Elevation varies from 285 feet at the campus entrance to 1,195 feet at the northern boundary, a difference of about 900 feet . The southern portion of the campus primarily consists of a large, open meadow, locally known as the Great Meadow. To the north of the meadow lie most of the campus’ buildings, many of them among redwood groves. The campus is built on a portion of the Cowell Family ranch, which was purchased by the University of California in 1961. The northern half of the campus property has remained in its undeveloped, forested state apart from fire roads and hiking and bicycle trails.

The campus is gorgeous, set right in the middle of a gigantic forest and only a short bus ride from the beach, which is perfect if you have a penchant for the outdoors. While dorms/housing/food vary in quality depending on where you stay on campus the dorms as a whole tend to be on the rather small size, and past Sophomore year housing isn’t guaranteed. The teachers for the most part are excellent and really care about what they teach, though some can be more eccentric than others. A lot of people say this college has no party scene, but the amount of “kickbacks” I’ve stumbled past might beg to differ. Note, this school has a no drug policy but amongst students is notorious for having a large amount of students who do weed recreationally. If this is a negative or positive is up to your own interpretation.

In 2008, UCSC agreed to house the Grateful Dead archives at the McHenry Library. Exhibits of Grateful Dead Archive materials are on display in the Brittingham Family Foundation’s Dead Central Gallery on the 2nd Floor of McHenry Library. The Dead Central exhibit space is open during all library business hours. UCSC plans to devote an entire room at the library, to be called “Dead Central,” to display the collection and encourage research. UCSC beat out petitions from Stanford and UC Berkeley to house the archives. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir said that UCSC is “a seat of neo-Bohemian culture that we’re a facet of. There could not have been a cozier place for this collection to land.” The archive became open to the public July 29, 2012.

Admissions is somewhat competitive as the UC Santa Cruz acceptance rate is 65%. Popular majors include Computer Science, Psychology, and Cellular Biology. Graduating 76% of students, UC Santa Cruz alumni go on to earn a starting salary of $33,800.

The campus was intended to be a showcase for contemporary architecture, progressive teaching methods, and undergraduate research. According to founding chancellor Dean McHenry, the purpose of the distributed college system was to combine the benefits of a major research university with the intimacy of a smaller college. Kerr shared a passion with former Stanford roommate McHenry to build a university modeled as “several Swarthmores” (i.e., small liberal arts colleges) in close proximity to each other.

In U.S.News 2021 rankings of America’s best colleges, Princeton once again tops the National University list. UCLA is ranked first among National Public Universities, and Williams College claims the top spot for National Liberal Arts Colleges. Alongside their work on campus, scholars are also encouraged to benefit from the university’s strong connections and complete work experience in the industry. Alternatively, students can choose to complete a yearlong exchange programme with a partner university, such as the University of New Mexico or the University of New Hampshire. The University of California, Santa Cruz is a well-known research-based higher education institution that currently operates under the umbrella of the University of California system. The university has been consistently highly ranked among similar research institutions both inside and outside the US.

In May 1985, Sinsheimer, a molecular biologist, welcomed several scientists to Santa Cruz for one of the first meetings at which the idea of a Human Genome Project was discussed. The University of California-Santa Cruz is on Monterey Bay near the city of Santa Cruz, California. UCSC is a relatively young higher education institution, established in 1965 with the intent of providing progressive, cross-disciplinary education using innovative teaching methods in a natural setting which would showcase contemporary architecture. UCSC is extremely well respected for its natural sciences , space sciences, and biological sciences programs.

Students can also participate in fitness classes, personal workouts, or a scheduled outdoor adventure in California’s mountains, rivers, or beaches. In fact, with the Pacific Ocean virtually at the doorstep, students often spend time becoming expert surfers or body-boarders. This understanding of how to craft interactive experience and make that engaging — so often, someone coming just straight through a computer science program just doesn’t really know how to make an engaging experience. It’s almost like conventional wisdom that you don’t let the programmer create your user interface — make sure you have a designer or somebody who has this interaction design perspective.

Students can still elect to receive a “pass/no pass” grade, but many academic programs limit or even forbid pass/no pass grading. Overall, students may now earn no more than 25% of their UCSC credits on a “pass/no pass” basis. Although the default grading option for almost all courses offered is now “graded”, most course grades are still accompanied by spelman college gpa requirements written evaluations. Plans for increasing enrollment to 19,500 students and adding 1,500 faculty and staff by 2020, and the anticipated environmental impacts of such action, encountered opposition from the city, the local community, and the student body. City voters in 2006 passed two measures calling on UCSC to pay for the impacts of campus growth.

In February 2006, Chancellor Denice Denton got the designation removed. Military recruiters declined to return to UCSC the following year, but returned in 2008 to a more low-keyed student reception and protests using elements of guerrilla theatre, rather than vandalism or physical violence. Thanks to students passing a $3 quarterly tuition increase to support buying renewable energy in 2006, UCSC is the sixth-largest buyer of renewable energy among college campuses nationwide. The Cesar Chavez Convocation is another example of student activism. A joint program with UC Hastings enables UC Santa Cruz students to earn a bachelor’s degree and Juris Doctor degree in six years instead of the usual seven. The “3+3 BA/JD” Program between UC Santa Cruz and UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco accepted its first applicants in fall 2014.