<p>...particularly at UCB, UCLA, UCSD, and UCD. How's the food, the social life, the cleanliness; anything that pertains to living conditions at the UCs. I've heard rave reviews about UCSD's new dorms for Eleanor Roosevelt college, but nothing for the others.</p>
<p>UCLA has very small dorms but great food.</p>
<p>ucla has small dorms? i beg to differ. i live in a triple in a residence hall, the smallest possible among the dorms, and i feel that i have adequate space for what i need as a college student. and thats talking about being in an old residence hall. ive visited my friends in the sunset village dorms and de neve dorms, which are VERY new (built a few years ago), they are very spacious, even for a triple. doubles in halls are also spacious, and doubles in sunset and de neve are even more spacious. they are also in the process of building even more dorms that are high-rises but have deneve/sunset style rooms. </p>
<p>if i had to name a small dorm, the one that pops into my head is middle earth at UCI. </p>
<p>the food at ucla is really really good, thats an understatement too! there really are a lot of choices to choose from, theres a good rotation on the menu so im not sick of dorm food yet. i ate dorm food at berkeley before... quality does not even compare with ucla...although ucla desserts pale in comparison compared to berkeley's. actually, my parents love visiting me because they want to eat the dorm food! haha... unforunately im not kidding...</p>
<p>social life... its different in every dorm actually. i live in sproul with mostly 2nd years, its more quiet here since some concentrate more on academics and theyre more settled with their group of friends, but theres still some social activity going on. i heard at the dorms where theres a heavier concentration of freshmen (hedrick and rieber) that its quite social, and of course, dykstra is the most social of all. i dont know about de neve (it seems quiet in there), but for sure, sunset village is pretty quiet, u can hear yourself talk... there may be something going on in the lounge like a game on tv or poker but thats about it. but it seems people do go visit their friends in other dorms, so youll find a place where youre comfortable. generally, people are nice. the RAs and PAs are friendly and helpful too. </p>
<p>in terms of how clean the dorms are... theyre all clean, but some just look newer than others. sunset and de neve are especially clean because they are new. </p>
<p>overall, i am quite satisfied with sproul hall. even those living in the supposedly worst dorm, hedrick, say that its not that bad. </p>
<p>ask me more if u have questions.</p>
<p>I'm not sure about middle earth at UCI, but I live in mesa court in the oldest first phase of dorms and I have plenty of room in my double.</p>
<p>The food at berkeley is considered really really bad.</p>
<p>The dorms as UCLA i hear are slightly smaller than at berkeley. UC Davis dorms are pretty good.</p>
<p>As far as cleanliness goes, if you have community bathrooms or whatever they're called, they are so disgusting. I'm not too high maintenance, but on weekends and such those bathrooms get funky 'cause people get wasted and yeah, you can imagine.</p>
<p>I dont think u asked about UCSB , but the new dorms manzanits are AMAZING , every four people share a bathroom and the room are very big, theres a kitchen with microwave, oven, dish washer and a huge fridge. My friends visited me there and they go to very good private school and they told me they have never seen such dorms. Theres also a huge Tv . Its amazing. seriously . The bathroom were always clean and there used to be someone who cleaned our room twice and the bathroom three times a week. I didnt mention the ocean view.
The social life is good, people there are so friendly and nice.</p>
<p>Hey Haneen,</p>
<p>I go to UCSB, but since it wasn't mentioned I didn't mention them. </p>
<p>But I must say that Manzanita village is simply phenomenal. The other dorms are good as well minus San Miguel or San Nicolas. Which are the oldest, but they're still okay, but it's true UCSB has good dorms and they're not bad. You probably didn't apply to UCSB though, because you didn't ask, but you don't know what you're missing. A lot of the rooms have an ocean view. In manzanita and in the high rise ones like San Nic and San Mig.</p>
<p>my friends live in unit 1 and unit 2 at berkeley, their dorms are smaller than the old high-rise dorms at ucla. A LOT smaller, it feels cramped in there actually. when i first visited ucla, i asked some of the other visitors to compare ucla vs berkeley dorms. they say ucla is a lot newer and nicer overall and that theyre big on appearance. </p>
<p>yackityack, my friends at uci tell me their dorms are actually pretty good and that middle earth isnt bad, although when i took my visit there, it was REALLY stuffy and hot and cramped, and the rooms looked really small. </p>
<p>this is a balcony scene, i live in one of the high-rise residence halls with community bathrooms. we have a cleaning lady cleaning the bathroom every morning, and she does a thorough job (floors, mirrors, stalls, etc). </p>
<p>also my friend told me about how in one of the units at berkeley where they have co-ed bathrooms, this pervert was standing on top of the sink looking down at girls shower.</p>
<p>The various dorms at UCLA are pretty good overall.
I've lived in three dorms so far:</p>
<p>Rieber/Dykstra: The rooms are small (stayed in a double), but the food is great. Each floor is relatively social, since a lot of people tend to leave their doors open, often for the sake of having more room to move around. The communal bathrooms are consistently clean, although there was someone on my floor who got drunk and vomited a few times at the end of each quarter. These characteristics should apply to all of the high-rise dorms - pray you don't live in Hedrick, Hitch or Saxon because of the longer walk to class.</p>
<p>De Neve: The rooms are very spacious, and it's great having your own bathroom, adustable air conditioning and walk-in closet, but the floors are quite anti-social because one tends to lose the incentive to step outside due to the interior amenities. The food, in my opinion, is a bit worse than Rieber's and the dining hall is usually more crowded (especially at lunch). I prefer De Neve, though, because the environment is less stressful and the soundproofed walls are more effective (I guess it's because I'm the quiet, bookish type).</p>
<p>Middle Earth at UCI really isn't that bad. I stayed there for a month for COSMOS (a sci. prog.) and the rooms were better than I expected. True, I lived in a triple w/ only 1 other person, so it was much bigger than the other rooms. But IMO, even the doubles arent THAT small. I wouldn't say it's huge or anything, but there's enough room for two people. But eh...there's no trashcan in the bathroom!!!! maybe it's just the one on my level...</p>
<p>As for UCD, the rooms are slightly bigger than those at UCI (Middle Earth). But where I lived(don't know the dorm name) for that one week, the rooms didn't have carpets, unlike the ones at UCI.</p>
<p>the food at berkeley is nasty - tried it when my bro was there - high school kids make it. He lived at foothills, which is the best dorm. I actually liked foothills a lot, it was really nice and coed. The rooms were decently sized, slightly bigger than the units.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for all the responses. It's nice to get a feel of how the environment at the UCs are; keep them coming!</p>
<p>S. is living at foothill @UCB. It is ok, but many people are moving to the co-ops. One thing I discovered is that dorm costs at UCB are higher than all of the other UCs. Don't know why.</p>
<p>its cuz berkeley is the BEST city!</p>
<p>i have to agree, the new manzanita dorms at UCSB are awesome, probably best dorms i've ever seen. ucla dorms are decent with the exception of de neve which is very nice but the other dorms like dykstra are fairly small IMO. ucla does indeed have excellent food i must admit. ucsd's dorms are fairly average and their food is not too hot either. riverside's dorms are your prototypical dorm rooms and their food is slightly above-average.</p>
<p>Here are some pictures of some UCI housing options:</p>
<p>"The Shire" is a unit 1 hall in Middle Earth. This is the smallest size building with space for 48. What is referred to as "Scholars Hall" is a unit 1 hall in Mesa Court. Unfortunately there are no pics of the inside of a bedroom of the Mesa Court room. The "Arroyo Vista" complex is for sophomores, juniors, and seniors only.</p>
<p>As you can see from the pictures of the room in The Shire, they are pretty decent sized, as are the rooms in Arroyo Vista. I have been to all of the complexes and I would say that the rooms in Mesa Court are definitely bigger than the rooms in Middle Earth and roughly equal in size to the rooms in Arroyo Vista. </p>
<p>Another bonus of UCI housing is that there are very few triple rooms. When I lived in Arroyo Vista one of my friends from UCLA visited and he said that his triple room was smaller than my double room. I have heard this sentiment echoed by many other people familiar with the UCLA dorms.</p>
<p>I have only been to the UCSD dorms at Revelle, and I thought those were slightly bigger than the UCI dorms (on average), but I was turned off by the cinder block walls. I'm sure that all of the buildings aren't cinder block, but that's just what I saw there.</p>
<p>The best way to find things out about the different dorms is to look for yourself. If you live in California you should definitely check out all of the schools you're admitted to, rather than to listen to biased opinions on this forum.</p>
<p>That's true, but sometimes it helps to narrow down the number of colleges to visit, biased opinions notwithstanding, before traveling around California to visit them all.</p>
<p>how are the dorms at UCD? Is there like a building for women's dorms and a building for men's dorms?
What's the best dorm?</p>
<p>kfc4u, I can't agree, the dorms I've seen at UCLA are much more cramped than the ones at Berkeley. My brother lived in De Neve, and I live in the Berkeley similar, and my room is much more spacious and less crowded. </p>
<p>Also, the co-ed bathrooms story is so rare that your presenting it in the manner that you did (as if it happens often) seems unfair. And many bathrooms are not co-ed.</p>
<p>so i go to uci .. and if you have any questions i'll answer them just iM me on AIM (aznanywayz)</p>
<p>and my bf goes to ucsd ...
and food there sucks, cuz u have to pay for everything u eat. like a burrito costs 3.50 or something...</p>
<p>at uci, its buffet style where u have like 100-165 meal points, and each time u go in it just takes away 1 meal point. and u can eat as much as u want. right now i have the 100 meal point thing. its enough for me</p>