Some things I've noticed about this forum is that there is a serious dearth of information compared to the other UC threads, so I hope to fix that! Everyone who goes to this school still met the UC eligibility standards, and throughout my first semester at UCM I've met plenty of hard workers here. No matter which school you go to, there will always be a few slackers, but that does not mean that the school in general is lazy.
If anything, many of the people I've met are some of the hardest workers I've come across. While UC Merced isn't prestigious, it definitely does not deserve the bad reputation as a "dropout UC" it gets.
As many of you know, Merced is in the middle of nowhere. Merced itself is a very small city. I'm a city boy myself, so my opinion is a bit biased, but quite frankly I find the city boring.
The mall is much too small for my taste with the stores poorly stocked. The selection of restaurants is lacking, and the only real place to hang out is the one block downtown where the movie theater is located. Almost every night, there's a club event put on to keep the students occupied. We've had activities from Wii game night in the cafe to an outdoor screening of Kill Bill to dances. If you make the effort to venture outside of the dorm halls, you definitely will not be bored.
It's about a 15 minute walk from the dorms, and it is absolutely beautiful. If you've a free weekend and the weather is great, you definitely should make the trip. The place is a well-maintained park alongside pristine waters, and students do everything from swimming to picnics here. And while the park officially closes at sundown, an unrepaired hole in the fence apparently there for years now admits students in after hours. The stargazers here need to pay this place a visit after hours.
