It's a Blast!

Introduction
It’s a blast, I mean, I’m in Manzanita, which is a little more closed off that the other 4 or 5 dorms there are – just because the actual, like architecture of the building is different – you don’t meet as many people but because there are a lot of athletes, you get to know a lot of people who are more like you. And it’s just really nice and new, which is cool. The noise has never been a problem like you just have people around you, like if you want to hang out with some one there’s always someone there for you – there’s like a lounge and a study room available and laundry available in the same building and stuff like that, The dining commons get old sometimes but they’re a lot nicer compared to some of the other schools I’ve gone to. There’s always like vegan options and stuff like that and it like a great social opportunity, like you go down there and there’s at least 100 new people to meet like every time so you just go down and eat with like one person you know and one new person that they know will come and sit down, cause everyone who lives in the dorms has to eat in the dining commons, at least part of the time. It definitely contributes to the like, freshman experience, of meeting tons of new people and living with someone you don’t know is a great experience – a way to learn patience and like coexisting with people for the future, like if you have a co-worker you don’t like. You’ve done this because you’ve had your roommate you didn’t know. And it’s fun to live by yourself. If you want to go out till 4 in the morning – you don’t have to call your Mom at like one o clock and tell her where you’re going to be.

Campus Life and Social Life
The track team has dry season and mostly a dry off-season also, which doesn’t I don’t see as interference – there’s just things that I give up that other people might think are important. But running is important enough to me where I can give up being belligerent and loosing control of myself every weekend. That’s not too big of a sacrifice for me.

Most people live in Isla Vista, which is like, 1 mile by 1 mile area, which is all UCSB students, which is awesome because you still, like, keep meeting people and stuff like that.

None of the food is just like, disgusting. There’s always a salad bar out, there’s always a sandwich bar out, there’s always cereal, and every morning there eggs, potatoes and waffles, and there’s always a stir-fry thing. And you can go to any of the dining commons that you want, so like one night they’ll have a nacho bar and another one of them will have a sushi bar so there’s plenty of options so just the idea of eating in a cafeteria style setting starts to get old and you’re ready to have a kitchen of your own. The food itself is definitely better than anything I could make.

A lot of people who live in Manzanita Village, actually have Ocean Views, which is really nice. My room just has a pool view of the pool, which is for the student body, which is not half bad either. Any day that you want, I’ll have, get back form my runs, and if the training room isn’t open, I’ll go ice in the ocean. It’s gorgeous. I probably get down, fall quarter I did a little more, probably like only like once a month or something. Some people will come down; people who surf, and skim board and body board have come down a lot more. The track team trains along the bluffs and so were just – we’ll be doing 800 meter repeats and the ocean’s like by our side and so I don’t actually go down in it that much but just having it there as you bike to classes. You look over your shoulder and ocean there is really nice.

You go to classes and you’re serious and you have your time and then in between classes you’ve got - the hottest it gets is probably 85 or 90, and the coldest is maybe 50, for like a week in the middle of January, and other than that it’s usually 70 and sunny and maybe kind of windy but like it is – it’s the closest to Paradise as I’ve been. And I get to live here – which blows my mind. I have to sit back and remind myself that I live here, because it’s so beautiful. Were so lucky to be able to go to school here. Advertisement
Academics
I’d say the only negative thing I’ve found about UCSB is that there are a lot of like Abercrombie, bleach blond, kind of generic, people but there’s also like sort of a sub culture of like different people. For the most part freshman and sophomore guys don’t date much; they just date for the weekend and for the night that kind of thing. But there are definitely, I know people who have serious relationships and have met two of my friends who go here – their parents met here got together and got married. So, there’s definitely – I mean there’s guys in swim suits running around in the sun and athletes and stuff all the time, so I wont complain about that, but it’s not definitely like, especially the underclassmen aren’t as, the lower classmen, aren’t as interested as sitting finding like serious settling down, long term kind of thing, which I think is probably pretty typical of 18 to 19 year old guys,

Student Body
Isla Vista is just kind of the square mile where the majority of the student body lives. If you put an entire like, public University student body into a square mile, there’s going to be parties, and hell’s going to break loose and you can’t avoid it. So there’s definitely, and UCSB has a reputation for being a party school which I see as most people here, work hard and play hard – but the fun thing is, because they’re so many parties people try to mix it up, so there’ll be theme parties, you know you have to wear a toga, or something starting with a B, just random stuff like that which makes it really fun. I go to the parties, even though I don’t drink at them, but its still like the fun of getting dressed up and borrowing clothes from your friends and all that kind of stuff, like having themes school dances, but not as lame I guess as High School dances. Just everyone goes, it’s just really fun. A lot of people like once you’re 21 go to the bars, they go to State Street, which is downtown. And that’s kind of like the main strip of downtowns like 10 miles down the freeway. And there’s a lot of clubs and bars down there to go dancing and shopping and stuff like that. So there’s and definitely like different options and also like plenty of people, like there’s a lot of girls who live in my building who just kind of hang out and rent movies and order pizza in the middle of the night and that’s there weekend plans too, so there’s plenty of diversity in how people enjoy themselves over the weekends. It’s not like all Keg stands and like people sleeping around every weekend. It’s not as bad as they make it sound. It’s not this crazy party school where no one gets anything done. The campus isn’t huge, but if you want to walk to class on the far side of campus you have to allow like 15, 20 mins – everyone has bikes or skateboards. Some people have mountain bikes and road bikes, but most people just have beach cruisers, which are just like just big sturdy, heavy, like different colors and you can get like a basket on it and stuff like that – that’s usually how I get around. There’s sometimes bike theft, but if you lock it up and are smart about it, it’s not that bad.

People definitely want to preserve the ocean and the area around it because it’s beautiful, it’s not – there’s not like picket lines going through campus every day to save the trees or anything. A lot of people aren’t that concerned with politics and they’re just kind of young, care free college students, but there’s definitely political awareness – there was a protest like the day of Bush’s inauguration and stuff like that, which I was in, which was cool. There’s no overwhelming majority or like concrete presence of any one opinion or type of organization or anything like that.

The statistic is that UCSB has the most Caucasian students of I think any UC or California campus, I’m not sure what the exact scientific statistic is. There’s definitely people of all different races here that I’ve seen – the town I grew up in was an overwhelming majority of white people, and it was all like middle class white republican everywhere, which I was hoping to get away from, it’s definitely like, it’s definitely the majority is Caucasian, but it’s not like the one token black person or anything like that, so there’s definitely notice it that much, but there’s definitely enough, fair share, fair mix.

In Closing...
It’s definitely a challenge. Like every once in a while you just want to lay out by the pool, or come out to the ocean, or anything because it’s so nice – so you don’t want to be cooped up in a classroom but, even if you’re talking 16 units, which is average for the average student, you only go to class like 3 or 4 hours in the day and you have the whole rest of the day to be outside, enjoying yourself in the sun. Sometimes it’s kind of a bummer to have to go inside and take notes when it’s you know 70 degrees and beautiful outside, but it’s not – it’s definitely like a minority of your day. It doesn’t take much of it, I definitely know people who would rather just don’t go to class very much and then pull through at the final, but because it’s only a small part of your day, it’s not that bad, it’s not that big of a sacrifice.