Nazrawi Allen, Class of 2023

Your first days at UCSB will be a bit of culture shock, the best thing I would recommend is to keep yourself grounded in other Black spaces because these are the people that are going to be going through the same things that you are going through and likely feel the same way about feeling isolated at such a predominately white institution. I chose my school because I was rejected by UCLA and UC Berkeley. If given the opportunity to attend any of these schools, I would choose UCLA, however, I would take UCSB over UCB. UCSB is cliquey among different races. There are resources, but much of them, are by the black students, for the black students while other communities are fed their resources by the administration. The Office of Black Student Development is a nice change, they serve as advocates for our needs. I do not feel represented by anyone but myself. I wish there weren’t so many racist professors in the Political Science department. From what I have observed, UCSB is supportive of students with other marginalized identities. Overall, try to get involved with your school’s black student organizations, they will keep you sane.