<p>I've heard that UCSC is one of the top in the nation for their astrophysics program. For students currently attending, how truthful is the information that I'm gathering? Is it an incredibly enjoyable experience? How are the professors? Basically, what can I expect as a student that may attend the school? I'm looking forward to it if accepted. Thanks.</p>
<p>I’m only a biochem major so I don’t have a lot of relevant experience to relate on the programs but UCSC’s engineering programs and particularly their astronomy/astrophysics program are known for being very good.</p>
<p>Realistically, astrophysics is pretty much just hard mathematics. If you’re very comfortable with math and you have a deep interest in the subject matter, then I guess the major would be a good fit for you.</p>
<p>I listened to one astrophysics professor explain his research where he would work with supercomputers to figure out the various properties of stars, planets, etc. He was a very funny guy too but I got the idea that astrophysicists just can’t do a lot of direct experimentation (maybe if they work with particle accelerators but that’s a different sub-field in astrophysics).</p>
<p>You should go on [Google</a> Scholar](<a href=“http://scholar.google.com/]Google”>http://scholar.google.com/) and look up the type of research that various astrophysics professors at UCSC do and see how interested you are in that stuff. Also you should definitely check out the required classes for an astrophysics major and see if it falls in line with your strengths.</p>
<p>UCSC is home to the Lick Observatory which was established in the early 20th century. Few observatories anywhere in the world have made as many contributions to Astronomy as the Lick Observatory has.</p>