Ucsd Off Campus Housing: Fill & Download for Free

Most students tend to live in the on campus housing, or off campus in La Jolla. It's common for students to live on campus for the first two years, and then to move off campus for the second two years of undergrad.

I tell this story all the time. I got into both schools and was set on UCSD, being that it was the more difficult school to get into, and thus viewed as “better.” When I visited UCSD the fog was insanely thick. Students trudged to class, stacks of books in their arms and sullen looks on their faces. The next day, on the way home, we stopped off at UCSB just to check, even though I had no intention of attending. We walked the campus as students skateboarded to class and girls laid out on the lawns in bikinis reading their textbooks. Sorry, I was 18 and this was utopia…hahaha. Add to the fact that my dorm room was a 5 minute walk to the beach at Campus Point allowing for quick surf sessions when I had more than an hour between lectures (all the schools I applied to were less than 10 miles from the coast. Having surfed since I was 3 this was not negotiable).Both schools are great. UCSD is arguably better for a surfer even, getting much more swell than the island shadowed Santa Barbara coast. Something about the compact campus, proximity to off-campus housing (I skated to class everyday), the infamous Isla Vista night life, all led to a college experience that was more lifestyle than simple college degree. I changed majors 3 times, so department strengths weren’t a lofty consideration. Both schools had excellent Marine Biology programs, which was my initial intent, and both offered many other degrees to allow a wandering intellect room to explore. A B.S. in Biopsychology, a Minor in Philosophy, and I would have had a minor in Religious Studies, but the department only allowed major degrees - excellent classes in music theory, drama, and environmental studies all stand out as reasons to choose a larger school, which all UC campuses offer.UCSB sold me the California dream. The young me chose bikinis over soggy text books. The slightly older me wouldn’t change a thing, for all the other reasons. Sometimes the Feng Shui of life lines up to show you where to go, even if it is for superficial motives at the time.

To preface: this may not be relevant if your on-campus housing provided unlimited fooding.Mine didn't, you paid ala carte FOR EVERYTHING. My first year, I think our food budget was $1800. Second year was $2200. Subsequent years are higher with inflation. Keep in mind expensive food also run your budget to the ground more quickly. Budgeting's kinda sad because it's about $3/day.My on-campus experience was paired with working in on-campus dining halls. I especially liked doing the closing shift because the per-meal was a higher dollar amount. The "best buys" were the fine dining nights where it bought you a $20steak.. Don't think they do that anymore but I always opted to work Wednesday nights. ;)As someone else mentioned, buying ala carte is expensive. Even a bowl of cereal came out to be $1-2 IF YOU WANTED MILK.... lol and who doesn't with their cereal? That's just breakfast. A usual hefty salad was $5 once it was weighed. So you ate easily through 2 days if you ONLY had one salad. Course most people didn't just have salad, so... it's no win either way.I didn't run out of money because my meals were perked. I probably ate better than broke students. Others had no choice besides loading their meal accounts or buy food off-campus to not starve.For the same quality of food, others chose to go to our Price Center (UCSD) where they gotta pay cash anyway.Comes down to time. Once I moved off-campus, I was financially better on loans/grants and housing didn't cost nearly as much. This meant access to grocery shopping via a car-owning friend.