This is the original college at UCSC. It has a vaguely Asian inspired design. Home to the…read morehumanities department it boasts a dining hall with the best views on campus.

Cowell Pride- class of 2006. Check out the view- you'll know why everyone wants to be in this…read morecollege. Its the oldest, first college of 10 at UCSC was built in 1965. They changed our fun fountain that we could play in into a kinda sad koi pond. But we still love em. Love Tyrus and Deanna, they are married, but autonomous- the coolest, most down to earth, but professional cowell-loving provosts. Adrianne Waite, though controversial, is a favourite there, too. Great heart, great mom, and loyal to Cowell (and its politics). Cowell cafe= the savior of life, and employer to many worthy students. Upper Quad rocks the house; Adams all-girls hall house and Parkman 316 Quad for life, baby. Cowell's CORE COURSE: http://cowell.ucsc.edu/academics/index.php

I attended UCSC at the beginning of the millennium. I had selected OAKES as my college before even…read morehaving the opportunity to attend the walking tour. I'm so glad that I picked Oakes. I made so many valuable connections while I dormed there in my first year. I remember hearing all the different jokes about Oakes and how the Oakes dorms were the boxes that College 8-10 arrived in. Oakes was definitely underwhelming when you first looked at it. The buildings did look rather old and very much lived in. One of the things that I began to appreciate the most about them was that I'd wake up on any random morning to a view of the most beautiful deer just outside of my window, or fog just hovering above the grass but the view of the ocean absolutely clear and sparkling. I loved what I'd heard about Oakes as I had been able to talk to some other students who had been attending UCSC for a while already. Some of them were able to tell me about their experiences at Oakes and some of them were able to tell me a lot about the back story of the college. I met so many great people at Oakes when I began attending as a student. So many of them were artistic, political, insightful, and welcoming. There were so many things that I loved about Oakes. I don't even know where to begin. I loved the view that I had from my room. There hasn't been one every again ever since then. I was very close to one of the shuttle pick up and drop off points. I was able to easily attending union meetings, the Oakes senate gatherings, writing lab, computer lab, Oakes cafe, etc. I fell in love with the Oakes core class, although I barely passed because my flight back to the Bay Area had been cancelled and it was the last one out on a Sunday night and there was just no way that I was going to make it to the class by 8am. EEEK! There's a certain roll call that we have that is one of a kind, although it is the simplest. "OOOOOOOOOAaaaaaaaaKKKKKKKeeeeeeeSSSSS!" There is a certain kind of slug love that oozes from all us Oakes grads. Man, room 306 in Biko was my spot. My dorm block advisor was Anthoine Bracy. He's an awesome dude. He invited all of us to his place for a pancake breakfast in the middle of the year. That was fun. I met a bunch of other people from our building that day, some that I had classed with and some that I didn't know lived in the same building. It was nice to get together and to just become a little closer knit. I feel like I Oakes, especially Antoine Bracy and Biko House, so much of who I am today. I realized my goals there and realized how much more I wanted to become involved in my Asian American community. I wanted to get more involved with the student orgs even. I didn't think it was really my thing but I loved it once I really got involved. Who knew! I absolutely LOVE Oakes!! I visit each time I'm in town. I look forward to walking through whenever I'm on campus and I always look for our mascot, banana slugs.

Beautiful area, very close to the arboretum and Wilder Ranch just off campus. The vibes here are…read morebetter than any other college on campus, also very queer dorms. Gotta love Oakes !

Porter College is a great place to live your first few years in college. Friendly and interesting…read morestudents, tons of activities put on by the residential advisers(RAs), supportive staff and beautiful scenery. There are ocean view from some places, a cool Squiggle sculpture, dorm room, apartments and a meadow. They even have a koi pond and an art gallery! There is lots of grass and open space which is nice for hanging out/playing games. In the warm months there are people tanning, playing Frisbee, playing instruments and relaxing in general. The focus of the residential college is the arts, so it is a pretty colorful and there is always something going on.

Fall 2010 this part of UCSC was the "Transfer Community"; thrive with other transfers from all over…read morethe place. Nice community with a lot of green out door stuff around. You have the meadows to go star gazing at night to the epic 420 day where all the action is. I am glad I was assigned to this area since it was renovated and remodeled. That means new everything! New bathrooms, rooms, furniture clean and free of funky smells! The A side building is much cleaner and newer vs. the B side building. Each floor had their own lounge, but I heard that it does not exist anymore and are used as rooms except for the only lounge on the 6th floor. One side of the building can have gorgeous views of the Pacific Ocean and the sunset. I lived in the 6th floor and you had a choice to wait for the slow elevator or stride up the soaring six flights of stairs and feel good since it's a long way up. Along with long stride up, the dining hall which nearby that you can walk to grab some food and hit back to your room. Next to the dining hall is a small cafe if you get hungry and the dining hall is close. Porter has a large checkered floor where you can rent large chess pieces to play chess in the quad. There is also a large area of grass where you can sit out and enjoy the sun on warm days. Cons about porter are that it can get noisy in the quad and the CSO don't do much about it. People who are faced in the quad suffer from that and the hot sunny days where your room gets soaked with a lot of sun and suffocate with the heat. Slow elevators, *Parking* They have two small lots of parking meters and a permit area parking's and the usual ten minute parking spots!

Being that I helped my niece moved into and out of these dorms, the worst part is having to lug…read morestuff to a third floor. Not handicap accessible, but should be because that will be how you will feel by the end of your move. Nice little grassy area makes for a fun spot for turkey to gather. I'm not used to seeing turkey or deer, being from the city.

this is like a mid college to pick, i didn't know it would be so far from everything and everyone…read moreelse on campus, this college gives more like garden vibes and not so much forest vibes which is like fine i don't mind it, got a lot of natural lighting into my dorm because there were no trees covering the light like the other places on campus. dorms were like regular not too big not too small

Water is DISGUSTING!!!!! Rooms are chill as long as you love your roommates, otherwise you're…read moreliterally in a jail cell. Bathrooms are actually quite nice but the shower floors collect nastiness and hair quite easily. Make sure to never have bathroom lights on full brightness. #CHILLMAX

My granddaughter is attending school there as a freshman and loves it, coming from Petaluma area.read more

Maybe it's just me but I LOVE Crown! Yeah, we should probably get more remodels for a lot of our…read morebuildings, but on the bright side we're one of the oldest colleges here at UCSC--we have HISTORY. I'd like to address a lot of the issues that came up: "Crown is anti social and full of geeks/nerds/gamers" Ok, I'll admit it, we probably do have a lot of gamers here...but we're NOT the only "gamer" college. There's multiple "houses" within Crown, some houses are "gamer" houses, and others aren't at all. It just depends where you end up, if you don't like gaming you won't suddenly become a gamer once you come to Crown. Also, why is being a "geek" or "nerd" a bad thing? I think of it as a compliment, we take our studies seriously and who is normal these days anyways? "Hills, hills, hills" Freshman 15? How about NEGATIVE freshman 15. Yes, a lot of people actually lose weight after coming to UCSC due to how much you end up walking, and thanks to the hill leading up to Crown our legs gets toned along with our tummies. After about a week, you honestly don't mind the hill that much anymore--unless you're just extra tired a certain day, but there are less steep ways to get up to Crown. "Food" Our DH is probably one of the best ones on campus. Our salad bar, fruit bar, and sandwich bar is one of the best because of how many options we have. Even though our DH closes on the weekend we have Banana Joe's and Taco's Moreno's that are walkable distance from almost anywhere at Crown/Merrill.

All the complaints about Crown College are kind of ridiculous. A college dorm is not meant to be a…read morepalace, and in California we have these little things called hills. Crown College is a nice place to live, and because of its position on top of the hill, it is much quieter and more peaceful than the rest of the school. The dorms are a little funky, but so are a lot of other places on campus, because the school was not built yesterday! If you put in a problem report to the fix-it team, it will get completely fixed within 12-24 hours, just like the rest of campus. It attracts intelligent people mostly because of it's emphasis on being the "Sciences" college, but many of the people who live there, including myself, are not affiliated with the science majors at all. Many of the people here are more private and reserved, and we like it that way. A lot of the people here are more interested in their education than getting drunk every night, and that makes this place is a haven for us. However, if you want to get high every night and fail all your classes, try a different college.

i wish i could give them less than one star! they started asking me for money a few days before i…read moregraduated. I GAVE UCSC ALL MY MONEY! i have nothing left to give... real vultures

Well I am a UCSC extension student. I believe I can sign up for Alum association too. Don't have…read morethe emails even after explaining the importance of it. I am not a wanna be UCSC since I couldn't go before. The new Extension is in Santa Clara now. I am going to the inauguration if when I can.

Five enthusiastic stars for the best place I've ever lived. The proctors were assholes and the…read moreprovost was a flake but they didn't compare to the amazing experiences I had while living in Stevenson, specifically House 7. Lower quad can't be beat, you've got the view of the bay and East field where the deer come out at sunset. It's enough to melt your heart. Awesome experiences include: -mushrooms: fuck is that a gnome village? why are my eyes so big? I need a drink -unexplained bruises -first rain: I've seen shit man -living with your drinking buddies -dormcest: yeah, we fucked -nursing endless hangovers in Tim's room -the entire freshman experience Oh yeah and the knoll. The knoll is history, if those redwoods could talk... Once, my boyfriend got banned from all campus housing and I kept sneaking him in. And since he couldn't just go to the bathroom he peed out my window and one of the proctors ran to my door and demanded him to come out. But it was too late, he had already jumped out the window and run to the knoll. I had to have a meeting with the provost and she was like who was that? And I was like that was my friend Ed, he goes to Berkeley. You wanna talk to him? And she was like uh, why was he peeing out the window? And I was like, uh because he was drunk. And then I immediately called Ed to the M and was like duuude if UCSC calls you, you were peeing out my window last night. And he was like, of course I was. Also, I once pooped on Al the proctors car because he knew I was smoking weed and kept hassling me about it. Clearly poop was in order. House 7 knew how to deal with the man.