Undergraduate Education: Prospective Students
A physics major at UCSB participates in a four year program leading to either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree. The department also offers a Minor in Physics as well as a Minor in Astronomy and Planetary Sciences. The faculty includes a number of members of the National Academy of Sciences, and three Nobel Laureates.
The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, funded by the National Science Foundation, resides on campus and attracts the best theoretical physicists in the world for a rich variety of focused programs, each of several months duration. Within the Department of Physics itself, research is carried on by forty-two faculty members, distributed mainly among the fields of condensed matter physics, elementary particle physics, astrophysics, and biophysics. In addition, many postdoctoral fellows and graduate students are partners in the research projects, as well as a good fraction of those junior and senior undergraduate majors who are headed for graduate school in science.
The Community Science Center (CSC), a well-regarded and frequently emulated educational facility, is utilized by students from all disciplines. With many and varied demonstrations maintained in an atmosphere of free investigation, the CSC has established itself as a unique supplement to the lower division curriculum at 
UCSB. The junior and senior level laboratory courses are well known for their state-of-the-art instrumentation. They also allow a balance of formal instruction and individually motivated projects.
The Community Science Center supplements both lecture and laboratory. It gives students freedom to investigate phenomena on their own and at their own pace in an atmosphere encouraging exploration and discovery. The laboratory sessions systematically introduce students to modern instrumentation, and at the same time give them the opportunity to perform some of the most critical and fascinating experiments in the history of physics.
UCSB physics Graduate teaching assistants (TAs) are required to participate in a departmentally supervised graduate level teacher education seminar aimed specifically at developing solid teaching habits and strategies. Consequently, we believe that our TAs are among the best qualified anywhere. Teaching assistants supervise the discussions and laboratory courses.
The UCSB campus is located between the Santa Ynez mountains and the Pacific coastline in the Goleta Valley, adjacent to Santa Barbara. The area (pop. 180,000) has a diverse offering of natural and cultural attractions; local facilities provide a wide variety of entertainment and recreation. The climate is mild year-round and well suited for the many outdoor activities and sports available. The nearby college community of Isla Vista is easily accessible by foot or by bicycle, the two principal forms of student transportation, and the greater community of Santa Barbara is accessible through frequent bus service.
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