Living at Eight

We are delighted to welcome you to College Eight and the University of California Santa Cruz! College Eight is celebrating a thirty-year tradition of scholarship and friendship. This vibrant and active community attracts students from all parts of California, across the nation and from around the world. Our residents are new freshmen and new transfers, as well as continuing sophomores, juniors and seniors.

While the theme of the college, with it’s commitment to concern for the environment, creates a common bond, our students are interested in all of the academic majors and fields of study at UCSC. In addition to the more scholarly pursuits, the lively activity of College Eight is enriched by the artists, musicians, student leaders of the college government and campus organizations, “green thumbs” who cultivate and care for the college's garden, intercollegiate and weekend athletes of all sports, recyclers and environmentalists, and most of all, students who seek a broad and diverse circle of friends to share their college days!

To help you prepare for your transition to living at College Eight, we offer this guidebook of information about housing and residential life. With the academic advising and orientation materials you will receive by separate mailings, we hope to answer your questions, and perhaps to provoke some new ones to consider. Please review all this material carefully. And if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Statement of Community

College Eight provides a non-threatening environment, in which different individuals can work, live, and grow to meet the challenges that lie ahead. All students, staff and faculty recognize and affirm that each is a unique part of a whole — a community which is as enriched by its various human components as it is enriching to those who live within it. College Eight actively defines itself as an inclusive community. It vigorously opposes discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, class background, sexual orientation, gender, political position or religious beliefs.

In considering what residential life at College Eight can be for you, remember one thing: much of what living on campus really offers depends on what you and six hundred students like yourself bring to it. Your attitude and your enthusiasm for your new living situation and particularly for the college you have chosen is the real key in determining what your new life will be like. We do promise one thing: given the opportunity, we will do all we can to make you feel welcome and at home!