safer to party off-campus (but in that case, find trust-worthy people who are responsible about organizing DD’s). If you don’t like to party, there are also people for you. Religious? There are many, many religious fellowships you can join on campus. That’s one of the perks of being at a bigger school: people of varying interests.

Academics – I won’t go into detail in this aspect of UCSD because there are loads of statistics online as well as on CC and the strength of a UC in academics varies depending on your major.

General (on-campus vibe, in retrospect) – There are two ways of looking at the UCSD 6 college system. One way is to see it as a Hogwarts type of organizing a school. College pride is always fun, and being in a college gives you a useful icebreaker. You take the same writing courses as the people in your college, so at the very least you can make friends with people in your college, who also live with you and most likely frequent the same dining hall as you do. On the other hand, the six colleges does make the campus wayyyy bigger than it needs to be because the housing is so spread apart, but I find that this makes the campus a lot more interesting to walk around—gives you a unique way of figuring out where you are on campus: “Oh, York Hall? That’s in Revelle. Oh, Pepper Canyon? That’s in Sixth.” Yeah, yeah, lame dialogue, but you get my drift. Additionally, the six colleges make UCSD a lot more broken up than most colleges. I HEARD that this was because when UCSD was being built in the ‘60’s, they wanted to avoid the possibility of a student uprising (thanks, Cal) so they purposely divided up their campus as to make it a lot more difficult for students to organize a revolt against administration. What the six colleges are touted as being at UCSD are smaller communities within the UC to make the university seem a lot smaller than it really is, and that is true to some extent. I mean, I do find Marshall to be more “me” than UCSD as a whole, which is gigantic and includes not only undergraduates but graduates and the extension as well. It also makes you feel a little less lost at first because you feel you “belong” somewhere already the first time you step on campus.

I DEFINITELY agree with operatic about the size of the campus. SO…MUCH…WALKING! NOT a bad thing though, and there are ways to get around walking everywhere, like biking or skateboarding/longboarding or taking the shuttle which goes around campus in a loop or befriending one of those people who get to ride around in a cart all around campus. But yeah, walking around really does help you ward off the freshmen 15, as well as the fact that the dining plan charges you per item at the dining halls rather than per every time you visit the dining hall. It’s NOT a buffet style like a lot of UC’s, so you’re limited in what you can eat every time you go to the dining hall unless you ignore the fact that you only have 2,000 something dining points for the whole year and gorge yourself fall quarter…but then you’ll starve the rest of the year. Some people hardly use their dining points, but they always start selling stuff in the markets at the end of the year that you can splurge your dining points on if you happen to have any leftover Spring Quarter. ALSO, RIMAC is such a nice gym and you already have to pay to use it in your fees, so why not exercise regularly? Main Gym in Revelle is decent, too.

There’s a lot more I can say, but I don’t want to make this review too long. So if you have any more questions just message me. My perspective is that of a freshman winding down on the first year, so memories of stepping on campus for the first time are still fresh, as are initial impressions of the college and struggling to make friends and all that.