Best Davis Event
1. Picnic Day
2. Davis Farmers Market
3. Whole Earth Festival
What do the Doxie derby, maggot artwork and chemistry magic shows all have in common? All are unique to Picnic Day, voted Best Davis Event by California Aggie readers.
“Picnic Day is so popular because it’s one of the university’s longest standing traditions,” said Monica Lindholm, Chair of Picnic Day 2010.
Each Picnic Day is focused around a special theme decided upon by the coordinators. “Carpe Davis” is this year’s theme.
“We wanted to showcase people who take advantage of all the opportunities at UC Davis,” Lindholm said.
Held every April for the past 95 years, Picnic Day is the largest student run event in the nation and garnered over 120,000 attendees in 2009.
“Its cool to see so many people come to campus,” said Nikhil Sheel, who participated in the Dance Dance Revolution competition last year. “The excitement building up to Picnic Day is the best part.”
Sheel’s Bollywood dance team took third place in 2009.
Other popular Picnic Day events include the Battle of the Bands, the Picnic Day parade and sheep dog trials.
The Davis Farmers Market and Whole Earth Festival (WEF) came in second and third place respectively.
The Farmers Market is held in Central Park year round Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and on Wednesday evenings March through October. The second-place winner offers a variety of seasonal and organic produce from local farmers as well as baked goods and live music.
The third runner up, Whole Earth Festival is a three-day, environmentally-friendly education and music festival held on the Quad during Mother’s Day weekend in May. Throughout the weekend, good deeds and energy are enforced by the “Karma Patrol,” and the Quad is filled with arts and crafts, food vendors and what might be the highest concentration of tie-dyed shirts in northern California.
Gabrielle Grow
Best general education course
1. Human Development 12: Human Sexuality
2. Nutrition 10: Discoveries and Concepts in Nutrition
3. Food Science and Technology 3: Intro to Brewing and Beer
Even while choosing classes, it appears that UC Davis students have sex on the brain.
After years of coming in second and third place, Human Sexuality (HDE 12) has finally emerged as students’ top choice for the best general education class.
Covering a wide variety of topics including reproduction, sexual arousal and gender roles among many others, students believe the class can be very enlightening.
“I decided to take the class because I had heard from a lot of people that it was really interesting,” said Todd Polidore [cq], a senior history major. “I wasn’t really sure what human sexuality entailed when I first signed up but it covers a lot of different topics and I think it is extremely informative.”
Edward Wu, a TA for the course, said that students who take the class generally fall into three categories.
“The student who takes HDE 12 usually is either sexually active or grew up in a culture that was not conducive to conversations about sexuality,” he said. “A third category would be students who are homosexual or know someone else who is, and want to learn more about sexual orientation.”
Like many popular classes on campus, HDE 12 can be tricky to enroll in at first, but most students on the waitlist are able to get in as students drop the course in the first few weeks.
Though there are many parts of the class that he enjoys, Polidore said there is one particular aspect of the class that he finds uncomfortable.
“We watch like six birthing videos,” he said. “It gets a bit graphic … I tend to avoid watching the screen as much as I can on those days.”
Rounding out second and third place were Nutrition 10, Discoveries and Concepts in Nutrition, and Food Science and Technology 3, Introduction to Beer and Brewing.
– Erica Lee
Best place to meet a mate
1. In class
2. Parties
3. Residence halls
Next time you consider skipping lecture, don’t do it: You could be missing out on meeting your college sweetheart.
Ranked as the best place to meet a mate, classes provide the easiest way to meet other people.
This is exactly what happened to senior microbiology majors Claire Smalley and Nathan Muniz. They have been dating since fall quarter, and it’s all because of their shared class.
“You have to spend so much time studying, if you find someone real cute that you enjoy studying with, then you are going to spend a lot of time with them,” Smalley said.
Sharing the same major, Smalley and Muniz had many classes together. This made it easy for talking in class and getting to know each other. When any two people study so much together, dating seems to become nearly inevitable.
“Something is going to happen,” Smalley said.
Coming in second place, parties provide a good chance at meeting that special someone. With a vast array of people, music, dancing and liquid courage, it is only a matter of time before someone special comes along.
While you might find chemistry in the lecture halls or ethanol-fueled hook ups at Saturday night ragers, there are always the third-place residence halls. The dorms offer a yearlong chance for freshmen to meet new people. Plus, with its high density of people, it gives numerous chances for a romantic collision.
– Janelle Bitker
Best Place to Study
1. Peter J. Shields Library
2. Arboretum
3. The Quad
When it’s time to hit the books, students still agree there’s no better place to go than Shields Library.
Shields has a seating capacity of nearly 3,400, as well as dozens of computers and free wireless Internet access. Its convenient on-campus location and long hours: 7:30 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to midnight Sunday – make it a popular choice for students with serious study needs.
For those who need even more study time, students can bring their books and laptops to the 24-hour study room. This room is open all day, every day and is only accessible with a student ID card. It also features two group study rooms.
Shields also boasts over three million volumes available for loan, making it an essential stop before writing any research paper.
From the large tables on the first floor to the picture windows on the fourth, Shields offers a study spot for every preference.
Students turn to Shields because of its quiet atmosphere and focus on studying.
“There are no distractions really,” said Erin Vece, senior psychology major. “Everyone’s here for a common goal.”
Diana Lu, sophomore human development major, said that she appreciates the library’s silence as well as services to students.
“It’s convenient, and there’s good Internet,” said Lu. “It’s also really quiet, and I can print things.”
Coming in at number two is the Arboretum. This nature-lover’s paradise is home to Putah Creek as well as over a 100 acres of gardens. Students can study, nap or simply enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of the Arboretum 24 hours a day.
Third place goes to the Quad, a Davis institution since 1907. Its expansive grassy field and shady trees make it a popular choice on warm, sunny days. Though it is also the site of the Whole Earth Festival and dozens of Picnic Day activities, students continue to embrace the Quad as a relaxing study spot.
– Erin Migdol
Best place to work
1. ASUCD Coffee House
Memorial Union
2. Activities and Recreation Center
3. Unitrans
Once again, the ASUCD Coffee House reclaims its title as the best place to work on campus at UC Davis.
Better known as the CoHo, the Coffee House, currently housed in the east wing of the Memorial Union, employs about 220 students.
Since it opened in 1968, the CoHo has become a staple of the Davis campus, offering over 5,000 customers a place to purchase coffee, bagels, sandwiches, pizza and more.
Food service manager Darin Schluep, a UC Davis alumnus who began working as a kitchen employee as an undergraduate in 1996, explained that the CoHo provides students with the ability to advance in the operation.
“[The management tries] to foster ownership of the operation on an employee level,” Schluep said. “With student supervisors and managers, it is important that they feel as if the Coffee House is their operation.”
Supervisor Nicole Davenport, a senior German and history double major, agreed with this sentiment.
“We only have four full time managers, everyone else [is a] student. You really get a feeling of accomplishment when you work at the CoHo,” she said. “For instance, when you’re in [the] bakery and you hear a customer really excited about a cake or bar you made, it makes you feel good.”
Students work in one of two areas in the CoHo – either out front, where they serve and ring up customers, or in the kitchen, where they prepare food. Employees can partake in a number of social events organized by their coworkers, including Holyland, an annual themed party, and the CoHo formal.
“There is a camaraderie that is part of working with your peers every day,” Schluep said. “I think a lot of lasting friendships are established here at the Coffee House.”
The Activities and Recreation Center came in second as the best place to work on campus, while Unitrans took third place.
– Megan Murphy
Best Place to Live
1. Downtown Davis
2. The Colleges at La Rue
164 La Rue Road
3. UC Davis Residence Halls
Not even charting on last year’s list, downtown ascended from the ashes to assume this year’s top spot as the best place to live in Davis. But it should come as no surprise considering its accessibility. Unlike other college campuses where there may exist a great rift between campus and town life; in Davis one need only walk a couple steps beyond downtown’s borders to reach the “Death-Star,” the most distinctive sign of UC Davis territory. Downtown Davis’ vibrancy compounds its easy access to school. In 2008, it ranked number one on the California Planning & Development Report’s list of the state’s best college downtowns. “[It’s] a center of student life,” said Joy Cohan, director of the Downtown Davis Business Association. “Living in the midst of all that student life is very appealing.” Options are scant though, with most people contending that Aggie Village, Greek-life pads and homes near A Street comprise the relatively limited housing units available. The small area that “downtown” formally encompasses means that most people live on the outskirts to reap the benefits. “I think I want to live in South Central Davis, because it’s close to downtown and it’s in the heart of the city,” said Anish Trivedi, a first-year undeclared. “It’s close to where the action is.” The Colleges at La Rue and UC Davis residence halls taking second and third place respectively highlights a peculiar coincidence: they too are in close proximity to downtown Davis.
– Yara Elmjouie
Best place to sleep on campus
1. Peter J. Shields Library
2. Quad
3. In class
In every college student’s busy day, one thing stands out as the most important. Among the class, the homework, the activities and the friends, the nap stands alone.
The UC Davis Student Health Services website has an entire section devoted to the science of napping, describing the best times, the perfect length and ideal places for a nap. With three of the total sixteen specific campus locations, the Peter J. Shields Library dominates the “Nap Map.”
“It’s quiet, peaceful and people are usually not being annoying,” said Sam Sugarman [cq], a first-year communication and psychology double major.
The library is full of locations suited for napping. The courtyard, the 24-hour reading room and the couches in the new books section are the three places suggested by the SHS’s Nap Map, but every library napper has their favorite spot.
“I like to go to the fourth floor, to one of the rooms in the back,” Sugarman said. “There are these little individual desks with cubbies, and I like to just curl up in there and nap.”
Ranked second this year, the quad is a great place to catch up on lost sleep, especially during spring quarter. You can see many people lying out in the sun, soaking up the sun’s rays.
This year’s third place winner, in class, is a cornerstone of napping. It is a rare day when you do not witness a peer in your class catching some Zs.
-Blake Peters
