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Campus Transformed During the Summer
as UCSD Plays Hosts to Myriad Camps and Conferences
Christine Clark | August 20, 2007
School at UC San Diego is out for the summer, yet Sierra Summit on a July afternoon never looked so crowded. During lunch hour, the dining hall is crawling with teens and adults from all different backgrounds, nationalities and interests.
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| Lunchtime at Sierra Summit Restaurant. |
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The various groups at Sierra Summit differ from the campus’s demographics during the school year. So who is on campus during the summer? And what are they doing here?
Visitors from all over the world come to UCSD to enroll in courses through the extension and summer session conferences.
There are 107 conferences at UCSD during the summer that attract almost 19,000 visitors.
“We do attract a lot of different visitors and they come from all different age groups and nationalities,” Summer Conference Manager Anita Sorgenfrey said. “It is multi-continental on campus.”
The conferences include Camp La Jolla, a fitness camp for teens and adults that encourages weight loss. Prospective medical students also reside on campus to take part in the Medical Student Post Baccalaureate program, where recent graduates can live and study on campus for eight weeks to prepare for the MCATs.
Other residents in July include the participants in the weeklong Surf Diva Boarding School, where teen girls take surf lessons during the day and stay the night in the Eleanor Roosevelt College residence halls on campus.
Several cheer squads also come to stay at UCSD and take part in the United Spirit Association Camp, where about 300 cheerleaders reside in the John Muir College residence halls to participate in the dance and cheer clinic.
“It’s loud, noisy and fun,” Cheer Coach Ann Sumpter said. “We have a good time.”
Most of the participants in the cheer camp are in high school, yet the camp gives them the opportunity to live on a college campus for a brief time.
“It makes me excited because I will go to college in a few years,” said 16-year-old high school junior Ashley Hestand.
The campus also experiences an increase in international students who come from around the globe to enroll in the English Language Institute (ELI). The institute gives international students the opportunity to reside on campus and take intensive English language classes from four to eight weeks, according to ELI instructor Jean Starrett.
Starrett added that international students choose to study on UCSD’s campus during the summer because of the university’s prestigious reputation.
“I love it here,” Paul Kim from Korea said. “San Diego is beautiful and the campus is too.”
Kim is one of approximately 300 international students who come to UCSD from countries such as Korea, Turkey, Brazil, and Italy.
“During the school year most of the residents are from the U.S., but during the summer we have many international students housed on campus,” Thurgood Marshall Resident Advisor Sarah Kim said.
The groups from the different summer conferences are diverse in age and interests, so the summer resident advisors work extra hard to encourage interaction between the different students by hosting up to two events a week.
Even though the campus has a lot of visitors in the summer months, there are UCSD students who continue to live on campus during the summer too, including John Muir College Sophomore Henry Chan.
Chan said it is a lot less crowded on campus during the summer, but the various visiting groups help make the campus environment unique.
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