The University of California - Santa Barbara

Date: Sep 01 2011
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
This place feels more like a country club than a world class university. It's a good place to learn and has plenty of resources, especially for the sciences. However, it seemed to me that most people here don't take their education seriously enough. Academic vigor was seriously lacking, especially in the humanities. I think most of my disappointments about this school stem from the expectations I had coming in to my freshmen year.

As for living in Isla Vista, the party scene gets old very quickly. And it's kind of sad to watch the people who don't want the party to ever end, this is very apparent with some of the Seniors whose physique have degraded from 4 years of heavy drinking. There's a hippy-chic vibe that tries to pass off as culture, but the place is more or less a transient village that becomes a ghost town when school isn't in session. The one thing that vindicates the mindless hedonism of IV is it's beautiful location on a South-facing coast.

For me, UCSB is what it is. I love many of the experiences I had here, but I'm not yet sure if it was worth the trouble.