So Much to Offer!

Introduction
Santa Cruz is beautiful and I love it. I chose this place initally because it was the only UC school I got into, but now I realize that it has so much to offer both academically and socially. The classes I have taken so far have been taught by professors who are interesting and highly skilled in the the area of instruction. My TAs have been interesting and dedicated to helping their students. I think that a student who loves nature, can tolerate rain (haha...but seriously, we have bad weather for most of winter, especially compared to SoCall), is open to new ideas and is tolerant of others should look into UC Santa Cruz. However, if you are looking for Greek life or want to play sports at a high level, you may want to go somewhere else.

Campus Life and Social Life
Santa Cruz lives up to its reputation as a party school. There is always something going on at an off-campus party, which is usually accessible by bus or in the on-campus apartments and dorms. Also, the forest around the school is largely unregulated at night, so many students smoke or shroom in the woods. Santa Cruz is no stranger to drugs, coke, ecstasy, weed (obviously), shrooms, acid are commonly used. Coke is huge here and weed is everyone's drug of choice. There are students who are not drug users but they are few and far between.

Also, alcohol is, of course, extremely prevalent. I am a student-athlete and I can say that if you want to play sports at a high level, this is not the school because of our Divison III status. We have excellent Swimming, Tennis and Men's Soccer but in general, athletics come second to anything else. The school has a pathetic budget for sports (only $747,000) and athletes have to share the gym and facilities with other students, which is aggravating. Women's water polo cannot lift weights together because it is not possible to reserve the gym for a team. However, if you want to actually play a sport and not be a benchwarmer, this is a good school in which to do it. We have decent coaches and it is easy for a student who was a good athlete in high school to play his or her sport here. Advertisement
Academics
We have great professors! So far, I have only had one who was bad and that was due to his inability to lecture, not to his lack of knowledge. My TAs so far have been good too: my current Anthropology TA is very dedicated to helping us and my Oceanography TA gives us a great lecture recap and offers extensive office hours for his students.

As far as work goes, it depends on the class. Last quarter, one of my classes had 50-100 pages of reading per night and it was not light stuff, think Ovid, Homer and Theogony. However, my Women's Lit class gives extremely managable reading loads, so it largely depends on the class. But I will say none of my classes have been an easy A. They all have had difficult tests and projects. Oh and we have a great Science department, especially Physics and Marine Biology.

Having said that, Santa Cruz has a weak Languages program and it is a "research based insitution" so it doesn't offer many majors other colleges do. Another annoying fact is that it's hard to get into classes, especially as a Freshman. Most lower-divison classes are not too big. I would say most are 200 students or less, which is good for a UC.

Student Body
The typical students are California natives, about 50/50 split on NoCal/SoCal. They are on the whole pretty open-minded and I would definitely say that almost all students are politically liberal or moderate. There are very few conservatives. Santa Cruz has a big hippie population, although I would say that is among older students and grad students primarily. Most Freshmen are NOT vegans wearing organic cotton and composting...but there is a presence of that type of person here, especially in the Environmental Studies program and in the Sustainable AgroEcology Project. Most Santa Cruz students love to party and weed is a big part of that, so be prepared to be immersed in a drug subculture.

In Closing...
I love Santa Cruz, but the UC system in general has many flaws. The tuition is going up, programs are being cut and administrators are overspending. However, the value of a degree from a UC cannot be stressed enough and Santa Cruz offers that in a great environment that promotes growth and understanding of the world at large. I would not want to go to any other undergraduate school.