<p>Im deciding dorms for ucsb and i am so tempted to put FT/santa catalina as my first choice because its perfect for me and i love everything about it
BUT i am not a bike person and im scared of the distance</p>
<p>someone help! is the distance really that bad?</p>
<p>alsoooo if someone can please tell how far santa catalina is from DP and how far anacapa, santa cruz and santa rosa are from DP </p>
<p>THANKS!</p>
<p>OK, I lived there when it was called ‘Francisco Torres’ (and I think students still call it ‘FT’). The bike ride is fine on most days. (And you will ride bikes, you don’t have to be a ‘bike person’, it is just the easiest way around anywhere. Even friends who weren’t ‘bike people’ rode bikes simply as transportation.) The problem is if it is really windy (a batch of days) or raining (another batch of days) or both (rarer but when it happens is when you are going to be particularly unhappy riding a bike.) Now there are buses that can’t fit everyone when it rains, and people get late, it seems. This is not the end of the world, but is one of the downsides to living at FT. The other downsides in my view are the food (by reputation the worst of the dining halls) and the distance from campus. The last means FT parties are with FT people, which is a third of the freshman class, so hardly means being anti social, just being in a different place from the other 2/3 of the freshman class most of the time. What I hear is that some love it and some don’t. When I lived there, UCSB hadn’t bought the towers and it was different, so you need to get more current information on that. The distance isn’t a barrier to getting to class, though, just a mental barrier typically determining the people you mostly socialize with. Clubs, organizations you join, etc, can play into that a lot too, though.</p>
<p>It is far from DP in Isla Vista terms (nothing is incredibly far from anywhere.) El Collegio is the furthest street from DP, running parallel to it, bordering the normal student area on one side, whereas DP and the ocean border it on the other. It is as close as the edge of campus as to DP, but not close enough that the noise should reach you from DP parties, if that is what you are concerned about. None of the dorms are close enough that any partying noise should reach you as a general matter (I can’t swear to Halloween). Manzanita etc are the closest, and they aren’t that close, generally. The Channel Island 5 are on the other side of the campus from IV and DP. But none of this is far away by bike.</p>
<p>Oh, it looks like this can also happen near FT when it rains: <a href=“When it rains at UCSB - YouTube”>When it rains at UCSB - YouTube;
<p>Sorry, tried to edit and even though it showed there was time, I couldn’t. I meant to say ‘it is as close to the edge of campus as it is to DP’. Basically all of Isla Vista is between it and DP.</p>