Input from students who have actually attended UC Merced please? Experience?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Merced
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Can a student from UC Merced please pop in here to comment on how life has been in at the University since you’ve started attending?

There is a dearth of info from people who have actually attended.

From parents, they seem to like it but that may just be because UCM throws money at them so what’s not to like when they don’t have to pay as much? Plus we all know going through high school and what your parents think your experience of going through high school are two different things. And now we are at the college level where it would be even more so!

From people who have visited, they seem to like it but that may be because the school knows how to put on a good show and sound good?

What about the students who are actually going there now?
In particular I’m concerned about about a few things I’ve heard.

  1. The food. How many places are there to eat on campus. What are they serving that is so meh? What are the hours? Is there worry about food safety? I heard there were incidences of food poisoning in the past.

  2. Recreation center. It would appear rumors of them not opening and being available throughout the whole daytime are possibly true looking at the hours they are open on the website. Can someone confirm? When was the last time you went to the rec center? What offerings do they have from the rec center to do?

  3. Free events. Any free events on campus in the last year? If so what were they?

  4. Weekends. What do people do on the weekends and after school hours? What have weekends been like the last semester?

  5. The pluses I generally hear about the school is that it is growing and that the faculty to student ratio makes for small classes because it’s still a young university. Does that mean every year the class sizes are getting bigger? How would that be a plus? What would attract students to UC Merced once the class sizes are big like the other UCs and the school is in no longer growing in size and things are no longer brand new?

  6. Internships. Where did you end up interning if you did? Research. What year were you when you obtained research and what was it like?

  7. Car or no car?

  8. Fun things to do. First, if you’re an engineering major is there time? How time consuming is the academic part of it? In your free time what kind of things did you do besides the rare excursions out of town?

  9. Years to graduate. How many years did it take you or is it looking to take you to graduate?

  10. Jobs. Easy to get a job on campus? Are they flexible around finals time with hours? How is the career center for when it’s actually time to graduate and find your first job after college?

  11. Music. There’s no music department. What music groups are active there?

Okay I will stop now - I can go on but I am thinking there may not be anybody reading this anyway - there doesn’t seem to be a lot of students from UC Merced here. The school is almost 40K per year. I want to be sure I’m seeing it with eyes wide open and in the present and not just with rosy future potential colored glasses.

Thanks so much for any input.

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At most universities, this has more to do with the student than the school. A 4.0 HS GPA student who is not under financial stress is more likely to graduate in 8 or fewer semesters than a 3.0 HS GPA student who has to work substantially more than 10 hours per week to be able to afford school.

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You may find this thread useful:

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Thanks, I did read that. It was not from someone who had attended. It also focused on UC Merced’s reputation vs. what they saw in a showcase type event. I am more interested in the actual experience of being a UC Merced student as opposed to the reputation of UC Merced now and later.

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Very true, ucbalumnus. I’m not thinking that would be the case for the typical student at UC Merced though. I was hoping to have some light shed on how easy it was to get the classes you need to graduate on time. Some schools don’t offer needed classes every year on certain topics so it can be a challenge if you’re not careful to plan it out. I wondered if UC Merced is that way since it’s a smaller school with less course offerings.

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You may want to go through the course catalog and recent schedules to see how often the courses in your major and which you are otherwise interested in taking are offered. This can apply to any college.

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Hopefully a current student can shed light on the current or recent schedules vs. the offerings in the course catalog.

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After a recent visit to UC Merced I decided to come back here to report my own true impressions of the school for future readers who like me, may be struggling to find unvarnished opinions and experiences of UCM uninfluenced by the school’s PR.

The long and short of it is everything I’ve read on the internet - the good and the bad - about UCM turned out to be true! But what was great about the visit was now I know how I felt about it being true and what weight to give each factor - that part is definitely an individual thing.

Btw, I really get annoyed by the saying “college is what you make of it” when someone describes a college. What exactly does that tell anyone about the college??
I mean, one could just as well say “Life is what you make of it”. Just as true. But so what??
Does that mean it doesn’t matter where you live? Where you work? Just live and work anywhere because “life is what you make of it”?!
Anyway, if you are someone who thinks that way just know this reviewer is coming from another place. And this review is just one opinion of many out there so give it that appropriate weight. I think it’s good to gather as much info as you can about a school you’re seriously considering as you figure out what matters to you and where you want to go for the next 4 years and this is my attempt to contribute to that information store for you.

UC Merced is a beautiful campus. I was pleasantly surprised it was nicer in person than on the internet. It is a quiet, peaceful campus with no noisy construction going on. They are done with their hectic building for now.
The weather when we went couldn’t have been more perfect. Lovely mild sunny weather, light breeze. We were warned it gets VERY hot in the summer. Every person we met, student and administrator was kind, friendly, considerate and happy to be helpful. I spoke to well over half a dozen students while I was there, (probably about 10) some in depth in the dining hall, some for only a couple minutes. We also went on a couple guided tours and sat in on a lecture.

Feedback and impressions from students:
Academics: Strong. UC curriculum. Tough classes. Academic probation is a thing. Math second semester is hard. Physics and Chemistry classes are tough. There are resources to help you out though. Teachers are a mixed bag. Some are there just to do research and teaching is something they have to do - you can definitely feel it. Some take their teaching seriously. Almost all are willing to help if you approach them. A few just don’t care. “But it’s like that at every college”. (see “school is what you make of it” above).

Reasons they attended: Close to home, financial aid package was generous, it’s a UC, plus engineering or STEM seemed strong here.

Research: All said research is something that is definitely available if you go after it. But all but one were not involved in research. A number of the students said they know a friend of a friend who is doing research so it’s definitely available. But they personally did not get involved in research. All said they probably could have but didn’t. Apparently although available it requires a lot work to pursue it and it is competitive. It was somewhat unclear to me why something the school touted as very available was so little pursued.

Internships: Once again students said they were out there. Of the sampling of students I talked to, none were participating or had participated. One or two knew of someone who managed to pick up an internship out of state for the summer.

Things to do on campus: Cowchella was mentioned. Some activities by dorm RAs. Mostly find your own friends and hang out. Overwhelming majority were local so when they needed a change of scene they went home. Approximately once a month if they were local. More often if they were local and it was their freshman year. :wink:
Those who lived more than 2 hours away said it was an adjustment but they eventually adjusted. And yes, it’s real easy to just stay in your dorm and not meet a lot of people and be lonely. Hang out places are 1) ground floor of library (with cafe) and 2) well… not much else but dorms maybe although people tend to keep to themselves in dorms.

Clubs/Orgs: Almost all were members of pre-professional orgs. Those gave great opportunities for travel and networking. Not any mentioned fun ones. Was told they were busy and orgs require investment in time and they had joined some but they required work or weren’t active so they stopped.

Food: It was just fine! However, didn’t seem the healthiest. Cooked vegetables were sweetened, for example. There is a salad bar although one in our party got digestive issues after eating a meal made up from the salad bar. The rest of us ate cooked food and were fine.

Vibe: Quiet campus. Didn’t see people out and about gathering together outdoors on a regular day basis. Don’t see people sunning themselves or on blankets on the lawn, etc. Flyers for activities posted may or may not be active. Example: Art gallery flyers inviting viewing at art gallery in back of campus was posted various places. Looked exciting. Chased it down to a bright generic room absolutely empty of anything. No sign saying it was between exhibits or anything. Later I saw on instagram the last exhibit was March 23. It was quite a disappointment. Other disappointments along those lines made us realize the school is still growing and not able to offer as much as other UCs just yet. But will no doubt get there with time and continued investment.

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Undergraduate research is uncommon generally (not specific to UC Merced). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED617904.pdf says that “The cohort includes 21,578 freshmen. Over the next eleven semesters, 3,300 students (15.3 percent) participated in undergraduate research.”

A likely reason is that many undergraduate students (generally) are not aiming for paths were undergraduate research is considered desirable or valuable (e.g. pre-PhD, pre-med).