We all know and love our home San Diego State University, but San Diego is home to another world class college: the University of California San Diego. So, how does the California State University system’s SDSU compare to the University of California system’s UCSD? One third-year SDSU student is spending a day as a third-year at UCSD to find out.
Our tour guide today is UCSD psychology third-year student Payton Line. Line is a San Diego local who transferred from Miramar to UCSD this past fall. She is a part of Muir College at UCSD and plans to graduate in the fall of 2025.
UCSD is home to seven colleges and is currently in the process of building an eighth. Muir College, where Line studies, focuses on humanitarian and environmental issues. Line chose this college because of her interest in social work in the future.
Walking through Muir College, it was clear that the overgrowth of the plants surrounding the buildings and the diverse events held on the campus reflect the college’s commitment to promoting its values in practice.
“With the reputation of ‘UC Socially Dead,’ people come into it expecting to not be able to make friends but that isn’t the case with the events– people want to talk to each other and build community,” Line said.
The events are a great option to connect with others, especially for a commuter student like Line.
“The events are not always organized well, we waited at least an hour and a half to get in, and by the time we got to the front they were out of two of the three food options and merch,” Line said. This seems to be a recurring issue, likely due to events being open to all colleges, despite being hosted by Muir.
However, it seems like talking to counselors is difficult at every school.
From experience, Line feels she has to talk to multiple people just to find out what she needs because, “everything is very decentralized.”
We started our day meeting at the trolley station, which, similar to SDSU’s campus, is right on the central part of campus.
Line then took me through the farmers market, which takes place every Tuesday. This farmers market is comparable to the market held on SDSU’s campus on Thursdays.
We took a quick walk through the Price Center, UCSD’s equivalent of East Commons. The restaurants were abundant including a diverse range of cuisines.
SDSU doesn’t have a large range of cuisine types, but UCSD is the opposite with options like ramen, curry and Thai food all making an appearance.
Our walk then took us to the Geisel Library, which is UCSD’s famous library featuring multiple study spaces and collaboration areas. The library is named after Dr. Seuss with a wing dedicated to the family thanks to their generous financial contributions to the university.
From there, we ventured into Muir’s campus, where we saw the Sun God statue. Here’s the fun twist: According to Muir tradition, a student who walks backwards under the statue with their arms out will get a good grade on their test. But, the luck can only be used once during their time at Muir.
Line personally plans to use the luck on her last ever test at UCSD to end her experience on a good note.
We couldn’t resist a matcha break next and found ourselves at the Art of Espresso in Mandeville Center which had a strong, sweet matcha that one could customize with various add-ins for free. UCSD is home to many coffee spots, which was a nice change from the minimal options of BCB or Starbucks on SDSU’s campus. These small independent coffee shops were each lively and abundant popping up around every corner. Caffeinated and ready to keep the tour going, we headed to Line’s Cognitive Psychology class.
In true research institution fashion the professor, Timothy Brady, started with the flooding of his research lab.But before getting into the true lecture content, Brady went over the schedule for the course which was coming to an end with finals happening next week.
For SDSU currently in the midst of midterms, it was weird to be on the quarter system for the day where UCSD is preparing for finals.
A quick trolley ride back to my car rounded off my day as a UCSD student.
Reflecting on my day as a student at UCSD, I felt reaffirmed in my decision to attend SDSU, but I still appreciated the chance to explore UCSD and enjoyed my time visiting.
For high school seniors choosing between San Diego universities, I think the choice comes down to a few factors like interest in Greek life and what the student wants out of their college experience.
In the end, no matter what choice is made, both offer opportunities for a rewarding and memorable college experience.
