Tucked in a redwood forest a couple of miles from the Pacific coast, the University of California–Santa Cruz is a nature-lover’s dream, complete with some 25 miles of walking trails and a 33-acre farm, part of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.
Walking to class can quite literally be a hike, leading to what students wryly refer to as the “freshman minus-15,” says senior Sami Chen, a Santa Cruz native studying ocean sciences.
Yet the sprawling 2,000-acre campus is made much smaller through UCSC’s residential colleges. As incoming freshmen, each undergraduate becomes affiliated with one of these 10 communities, where he or she lives for at least a year and where all take a core class in small groups.
Each place has its own identity and vibe, and with between 1,400 and 1,700 students per community, “you kind of get that small college feel,” says Kaede Hamilton of Cupertino, California, a 2014 grad who majored in psychology and legal studies.
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Every college has its own common areas, cafe or coffee house, student government, and theme — Cultural Identities and Global Consciousness at Merrill, for instance, and Science, Technology, and Society for Crown. Together, they form a ring around the central academic and administrative buildings, and each is intended to be a sort of “intellectual neighborhood,” says psychology professor Faye Crosby, provost of Cowell College and one of nine faculty members who live alongside undergrads there.
With fewer than half the number of students of the University of California–Berkeley or the University of California–Los Angeles, UCSC is one of the smallest of the 10 University of California system schools, and about 93 percent of students who attend come from the Golden State. About a third of students are members of traditionally underrepresented minority groups, among the highest percentages at the UC schools.
The university offers more than 60 majors, including programs in marine biology, computer game design and Jewish studies.
About two-thirds of classes enroll fewer than 30 students, though there are a fair number with 100-plus. Students say professors are highly approachable, but sometimes you have to take the initiative to get to know them personally.
“I haven’t come across a professor who I feel didn’t really care about my progress,” says senior Guillermo Rogel from Riverside, California, who is majoring in politics. (Until 2001, undergrads received narrative evaluations instead of letter grades, if they so chose.) UCSC has a modest graduate student population of about 1,600, which means there’s room for more than 3 in 5 undergrads to participate in research with faculty.
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While most speak highly of the residential colleges, students do admit that they can feel a little insular. “You really have to work on identifying with the larger university,” Rogel says.
Still, many gather for events at one of several theaters across campus, Quarry Plaza or to support the Banana Slugs, who compete in the NCAA’s Division III.
And “there are lots of different ways to build a community outside of your college” in the 150-plus student clubs and organizations, says recent grad Gabby Areas, a sociology major from Fairfield, California. There are about two dozen fraternities and sororities that count some 6 percent of students as members.
Downtown Santa Cruz, with its scenic beaches, boardwalk, shops and restaurants, is only a couple of miles up the road, and UCSC is only a short drive from several state parks, beaches, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and San Jose, in the heart of Silicon Valley. San Francisco is about 75 miles away.
Students say it’s a myth that everyone at UCSC is a hippie, though the place is not without its offbeat touches, like the official archive of Grateful Dead artifacts in the library and the camper park, where students can live in an RV — assuming they bring one. And the university, founded in 1965, proudly bills itself as “the original authority on questioning authority.”
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— University of California–Berkeley
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Colleges 2016” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
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San Francisco Bay Area College Road Trip: UC–Santa Cruz originally appeared on usnews.com
