University of California, Santa Cruz
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Major: Environmental Studies and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology double major
Minor: None
Student Self Identifies as: White Heterosexual Male
Summary
I’m on the surf team at UC-Santa Cruz. I spend a lot of time doing research in a freshwater ecology lab. In my free time, I love rock climbing and surfing. I’m also involved in a Buddhist meditation community in Santa Cruz.
Background
Gender Identity: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
High School Experience: Public school in Laguna Beach, CA with a graduating class of about 250 students. There was a culture of going to college.
First-Generation College Student: No
Major: Environmental Studies and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology double major
Minor: None
Extracurricular Activities: I’m on the surf team at UC-Santa Cruz. I spend a lot of time doing research in a freshwater ecology lab. In my free time, I love rock climbing and surfing. I’m also involved in a Buddhist meditation community in Santa Cruz.
Have any of your extracurricular activities had a particularly big impact on your experience?
Rock climbing has had a huge influence and has shaped my college experience. We’re pretty close to Yosemite and I’ll go there during the weekends. Spending time in the outdoors and being in the outdoor community has had a really positive impact on my college career. I go on rock climbing trips because I climb at a gym in Santa Cruz and met a lot of UCSC students there who I go on trips with.
What was the process of getting involved in your undergraduate research?
At first, I bounced around a lot between different labs studying small mammals and then working with finches but didn’t fully commit to them. I took a freshwater ecology class and got really interested in the subject, so I reached out to the graduate student and started doing basic level work for her in the lab. She could see I was more dedicated and putting in a lot of time, so I started doing my senior thesis with them and I’m now a paid intern. Since I’m graduating early, I started doing my senior thesis last quarter.
Academic Experience
Can you describe your weekly coursework for your major?
I’ve already gone through the gauntlet of the intro level physics, chemistry, and calculus classes and am now primarily taking upper-division Ecology courses that are more theory-based and don’t have as much math. Right now, my workload is a little less than the prerequisites were and is a lot more interesting. On a weekly basis, I’m mostly doing readings and lab reports and the final grades are mostly made up of midterms and finals.
Is there anything you feel that your majors’ departments do especially well or poorly?
I would say that they’re really good at providing opportunities for undergraduates for internships and field experience. About a third of the classes for my major are field-based classes and there are a lot of classes that make you travel up and down the coast of California and get out in the field. The best part is the incorporation of field work and that it’s a mandatory part of classes.
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly competitive or collaborative?
It’s not competitive at all. I’ve never experienced any type of competition. It’s not entirely collaborative either because most of the work is individual.
How accessible are your professors?
All of my professors have office hours, but I would definitely say they are not as interested in talking to you unless they know you’re going to be a very important part of their lab. If you try to approach them for help on an assignment, they usually refer you to a graduate student. If I’m struggling with a concept, I would refer to textbooks or online supplements like YouTube videos, and if I still had trouble I would reach out to the TA’s.
Why did you pick your major? Are you happy with your choice?
I’m super stoked on the majors I’ve chosen. Probably the biggest influence on what made me want to study these is my free time and personal life is very outdoors based. I love being in nature, interacting with nature, and asking questions about how the natural world works. The passion for outdoor sports has driven me to want to incorporate that into academics and possibly a career.
How do you like the quarter system? How has it impacted your academic experience?
What I really like about the quarter system is it exposes you to a lot of different courses very quickly. If you don’t like a class, it’s over quickly, and if you like a class, it will open you up to something new. I like that you can take a bunch of classes. But, it’s also very fast-paced and the frustrating part is if you miss one assignment or do poorly it really restricts your ability to get a better grade because there aren’t that many assignments to begin with. It has its pros and cons, but I enjoy it.
Reasons to Attend
1) If you’re an outdoors enthusiast, Santa Cruz is the place to be.
2) If you struggle with your identity, sexuality, or expressing yourself, Santa Cruz is a very good place to do that. People are very accepting here.
3) You get a really good education, especially in the science field. UC-Santa Cruz is research focused, so if you’re interested in the environmental sciences or biology it’s a really good place to go.
Reasons Not to Attend
1) If you want to be actively involved in a lot of partying and being in a fraternity or have a big football university, this is not the place to go.
2) If you’re interested in music and the arts, this is not the best option because those programs are not the main focus of the school.
3) If you don’t like the rain, don’t come here.
Around Campus
Where have you lived on and around campus?
Freshman: Porter A Dorms with two other freshmen students in a triple
Sophomore-Senior: I’ve lived in a house off-campus with eight other people. It’s a six-bedroom house so three of the rooms are doubles.
How was transitioning from your hometown to Santa Cruz, CA in terms of location?
I can’t complain, both are beach towns so I’ve been really lucky in that sense. In Santa Cruz, there is a really beautiful redwood forest and the ocean, so I feel like I moved to a different version of where I grew up.
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
On campus, I’ve never had any issues with feeling unsafe. Every once in a while, we get reports of bike theft and stuff like that, but I’ve never heard of someone being attacked. It’s a pretty safe campus.
Social Opportunities
What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
Most weekends I have free I’ll go to Yosemite or Big Sur to go camping, hiking, rock climbing, and backpacking. I also try to go skiing. Socially, I usually only go out on Fridays and Saturdays. I go to parties at friends’ houses or go to the local bars. Parties usually happen at a friend’s house or a friend of a friend’s house. There are a lot of students here, so addresses get passed around pretty quickly. There are also forest raves where in the middle of the forest people will bring out generators and tapestries and have DJ sets which are really fun.
What is the impact of Greek life on the weekend options at UC Santa Cruz?
Greek life is definitely present but not controlling. I’ve never had a hard time going to parties outside of Greek life. Greek life is pretty kept to itself. They are not like trying to recruit everybody at the school and is not exclusive. If I wanted to go to a frat party, I could, but I rarely find myself in that position.
How happy are you with the weekend activities or nightlife at your school? Is there anything you would change if you could?
I’m really content with what’s available in Santa Cruz. There’s nothing I do back home that I miss here. I’m usually surfing, backpacking, or climbing on the weekends so I don’t have any issues at all.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
In the dorms. They were my hallmates.
How would you describe the overall social scene at UCSC?
A lot of people are lowkey and kept to themselves, but there is a party environment too if people want to party, which I’m a part of. There are a bunch of small niches for whatever you’re interested in. If you’re into surfing, there’s a huge culture for that, and if you’re into video games, there’s a culture for that too. There’s a really diverse portfolio of people here.
To what extent do people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
Pretty frequently. I have a lot of friends who are homosexual, nonbinary, and transgender. I feel like Santa Cruz as a whole is very open to having different sexual orientations and genders. People are very self-expressive and people are accepting.
To what extent do people in Greek life and not in Greek life mix socially?
Based on my personal experience, there isn’t a whole lot of intermingling. People in Greek life are pretty consumed by it and most of their friends are also in Greek life. I don’t have any friends in Greek life and I feel like I can speak for most people I know in that sense. Those two groups are pretty segregated.
How do you like the size of UCSC? How has that impacted your experience? [UCSC has about 18,000 undergraduates.]
The size is pretty good. I wouldn’t say it’s too big or too small, it’s the perfect in between. The only way it negatively impacts me sometimes I’ll have really big lecture courses with 300-400 students, so there is less one on one learning. It’s also bad for class enrollment because classes become more competitive to get into. Socially, though, it’s a good number of people. [See City on a Hill Press article, “Increased Demand, Decreased Quality.”]
Careers
Careers
What have you used the career office for? How helpful are they?
I haven’t gone. I usually get career advice from professors and graduate students in the lab I work for because they’re more in tune with what I want to do in my career because the career office doesn’t know as much about my specific field.
Have you learned any computer programs or languages that will be helpful to you professionally?
I use a lot of Excel and a statistics program called JMP. I’m also learning R right now. Most of my computer knowledge has been learned around biology statistics and data entry.