College 8

This is my home college at the university. Where I moved in to and where I will hopefully graduate from. This is the science and environmental college. Perfectly in the sun and good access to west side of campus. Far from everything important but encourages exercise by getting around campus.

I don’t know if you realize, but Santa Cruz is like the little brother of Berkeley. Santa Cruz wants to be like Berkeley so bad (Pacific is a wannabe Telegraph), but back in the early days when Santa Cruz put on its big boy pants and started developing a university, there was one factor of ultra-​liberal Berkeley that Santa Cruz wanted to avoid – the riots. Cal Berkeley was so close together that students could easily congregate for protests and riots and flood the town together… UCSC wanted none of this (though I’ve definitely seen several protests in my time here).
Their solution? Build the campus away from the town on a hill, and separate the colleges by tons of forest making the perimeter several miles long. What it is now? 10 colleges, each intended for different majors, all with their own subculture of students. Its a very interesting ethnographic anthropological breakdown actually…
Oakes: Sometimes referred to as «Oakeland.» Nuff said.
College 8: The A&F preppy [socal] kids who just want to go to the beach
Porter: The aspiring scene/​emo/​hipster artists who are frequently sporting the latest urban outfitter apparel
Kresge: The stereotypical Cruz hippie headquarters… no shoes, dreads, and hackey sacks galore
College 9: Asians and everyone else left in the melting pot
College 10: Asians and everyone else left in the melting pot
Crown: The über nerds & the lan party crews
Merill: The forgotten nerds and Mexicans
Cowell: The meatheads, gym crawlers, surfer types
Stevenson: Poli-​sci «i’m too cool for Starbucks, but I dig coffee houses» café dewllers
Don’t get me wrong, I love the campus and the students, but if I am going to stereotype one college, I need to be fair equally amongst all colleges: P
I picked College 8 before knowing the stigma. All I saw were: panoramic ocean views, sand volleyball courts, tennis courts, basketball courts, newly constructed living facilities, and people in beach clothes walking around outside socializing.
College 8 was a good choice, but it was annoying how it wasn’t centralized and was so far away from the rest of campus. I actually liked how it was themed the «Environmental College,» and I drank the Kool-​Aid a bit while taking the core class my freshman year. Now I recycle all the time, and I’m a firm believer in global warming and composting :) Green.