University of California-Santa Cruz Reviews

"UC Santa Cruz has a great community of students and professors who encourage interdisciplinary and cooperative work across departments. The Santa Cruz area is expensive to live in but for good reason - it's absolutely gorgeous and there's so much to do and enjoy!"

"The astronomy and astrophysics program at UCSC is one of the best. The department community is very inviting and supportive. Plenty of opportunities to develop into an accomplished scientist."

"This is a really great program for bioinformatics students. It is easy to come by these classes and opportunities. It is harder for biomolecular engineering (myself). There are opportunities, but they are limited in our department. Collaborating with the biology department would be a good idea. The program seems new, or there is new administrative staff. It seems unorganized at times, as far as course requirements, etc. I wish I was better informed and had more biomolecular engineering opportunites, but overall UCSC is a good place to be. There is plenty of current, relevant research that uses the most innovative technology trying to solve real medical problems. I highly recommend this program for bioinformatics students.Read Less"

"Pros: -scenery -professor networking -facilities cons: -housing -TA pay/support -class size -# of classes offered"

"The cost of living is really high in Santa Cruz, so is the student graduate housing. Despite that, the campus is gorgeous, the labs and classrooms are well equipped and the Professors, Advisors and Staff are always willing to help you and give you support in your research, financial aid etc."

"Pros: forest campus, quite and clean. Faculties are very nice and helpful. Telecast some courses to the extension in Santa Clara, very efficient. Cons: highway-17 is dangerous. easy to get lost for fresher. parking fee is a little bit high"

"Quality of the professors is good, but not enough effort (such as providing program, activities, study room...etc) for EE student to learn from each other and experience group learning and bounding."

"The UCSC Programs in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering offers an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment. I am in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and I could not imagine a better place to study this field than the home of the Human Genome Project. UCSC is a phenomenal place to do research and we are fortunate to be located in the beautiful city of Santa Cruz."

"Located near silicon valley and Stanford, research opportunities are vast and numerous, which is a huge pro of a the graduate program at UCSC. The area is far more beautiful than silicon valley and there is a greater diversity of lifestyle in Santa Cruz. The classes are sometimes lacking in true direction or quality. Overall my experience has been very rewarding and enjoyable"

"If you take the initiative to go to class, do the work, and reach out to teachers and TA’s, you will have a rich and positive learning experience at this school. The Economics department does a good job of balancing the traditional economic education with a progressive and real-time look at the ever changing economic landscape. My main criticism would be that because of the broad nature of a subject like economics, some of the professors and TA’s will have a limited perspective, based upon their own work and career.Read Less"

"UC Santa Cruz offers a wide range of courses, approachable faculty, and unforgettable experiences."

"As an Economics major, I had many large classes and felt it was difficult to get to know the professors. I had a couple excellent professors whom I really respected for both their enthusiasm for the course as well as their challenging tests. The campus does make an effort to help students in their classes through Sections and MSI tutoring. These were very helpful resources. I chose to following the Accounting emphasis program at UCSC because the Big Firms recruited very heavily from the campus. Through this decision, I was able to secure an internship and eventually a job with one of the Big Four accounting firms.Read Less"

"UCSC provides an ideal climate for me to develop as a culturally responsive teacher. It is this university’s focus on developing agents of change that distinguishes UCSC’s education program from that of other institutions. It’s program embraces sociocultural perspectives on schools, society, and research in order to emphasize the centrality of language, community, and social contexts of teaching and learning. In addition to it's academics, UCSC is a wonderful school due to its natural beauty. Located in the middle of a red wood forest, UCSC provides a unique learning environment that both fascinates and inspires it's students. The MA/credential program itself is fast-pace and competitive. It is a one year program that goes from July until July. 14 units are taken in the first summer, 16 hours of field work per week are to be completed during fall and winter quarter. By spring quarter, graduate students work full time at their placement schools (30 hours a week). The program concludes with 14 units during the final summer session. There are only 82 graduate students entered into the program each year, which makes for intimate cohorts. My experience at UCSC has been mostly positive, with the exception of how expensive it is. $25,000 for just the tuition.Read Less"

"Quality education with numerous funding opportunities all located within minutes of the beach and redwoods. I could not have chosen a better graduate program for my needs."

"Santa Cruz is an expensive but great place to live. It can be hard to afford, but I think that's pretty normal for grad students. Our department is small so you get a lot of personal attention and we really are interdisciplinary, so if you just want to focus all your time on a narrow range of issues, it probably isn't for you. If you want to engage with all kinds of scholars asking a range of questions about a range of environmental problems using a variety of methods, this is a great place to be.Read Less"

"This program is ideal for someone wanting to enter quickly into a career in education. It's focus on social justice fosters culturally sensitive educators. It is costly and finding a job after graduation can be difficult in the area where so many gradautes of the program choose to stay."

"Pros: Good academic environment, great social setting for graduate students, close proximity to other institutions and resources in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cons: Expensive place to live, campus is spread out, research money is always a problem, most stipend funding is based on TA-ships and takes a lot of time out of research."

"Overall organization of the TA duties is poor. The effort is there but not the spirit. Treating everyone like drones and giving lots of face time isn't help it is placating. Also for some courses luckily not mine there is no failing grade! Being required to pass students who didn't try with those that barely made it seems quite poor leadership on the part of faculty but it is ubiquitous here. Also the faculty advising is useless. Until you have an adviser you are on your own. You don't have a faculty advocate really at all. That being said the faculty have their own style and they are strong in their own area's. I love my boss no nonsense work work work kind of guy. But some are hands off and less guidance which can let others loose their way. The course work is good, the instruction is good. The programs very a lot though. Organic Chem has a much steeper hill to climb than PChem and BioChem. I don't know why that is. But they have extra tests and more classes to take. Which certainly was not made clear to me and luckily I am not in that part of the program. But it is something to keep in mind.Read Less"

"I love my faculty -- I find them supportive and engaging and we have stimulating discussions. Funding has been a challenge, and at this point I'm discouraged about finding funding to support my research"

"Santa Cruz is an excellent location for grad school - enough entertainment, 1.5hrs from a major city, the ocean and beautiful surroundings. However, standard of living is pretty high, which makes it a bit difficult to fit a TA stipend. Faculty are for the most part excellent, with a few faculty that are not so good. It's a very supportive (advising) atmosphere, but there is limited funding available to students, so we have to TA. I am at my 5th year and have TA'd since year 1, with a fellowship for 1 quarter, where I was gone doing fieldwork and I got a GSR (Graduate Student Research grant) 1 quarter to do work for my advisor. There are not many fellowships from UC Santa Cruz that just pay your tuition and give you a stipend, freeing up your time to do your research. It is not so competitive here.Read Less"