University of California-Davis Top Questions

Davis is a unique place to go to school, due to the fact that it brings together such a diverse student population. Although there aren't any big time athletics, athletic events are still fun to go to. Classes are hard,but once you start to take classes in your major, they become more engaging and fun.

The best part of school is definitely the atmosphere, it's Northern California after all, it's the perfect mix of cold and warm weather at least in my opinion. Everyone here for the most part is happy go lucky and without a doubt friendly. There are always new people to meet and you always see people that you've already met, and people love to make others feel welcome. If I were to change one thing it would definitely be the prices of college, the experience is amazing but the price makes think about if there wasn't a cheaper alternative. You don't really hear the Davis name around too much in casual conversation but you'd be surprised that when you actually bring it up it'll connect you to people who otherwise you wouldn't normally expect to associate with. I spend most of my time doing shenanigans with my floor mates from the dorms, whether it be IM sports, going out to eat places, or just discover new parts of Davis. Davis is definitely a college town, I would argue that the city of Davis is really just an extension of the University itself. The biggest recent controversy on this campus is about the debts that student get into when they sign up to go to big UC schools like these, it's no choice to laugh at, there is a level of commitment and pride in your education you have to put forth when going to this school. Speaking of pride we have one of the largest and best student associations for school pride, our AGGIEPACK goes nuts at all the games and a lot of our events are free and give out free prizes just to facilitate students abilities to support our athletes. The most unusual thing about this school is our all biking campus. Campus is fairly large and a bike is pretty much a must have, but it keeps you in good shape, everyone does it, and it definitely beats walking or driving. One experience I'll always remember was my first Rugby party, there's nothing better then feeling so welcome and feeling so part of a team and having such a great time. One of the most frequent student complaints is definitely getting your bike stolen, hasn't happened to me yet, but I assume it'll happen at least once in my four years of attendance.

Davis is overall a good place for education and has a lot of nice people. Everyone is so approachable and willing to help others. I remember when I was a freshman, lost and confuse trying to find a building. A person looked over and saw me with a map, approaches me and said “Do you need help?” I thought he was very nice and helpful. Also, everyone is so approachable in class and I made some of my good friends there. We not only study together, but we hang out together too. We like you go eat (so many delicious places), catch a movie, sleepover to catch up on each other’s live, work-out together, take road trips, and so many more activities to do. The best part is that we are a college town. There are many opportunities at Davis. We are one of the few colleges that allow their students to create their own majors. Personally, I have not tried to create my own major, but I have helped to start a club called “Operation Smile at UC Davis.” My organization’s goal is to educate our communities about clefts and raise money to help children get free surgeries. I also took part in other organization such as to raise cancer awareness for women. Also, I am in a community service fraternity where we help our school, community, and country.

Overall I think this school provides excellent education with high academic standards. Professors are very knowledgeable about the subject they teach and they always offer help to students.

Our school has huge pride in sports, events, and clubs. The best thing about our school is that we have cows and bikes. Why cows? UC Davis is an Agricultural School (not everybody is an Ag major!) and we like to be unique. We have amazing animal science program, biology program, etc. What I really like about UC Davis is the fact that the school is structured to only have bicycles go in and out of the campus. Cars used to be allowed all the time on campus, but one day the school decided to limit the number of cars on campus and encourage students to ride their bikes to classes everywhere. You could say Davis is a Bike City. Really, nearly 99{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the students have bikes and bike to classes everyday. The school and the city of Davis built bike paths for students to ride on. I say that is a pretty cool experience...plus you get a good amount of exercise out of it! I think the size of my school is just right. If I am not mistaken, UC Davis has one of the biggest campus size in California. Because Davis is vastly flat, the campus is spread out nice and wide with plenty of space. It's not too big and not too small. All the buildings are close to each other within walking distance and you don't need to bus from one end to the other side of the campus. It's just right. When I tell people to come to Davis, I mean it. It's not like any other schools and you have so much freedom here. It's not too crowded, not in the middle of nowhere (between Sacramento and SF!), and there's good food everywhere. I spend most of my time on campus at the food courts like the "Silo" and the "Coho" (short of Coffee House). They are both great places to study and socialize, with a good number of places to eat. If you go to the Silo, I would always recommend people to eat at Shah's Halal Food, a food cart just on the side of the Silo building. It's too good. Davis is definitely a college town. There are no tall skyscrapers, just blocks and blocks of small shops and restaurants that is convenient for college students. It's a beautiful city with lots of parks and places to go to. The school's administration is just alright. After the pepper-spray incident, many of the students have been furious with the administration and how they run the school. Unfortunately, we cannot really do anything about it because all UC schools run together systematically such as fees. I don't hate the administration, but I do not favor them either. But I think the positive aspects of UC Davis definitely covers this bad side up. As I said before, the pepper-spray incident happend on UC Davis on November 2011. It was a horrifying experience to see. My friend was one of the victims and he sat there courageously, willing to take on the police force with his fellow friends to peacefully protest for Occupy Wall Street. The entire world watched this small, often unheard university take an inhumane act by the Davis police for the sake of the students' public rights on campus in regards to tuition and police brutality. There are so many experiences that I have gone through as an Aggie such as Picnic Day (the whole campus opens up for friends and family to enjoy like a festival) and many other events. Definitely worth coming here.

Our school has huge pride in sports, events, and clubs. The best thing about our school is that we have cows and bikes. Why cows? UC Davis is an Agricultural School (not everybody is an Ag major!) and we like to be unique. We have amazing animal science program, biology program, etc. What I really like about UC Davis is the fact that the school is structured to only have bicycles go in and out of the campus. Cars used to be allowed all the time on campus, but one day the school decided to limit the number of cars on campus and encourage students to ride their bikes to classes everywhere. You could say Davis is a Bike City. Really, nearly 99{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the students have bikes and bike to classes everyday. The school and the city of Davis built bike paths for students to ride on. I say that is a pretty cool experience...plus you get a good amount of exercise out of it! I think the size of my school is just right. If I am not mistaken, UC Davis has one of the biggest campus size in California. Because Davis is vastly flat, the campus is spread out nice and wide with plenty of space. It's not too big and not too small. All the buildings are close to each other within walking distance and you don't need to bus from one end to the other side of the campus. It's just right. When I tell people to come to Davis, I mean it. It's not like any other schools and you have so much freedom here. It's not too crowded, not in the middle of nowhere (between Sacramento and SF!), and there's good food everywhere. I spend most of my time on campus at the food courts like the "Silo" and the "Coho" (short of Coffee House). They are both great places to study and socialize, with a good number of places to eat. If you go to the Silo, I would always recommend people to eat at Shah's Halal Food, a food cart just on the side of the Silo building. It's too good. Davis is definitely a college town. There are no tall skyscrapers, just blocks and blocks of small shops and restaurants that is convenient for college students. It's a beautiful city with lots of parks and places to go to. The school's administration is just alright. After the pepper-spray incident, many of the students have been furious with the administration and how they run the school. Unfortunately, we cannot really do anything about it because all UC schools run together systematically such as fees. I don't hate the administration, but I do not favor them either. But I think the positive aspects of UC Davis definitely covers this bad side up. As I said before, the pepper-spray incident happend on UC Davis on November 2011. It was a horrifying experience to see. My friend was one of the victims and he sat there courageously, willing to take on the police force with his fellow friends to peacefully protest for Occupy Wall Street. The entire world watched this small, often unheard university take an unhumane act by the Davis police for the sake of the students' public rights on campus in regards to tuition and police brutality. There are so many experiences that I have gone through as an Aggie such as Picnic Day (the whole campus opens up for friends and family to enjoy like a festival) and many other events. Definitely worth coming here.

SIZE As far as acres go, UC Davis is the largest UC in the system. Enrollment wise they rank 3rd largest among the UC's. There are around 31,000 undergraduates and graduates that attend the university. A lot of the time lectures can be as big as 250-300, so if you really want one on one time with professors you need to make an effort to attend office hours. Even if your professor is just decent, the one on one time should make a world of difference. TRANSPORTATION When students aren't biking to and from school the best way to get around is the student run bus system, Unitrans. It's an incredibly efficient way to get around and is free to students. However, if you forget your student ID you have to pay $1. THE SPOT ON CAMPUS The BEST place to get a bite to eat, get coffee with friends and study with earphones in is the COHO (short for Coffee House) right on campus. It was recently remodeled and has a wide selection of food from pizza to sushi. The entire COHO is student run, so it really is a central place for the campus and is, in a way, unifying. The prices are a little above those acceptable for a college student's budget, but if you happen to forget your sack lunch and are really desperate the COHO never disappoints. SCHOOL PRIDE Although sports aren't HUGE at Davis, they are still well respected. We have a great dance team and a well known school band that rocks. We have a student section called, the Aggie Pack, which gets pretty full at football and basketball games. I would say on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the most spirited campus in the U.S., Davis would rank a 3 or 4. When it comes to the rest of the campus attending events and supporting each other at events, the majority of the campus is a little lackluster. THE BEST THINGS The best part of UC Davis is the Spring when the sun is shining and you are able to sit in the Quad (huge central part of campus that is mostly grass) in between classes. The Rec Pool is also one of the best parts of the campus. It usually opens mid-Spring quarter and students go after class to lounge around the pool and relax. The ARC is also great because it has a huge basketball court, it offers different fitness classes, personal training, nutrition advice and so on.

I like this school much more than I expected. People (both students and professors) are so kind, helpful, and easygoing. It seems like a place most people can find their niche and blend in well. Plus, Davis is a college town, meaning there are lots of opportunities and events for UCD students. Though there was the recent controversy over the use of pepper spray, people still seem generally happy about the campus. I have yet to meet a person who hates UCD after attending.

I have to say, the best thing about UC Davis is that you have the great opportunity to meet all kinds of different people. When I say different, I mean different in many ways, Davis is very diverse in terms of ethnicity and also different in terms of interest. It just so happens that Davis has a good academic standing in all sorts of majors, so many people come into Davis with different majors and for many other reasons. The size of the school is just like any other UC and personally, I sometimes like it and sometimes I don't. The reason I like it is because it truly feels like a college campus with so many people around and it makes everything much more livelier and exciting. The times I am not so excited about having such a large student body is when we are in a lecture hall trying to take a test and the person sitting next to me and I are fighting for space and mainly the arm rest. I am a freshmen, so I stay at the dorms and I do spend most of my time in the dorms, in my room, and at near by fast food places. Davis is a college town, but the benefits to that is, everyone here is so considerate of your educational needs and timings. Non-student residents of Davis are the sweetest people. Often at stores or restaurants, they will inquire me on how my midterms and tests are going and how I like it here at Davis. They like to keep up with the sports here at Davis and they will talk to you about everything that goes on in campus, so you are always learning something new about your campus. The schools administration is very helpful and very resourceful. They will attend to your needs and make sure that you are taken care of and are well on your way. A recent controversy at took place at Davis, was Occupy riot. I am sure it is on the news and is well known. However, none of the protests were of hindrance to the learning environment at Davis. The teachers didn't avoid questions or references to it and tried to sympathize with the students on the unfortunate event. They made sure to clear the air on how they felt about the event and also requested that this event be left outside the classroom so that the classroom can be a good learning environment. The students here are packed with school pride. Football games and other sports games are thrilling to go to because of the student that cheer there. We have an amazing Aggie Pack which is our student cheer group. There is nothing too unusual about Davis other than the weather. The sun beams through even in the winter sometimes and it is quite refreshing. One of the experiences I will always remember is the trip I made to the UC Davis Waste Water Treatment Plant for my freshmen seminar. A friend from class and I had planned to get there together on our bikes, but we got lost over and over again and were lost for about an hour. Then a really nice man on a cart drove by and said that he is willing to take us there because he feels like doing a good deed. It was the funniest thing ever. From keeping up with the cart on our bikes to asking people for directions and getting lost again, it was such a memorable event. Some of the things the student complain about the most around here is the smell of the cows near us. I live in Tercero and there are cows near us and personally I don't mind it that much and it doesn't really affect us that much, but that is something the student here complain about.

UC Davis gets a lot of slack for being a "cow town." When I first told my friends I was planning on going here, they gave me a hard time about how I was going to live in the middle of no where and have nothing to do. Honestly, that is hardly true. The reason I chose Davis was solely because of where it was located. I came to visit during my senior year of high school and it just felt right. The town is a true college town-- any time you go out, on any day, during any time of the day, you'll see more college kids than "grown ups." You will always run into people you know, and you will learn that even though the size of the campus is very large, certain areas will start to feel like home. Davis is a very different town because it is "bike friendly"-- this means that bikes have 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} control over the roads. If you don't have a car (which you won't be allowed to when you're a freshman) this is perfect. You can ride your bike almost everywhere in Davis (it might take awhile) and showing up to work or school completely soaked (with rain or sweat) is acceptable because everyone bikes. Davis has fantastic work out facilities, a really nice quad/ food area called "The CoHo" (short for Coffee House, although it has all types of food) and, from what I've heard, a nice greek system. There are lots of ways to get involved on campus, too, and they're not as hard to get involved in as some prestigious university. But, don't get me wrong, Davis has a phenomenal reputation for academics, in fact, we're currently ranked #38 in the nation. Any employer who sees that you've graduated from here will surely be impressed. The only thing I warn about Davis is this: If you're looking to party everyday, don't come here. We have fun, but it's not our main focus. And if you're looking for a school with a huge athletic focus, Davis is probably not the school for you. Our programs are getting better, but we're not anything major. Other than that, I'd give UCD a very good recommendation because I have quite enjoyed my time here.