The University of California - Davis

My biggest gripe with UCD relates to the attitudes of fellow students. The students are nice and all, but as a whole they strike me as unmotivated and not particularly intelligent. Not everyone will feel the same way I do about this, since it depends on the individual's own expectations and standards, but I think that people looking for hardworking and dedicated peers will be disappointed.

I'm also not too pleased with the student life at UCD. The club scene is pretty barren; aside from religious groups and fraternities/sororities, there aren't many student groups to choose from. As an example to illustrate my point, UCD had no chess club when I arrived in Fall 2005 (even my high school had a chess club, and UCD is over 20x its size!). Student groups provide a great avenue for meeting students with similar interests, so I think it's a shame that UCD has such a lousy club scene.

My final complaint in this review is about the economics department. Instructor quality varies greatly, and while the good ones can be quite good, all it takes is some bad luck to wind up with a bad (sometimes very bad) one. Meanwhile, class sizes are always too big (even in upper division courses) for my taste, greatly reducing individual attention. Expect to commit extra effort if you want to get to know your instructors on any reasonable level. The economics *students* also disappoint me, as many seem to have weak conceptual grasp of the material. The average ones can usually go through the motions and solve problems all right (not great), but their inability to explain the economic themes at play leaves much to be desired.Again, not everything about UC Davis is awful, but I think it is important for prospective students to be aware of the negative features I explained above. I have many more opinions to offer (available upon request), but I won't waste everyone's time listing them here.