Hmm, are you thinking of going to school there? :)
If you are, I'll kick your ass! Just as I leave Santa Cruz! DAMMIT!
UCSC has changed a whole hell of a lot since I first came there in 1995. It used to be a really idealistic little place tucked into the redwoods, and was an architectural marvel, as far as univerities went: because it actually tried to build structures which blended into the natural surroundings. The architects wanted to desgin buildings which worked *with* the environment, rather than cut it down and build somethnig ugly and unnecessarily space-consuming. The campus is still beautiful, built in the midst of towering redwoods.... and you can see the ocean full-on from many spots on campus. Deer run wild there, and there are even mountain lion sightings once in a while.... although less deer and mountain lions roam there as the ridiculous building boom continues. You see, UCSC, as a UC campus, must expand with the population needs. So that means more dorms, and bigger facilities. I think this is BS, because the land here really can't accomodate any more people. Santa Cruz can expand neither south nor north, due to Greenbelt reservation policies.... so all these extra students put real pressure on both teh town and the campus. I really hate going up to campus now, and seeing the ugly mini-mall monstrosity of the new Baytree Bookstore and Graduate Commons, and the new faculty parking deck placed smack in th middle of what was once a beautiful old-growth forest.
But it is still a beautiful campus.
Academically.....
UCSC is very, very good in many respects. I think it used to be better. Many professors have lost the ideal upon which UCSC was based, which was to supply a private, liberal arts education at public cost. When I started going there, a lot of the ideals were still in place. But as the campus expanded, a lot of people began to get big heads, and wanted to shed UCSC of its alleged "hippie" image. The first and most unfortunate target of this was the Narrative Evaluation System -- NES. UCSC used to have nothing but the NES, which is a grading system which gives actual writtem detailed evaluations of a student's performance instead of a letter grade. The idea was to give a real analysis of a student's performance, one which weighed *everything*, instead of glossing everything over into A. B, C, D, or F. Show strengths, weaknesses, etc. They insituted optional letter grades in some classes about the time I started there, because a lot of hard science majors were having problems getting into grad school with evals. Okay, fine. But just last year, mandatory grades were instituted..... narrative evals will be up to the professor now. I think this is a huge loss. It kills a lot of the spirit in which UCSC was conceived, and makes it more of a cookie cutter place to be. I went to UCSC because I couldn't afford the small, private liberal arts education I wanted... the kind of close, interpersonal relationship I wanted between professor and student, where your professor thinks of all aspects of your performance and really takes the time to evaluate them. I chose UCSC because I felt it could offer that to me. And it did... I was lucky, I got there before it started to suck.
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momijizukamori
you're sooooo hobo.
Date: 2001-10-16 12:18 am (UTC)Tell you about UCSC?
Hmm, are you thinking of going to school there? :)
If you are, I'll kick your ass! Just as I leave Santa Cruz! DAMMIT!
UCSC has changed a whole hell of a lot since I first came there in 1995. It used to be a really idealistic little place tucked into the redwoods, and was an architectural marvel, as far as univerities went: because it actually tried to build structures which blended into the natural surroundings. The architects wanted to desgin buildings which worked *with* the environment, rather than cut it down and build somethnig ugly and unnecessarily space-consuming. The campus is still beautiful, built in the midst of towering redwoods.... and you can see the ocean full-on from many spots on campus. Deer run wild there, and there are even mountain lion sightings once in a while.... although less deer and mountain lions roam there as the ridiculous building boom continues. You see, UCSC, as a UC campus, must expand with the population needs. So that means more dorms, and bigger facilities. I think this is BS, because the land here really can't accomodate any more people. Santa Cruz can expand neither south nor north, due to Greenbelt reservation policies.... so all these extra students put real pressure on both teh town and the campus. I really hate going up to campus now, and seeing the ugly mini-mall monstrosity of the new Baytree Bookstore and Graduate Commons, and the new faculty parking deck placed smack in th middle of what was once a beautiful old-growth forest.
But it is still a beautiful campus.
Academically.....
UCSC is very, very good in many respects. I think it used to be better. Many professors have lost the ideal upon which UCSC was based, which was to supply a private, liberal arts education at public cost. When I started going there, a lot of the ideals were still in place. But as the campus expanded, a lot of people began to get big heads, and wanted to shed UCSC of its alleged "hippie" image. The first and most unfortunate target of this was the Narrative Evaluation System -- NES. UCSC used to have nothing but the NES, which is a grading system which gives actual writtem detailed evaluations of a student's performance instead of a letter grade. The idea was to give a real analysis of a student's performance, one which weighed *everything*, instead of glossing everything over into A. B, C, D, or F. Show strengths, weaknesses, etc. They insituted optional letter grades in some classes about the time I started there, because a lot of hard science majors were having problems getting into grad school with evals. Okay, fine. But just last year, mandatory grades were instituted..... narrative evals will be up to the professor now. I think this is a huge loss. It kills a lot of the spirit in which UCSC was conceived, and makes it more of a cookie cutter place to be. I went to UCSC because I couldn't afford the small, private liberal arts education I wanted... the kind of close, interpersonal relationship I wanted between professor and student, where your professor thinks of all aspects of your performance and really takes the time to evaluate them. I chose UCSC because I felt it could offer that to me. And it did... I was lucky, I got there before it started to suck.