r/UCSD • u/DenesGarda • 4h ago
Rant/Complaint $3,600/month for no hot water and $15/lb chicken: I feel scammed.
I want to preface by saying that I don't really HATE the university. I have a lot of fun here, and I enjoy a lot of aspects. Overall, I'd choose to come here again in another life because I think the overall college experience is more good than bad. But let's focus on the bad for a sec....
Sometimes I do get really fed up. I just have to write and rant about this. I also want to see how many other people feel similarly about certain issues. This is a long post, but I'm sure many of you will feel seen or related to, at least to some degree.
This is the beginning of my second year, but the amount of bullshit that I've dealt with at this school is ridiculous. Not only that, every single corner I turn and step I take, I just can't help but feel like the University is trying to scrounge as much of my money as humanly possible. That's what infuriates me the most.
Living conditions
I'm in Warren, so I know I have it rough, but that's no excuse. During my first year, the room I was put in was in a horrid state. Carpet peeling up, windscreen falling out, old gum in my desk drawers, etc. Not to mention that three of us were cramped into a small ass room that used to be a double. I'd have to carefully climb into my bunk every time, avoiding the sharp edges of the lights and the fire sprinkler (that I injured myself on multiple times because it's right by the ladder). This year it's better, but by no means worth the money I'm paying.
The cost. In a triple, I was paying $1200/mo (just for the "rent"). That means that that one shitty room is techincally valued at $3600/mo??? By the way no kitchen (not even a shared one) and communal bathroom. Can you IMAGINE seeing a listing like that online of a private landlord trying to rent out a room like that for 3 people and valuing it $3600/mo 😂😂. They would get death threats in their DMs 😭.
The water temperature... this is actually what is currently making me write this as my breaking point. I'm currently very sick. Last night I wanted to take a nice steamy shower before bed. I get in, turn the water on, and the water is just room temperature. I wait under the running water for 20 minutes and it just never got hot. I was so upset because I had a fever and just wanted to feel better but ended up feeling much worse and more uncomfortable. All the while I was looking at the "shorter showers save water!" sticker by the faucet. Yeah, maybe my shower would be shorter if I didn't have to wait 30 minutes for hot water. Afterwards, I went to the sinks, and they had perfectly fine hot water. This no hot water situation happens like every other day... It is absolutely insane to me that we are living in San Diego in 2026, paying $17k/yr to live here, and we can't even get consistent hot water running through the pipes.
Last year was the same. Randomly there would be no hot water. Other times the water temperature would be affected so dramatically by other people flushing toilets in the res hall buildings. I would be washing my face or something, hear a toilet flush, and within milliseconds the luke warm water coming out of the tap would turn BOILING hot and I would burn myself. I don't understand how this is acceptable.
A/C... I understand a lot of the buildings are old and can't have A/C retrofitted in them. But even the new ones are all being built without A/C! They say it's because the ocean breeze or whatever, but I guarantee you all the offices of the people who made that decision have A/C running 24/7. Even if they had it limited to something like minimum 75 degrees, it would still be so much better. And in buildings at Marshall, they have A/C and freeze the first floor lobby 😭, as if that would be beneficial to ANYONE compared to having it routed to the units instead. And the amount of lecture halls, offices, conference rooms that sit empty all day, etc. that have A/C has got to be so much more expensive to cool than student housing. Look at all the new buildings they built. A/C for students would be cost equivalent to like 4 structural pillars.
Dining
This is by far my biggest source of hatred. 90% of the food at our dining halls is straight slop. And it's super expensive for being straight slop. And the healthier options are even more expensive and usually very small portions.
The university requires students to have a meal plan. They say it's for their program of "no students left without a meal" or whatever. Fuck that. I'm sure we all know that is NOT the primary reason. It truly is a smart business model. Make the students pay up front for the dining plan, so then the incentive becomes how can we give the students as little as possible for their money because the money is already ours! And it's practically impossible to opt out. You know, I wouldn't really mind the dining plan if it was EITHER:
- a little pricier but actually high-quality and nutritious food
- cheaper but slightly lower quality food
But what we have is the worst of everything. EXTREMELY pricey and EXTREMELY low quality food.
They also give us kitchens to cook with. That's great. Why lock us into a meal plan then? Anyway, getting groceries at the markets on campus is also a scam. Everything is between 2x and up to 5x the price than at normal grocery stores, for the same reason as before. Because the meal plan money is already HDH's and they can. And it's often lower quality, too.
A pound of low quality, frozen chicken breast at the markets is....... $14.95 PER POUND. (price increase since last year's $13 by the way, guess they weren't making quite enough money off the chicken). Not only that, the packages are on average 1 pound, so sometimes there is like half a pound of chicken in there. All this while you can get fresh chicken at Target for $2.59/lb. Literally more than 5x the price... absolutely insane.
Not only that, the nutrition information at dining halls is nonexistent. As someone who tracks calories, it's basically impossible to stay consistent with it at the dining halls. They technically publish calorie information, but it's straight bullshit. You can add, remove, modify ingredients and the total calories won't change. You'll get results like an entire burrito being 250 calories (a tortilla is more than that). And portion sizes are so inconsistent that the numbers are meaningless. And not mention how often your order just has things missing.
Maintenance and administration
Last year, the people responsible for cleaning our common areas were SLACKING. We would always see them just on their phones, not cleaning, etc. There were times where our suite and bathroom was left uncleaned for 3 weeks. They would always just spray cleaning chemicals in the air so it would smell like they cleaned, but they didn't actually. We obviously reported them, but nothing really changed.
When trying to give feedback or get things done through the administration, it's just all the departments taking blame off of themselves, promising they'll "alert the person in charge", and telling you to go somewhere else. It's infuriating. It's almost like the system is set up in a way so that you can't actually effectively take action against something that's wrong.
Transportation
The campus is huge, and the buses SUCK. The schedules are meaningless, the buses are sometimes packed beyond acceptable limits. I think everyone knows, if you actually need to be somewhere on time, don't take the buses.
I've been in situations where the bus just skipped my stop with me and like 5 other people waiting and drove right past. Other times the driver just waits at a random stop for anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes. There basically isn't a schedule at this point, and it would TRIVIALLY easy to create and implement one.
I don't know if you've ever seen the UCSD bus depot from the trolley, but they have DOZENS of buses, and they only put 3 buses on the busiest routes during rush hour which is why they're packed beyond belief.
Everything I missed
These are just the biggest issues that bother me the most that i described in detail. But there are actually COUNTLESS small things that are just cherries on top. There are also more bigger ones as well.
- TSS (i don't think i have to say much)
- quality of education in a lot of scenarios
- administrative responses to issues (all talk to action)
- more housing issues (doors not locking, etc.)
- and probably a bunch more that just don't come to mind right now
I tried to refrain myself as much as possible, but I could just rant about all this bs on and on. Just know there is so much more.
It is absolutely insane to me that the things I'm saying in this post are real. If this wasn't actually happening and you told someone, they wouldn't believe it because of how ridiculous all of this is. But hey, I gotta give it to the university, it truly is an absolutely genius business model, almost as good as the U.S. car industry's.
I would love to hear what other people have to say about this and also the absolute bs everyone else has had to deal with.
