The University of California San Diego has a record-high 42,875 students on campus this quarter. It's an increase of nearly 14,000 students over the past decade.
UCSD is the second largest UC campus and has increased its student body by more than 2,300 students from last fall.
Alexis Damian, a fifth year student at UCSD’s Marshall College, says the campus is more crowded than during his freshman year.
“The more people that come here, it’s just more crowded, just becomes more difficult to maneuver,” Damian said.
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Damian commutes to campus from the south bay.
“I drive, but sometimes I just get dropped off just because it’s easier,” Damian continued. “Parking here sucks, it’s difficult to find parking, so I usually just get dropped off.”
UCSD does provide students with a free bus pass, but for those who drive, parking is difficult.
Another challenge on campus, grabbing a bite to eat.
Students are encouraged to use the “Triton-To-Go” mobile ordering app to order food from the dining halls, but freshman Anna Norris says that is hard sometimes.
“So all the dining halls close at 8, so if you didn’t order food by 6 you were not getting dinner from the dining halls because of how long the wait times were,” Norris said.
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The school does offer free Grubhub membership with no delivery fee and there are some markets on campus.
The Price Center is open later than the dining halls, but lines are sometimes long and finding a place to sit can be tough.
And then there’s trying to enroll in classes.
“As a humanities major, other people definitely had a harder time than me, but I will say it still has been difficult, especially fulfilling GE requirements. Everyone else here is also trying to fulfill those same requirements,” Norris said.
Ruining Feng has school pride, but is not considering UCSD for her master degree based on her experience as an undergrad.
“Resources you can get is limited and I have to spend too much time on waiting,” Feng said. “Waiting for everything like waiting for a spot, waiting for getting enrolled in a class.”
Feng thinks there is an imbalance between the number of students and the number of professors.
“For office hours, students have to wait in line to wait for their turn and each slot, every student can get is about 15 minutes if it’s a big class,” Feng said.
Although Feng lives off campus now, she remembers the challenges of living on campus.
“But I can guess how many students share one bathroom, that’s what I experienced when I was a freshman, like eight students live in an apartment and share one bathroom and students had to wait in line for their morning routines,” Feng said.
More than 12,200 undergraduate students live on campus. As of Oct. 13, only 72 upper division undergrads are on the waitlist for housing.
