The Minor in Possession

Introduction
The volleyball program here is really good. Both the girls and guys teams are awesome. The guys team right now, were 3rd in MPSF, which is the top league, “Mountain Pacific Sports Federation” and were 3rd, were behind UCLA and Pepperdine right now and so were hopefully gonna do pretty good, coming into the tournament. We have a pretty good squad – good coaching.

They red shirt a lot here – all the sports actually. For volleyball especially the coach likes to red shirt the freshman which, it gives you an extra year of eligibility so the first year they build you up – by not playing your first year you get a chance to just build up that first year and you don’t suit up but for the years after that you get to play every year until your 5th year.

Campus Life and Social Life
You really don’t need to be in a fraternity on this campus, if you’re looking to go party you can find it anywhere on Del Playa Del Pliea, like the main fraternities are on El Greco and all those streets like Pardal, but Del Pliea is like the main street, where everybody will just go down because that where all the open house parties are – people are on the balconies, there’s couches overlooking the fences, people are just yelling. It’s definitely a fun scene.

I haven’t seen every other campus’s dorms but I have to say these are probably one of the best ones in the country. They’re right on the beach – I mean you can’t really beat that. And they’re right next to Del Playa. Right next to campus. You’re a three-minute bike ride from campus. Everybody rides bikes. I’d rank it pretty high up there. I love it.

At different parts of the year, the lagoon will smell really bad, you can’t really smell it from your room. If you’re walking next to the lagoon like at some parts of the year, I don’t know why but during winter it seems like it smelled really bad like during the spring it’s been nice. It’s been really, really nice. Like the smell and everything. It’s usually pretty nice – it’s rare when it smells super bad.

Coreo is the cafeteria on Manzanitta. It’s not my favorite only because they serve mostly health food and I just love eating junk food – I probably shouldn’t, but I eat it all the time. But there are tons of other cafeterias – there’s late night at DLG, which is open from 9 to 11 at night which is when I get hungry again after diner anyway, and so we’ll go there and get burgers. They have all the junk food that I love to eat. So, Corea’s not my favorite cafeteria.

The meal plan works where you can go three times a day – one time for each meal – you can get like 14 meals or 19 meals. Let’s say you get like 14, so you’re going like two times per day let’s say and then you go – you can go once for breakfast, once for lunch, once for dinner, but you can also go one time for late night which what they call a DLG from 9 to 11, so actually you can go up to 4 times. But no one really does it cause there’ so much good food in Isla Vista.

Isla Vista is a great place – it’s a total college town probably at least 6 or 7 places that are open 24 hours for food, just because they know it’s a college campus. Freebirds is like the main place – you’ll go on a weekend and it’s like 2 or 3 in the morning and you get a line out the door at the place, because every college kid wants to go eat there. And Isla Vista is like 2 square miles of just – basically it’s just college. Everyone there that lives in there is in college basically.

It’s a lot of local businesses like Freebirds is one of them, there’s like Silver Greens, like a lot of junk food, but there’s Blenders, there’s smoothies places, so it’s pretty much a mix of both, actually. Advertisement
Academics
A lot of my friends have got an MIP- MINOR IN POSESSION- including the first weekend, I that 4 or 5 of my friends got MIP’s. You just have to be careful around here. You always have to be in a group, because if you’re singled out, if you’re by yourself like, there’s a foot patrol station, the cops will just look for you – look for you to be by yourself and they’ll get you if you’re not careful. Just be smart and you’ll be fine.

Student Body
Business Economics is a really tough major to get into here, just because it’s in such high demand. Probably because it won a Nobel peace prize, I don’t know if you heard about that for business and physics? It’s a pretty good department. And it’s also really tough and thy try to weed out people out of the department if you’re not – if you don’t have 3.5 with the Majors – like with the classes that fulfill toward your major – then you’re not going to get into the major. They try to weed you out. So the first classes are going to be really tough – like Econ 1, is usually a pretty tough class here, I’m in it right now. It seems like it’s pretty hard. You just have to be on top of your stuff – if not then your not going to be able to get into your major and your going to have to change it.

Some of them I feel are pointless, I mean honestly, but some of them are good to have, like the knowledge, like you can take Western Civilization classes. Some math you need to take. Some of the art and music classes, I don’t know if – the art music and ethnicity I don’t know if that’s something that’s really necessary. Sometimes you just gotta do it, there’s a lot of writing requirements.

The quarter system is really, really fast. Ten weeks go by and you just, cannot bear to miss classes, If you miss more that a few classes. I know you’re going to miss classes obviously, but if you miss more than a few you gonna be in a lot of trouble, because it’s such a short quarter, I mean, by the 3rd or 4th week, you’re preparing for mid terms. You got to be on top of your stuff\. You’ve got lectures two or three times a week and it’s really not that much. So you really need to just do your stuff, if you don’t, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.

In Closing...
A lot of UCSB kids are big into environmental stuff, it’s a big research school, and a lot of people that are in it like a lot of people do like oceanography. It’s like the second best research institute in the country. There are a lot of people that are into it. They’ll get mad if they see you like throw a cup – try to litter or something – they’ll get really mad. I’m not saying everybody’s freaking out, but people are a lot more aware of the environment.