Being Black/African-American at UCSB from a non-African-American students' perspective?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Santa Barbara
1

I committed to UCSB two weeks ago and I’ve been trying to figure out the social aspects of the school. One thing I’m worried about is that I might not fit in with the general population because I’m African-American. Being African-American isn’t something that I plan to blame all my social problems on and being in the minority is definitely not going to stop me from trying to make friends, join clubs, sports, etc. For the past 5 years, I’ve been attending a school where roughly 90% of the students are white, and there are only 10 black students out of 600. Everyone at my school was really friendly and I don’t think my race made much of a difference.

With that said, I’m still curious about if I’m going to be like being African-American at UCSB. And I’m more curious about this issue from a non African-American person’s perspective. Being completely honest (I promise I won’t judge, I just want to get a realistic picture) do you personally look at African-American students differently? Do your friends do? Would you say that race isn’t something you’ve ever considered when making friends at UCSB?

2

I have the same thoughts, I was recently accepted as a transfer. Still deciding if im going to go or not, but if you search UCSB BSU (Black student union) on google or bing their Facebook will pop up, you will get a different perspective from there that you can add to what you learn in this thread. also if you search youtube ucsb bsu you’ll find some videos of events.

However, from everything I hear it has a laid back and friendly vibe no matter what your race, I dont think youll have much trouble finding friends, I’ll probably visit the campus in a couple weeks i’ll let you know what type of vibe I get.

Looking forward to reading the responses of current students.