bioengineering ties...

Introduction
The campus is beautiful, the weather is great, socially I’m not really sure what the undergraduates do. I don’t see a lot of partying going on.Downtown San Diego is 10 minutes away. The beach is 10 minutes away and so it’s a really nice location. There are just a lot of outdoor activities you can do because it’s so nice all the time.

It’s very high class, it’s a very rich area and so when you come here and you live here. You’re very likely to stay in a nice apt. But you’re also likely to be paying a lot for it. It’s nice that when you go here, it’s not a bad area. You don’t have to worry about crime that much. You don’t have need to worry about violence. It’s a very laidback, kind of beach town. It’s really cool.

Campus Life and Social Life
I think that what makes UCSD standout amongst other schools, particularly in science and engineering is the quality of research that goes on here. And whether you’re an undergraduate or a graduate student, there’s always the opportunity to work with a scientists that are really working on world-class stuff.

There is a lot of interaction between professors and students, as well as the TA’s and students if the professor doesn’t have time. There’s a professor that would lecture 3 times a week. And then each one of the TA’s would have a 2 hour office section where students could go and ask questions about the homework or we would just rehash the material that was presented in class. Help them understand it. And if they have questions above and beyond that we’re always available to meet with them individually.

UCSD and particularly the bioengineering department. Have some strong ties to the industry. And the bioengineering industry is very localized in San Diego. There’re a lot of big companies and UCSD has programs where you can do an internship with those companies. And frequently after you graduate, you’ll be hired by those companies when you get it. So you’re really working towards something, where you know what you get when you graduate. Advertisement
Academics
My experience has not been that the professors don’t care, but the professors that work here have been recruited for their research capabilities and not their teaching capabilities. So sometimes they’re just not good teachers as someone else might have been. But in my experience they are willing to make time for you and if you need extra help, you just have to be proactive and go after them and ask them for their time and they’ll be willing to give it to you. But it is true that this is a research institution, more than a teaching institution and so that’s what the professors are here to do.

Student Body
The UC schools all prefer to let in their own type, you definitely feel a little bit like an outsider, but it makes you different and it makes you more interesting and you can talk to people about stuff that they’re not used to hearing, and so I don’t mind it at all. I think over %50 of the students here are Asian of some kind and almost the other %50 is Caucasian. And so it’s pretty rare to find someone who doesn’t fall into 1of those 2 categories.

You don’t see much of the California laidback attitude amongst the student body. When it comes to academics at least, they’re all very intense and very dedicated, very hardworking. But I think in their free time, you also get the guys who go the beach and surf or skateboard around. So it’s kind of like the dual personality going on.

In Closing...
I live in like Pacific Beach, it’s about a 15 min. commute. There are a lot of restaurants and bars down there; it’s a good place for going out. In general I think in San Diego and in Pacific Beach and lot of areas around here, they’re very strict about drinking with ID’s and so like the undergraduates really can’t go out to those places until they turn 21.