Student Life
Get ready to get involved, learn, enjoy new experiences, and have an amazing time as you take advantage of all that our university has to offer!
A NCAA Division I school, UCI is a member of the nine-school Big West Conference as well as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Our athletics program features 18 sports (nine men’s and nine women’s teams). We have won 26 national championships in nine sports, including the 2009 men’s volleyball national title, and UCI Olympic participants have won multiple medals – including six gold medals by athletes who also competed at UCI, three gold by UCI coaches and graduate students, and 14 gold by paralympians. More than 2,000 students have been honored as Big West Conference Scholar-Athletes in the last 20 years. UCI has also had over 400 All-Americans.
NCAA Sports
Get involved in the undergraduate government on campus. The student-run and student elected organization advocates on your behalf and creates programs that will enhance your UCI experience. We host a vast array of on-campus activities – you can enjoy concerts, festivals, professor luncheons, guest lectures, movie screenings, and comedy nights – all for free! Involvement in student government is the best way to gain leadership experience.
Your experience is enriched by the diverse campus events that UCI hosts. Take time away from your studies and check out the fun-filled favorites among our students.
During the fall, you can kick-off your collegiate experience with the Welcome Week celebration. The five-day event showcases clubs and organizations, student talent and entertainment, and great food in Aldrich Park. Shocktoberfest, our Halloween-themed event, has thousands of students attending an outdoor street festival with amazing music performances, campus organization and sponsor booths, and an exhibition by the UCI basketball teams. Towards the end of the quarter, the Cross-Cultural Center hosts the Rainbow Festival and Conference, which is a celebration of our campus’s cultural and ethnic diversity.
Winter quarter has one of our most highly-anticipated educational events of the year, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium. This week-long event honors the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with speeches, rallies, and service projects. Anteater pride is celebrated during Homecoming as current students, faculty, staff, and alumni enjoy an afternoon of games, prizes, awesome entertainment, free food, and a men’s basketball game.
The end of the school year culminates with our largest and oldest tradition. Our annual Wayzgoose Festival and Campus Open House spotlights live music, student performances, and local entertainers. Our year-long fundraising event, Greek Songfest, has become one of the campus’s most prominent and enjoyable events. With the support of fraternities and sororities, renditions of Broadway musicals are performed complete with sets, costumes, complex choreography, and lighting designs.
Campus Recreation provides UCI students, faculty, and staff with the opportunity to enhance their campus experience by developing and maintaining a physically active lifestyle through fitness and wellness, outdoor adventures, club sports, intramural sports, and activity classes.
Interested in competing in sports, but you do not want to be a student athlete? Join an intramural or club team! Club Sports allow you to compete against students at other colleges and universities on non-varsity teams; while Intramural Sports allows you to compete against other UCI students.
The Anteater Recreation Center
The ARC is our main recreational facility on campus, and features 20,000 square-feet of strength and cardio space with nearly 300 cardiovascular and weight machines, and more than 30 tons of free weights. In addition, there is a three-court gym, a rounded corner multi-use gym, an elevated running track, personal training opportunities, three racquetball courts, rock climbing wall, lap and leisure pool, five multipurpose rooms, demonstration kitchen, massage therapy rooms, and juice bar. Different cardiovascular classes are also available, such as break dancing, salsa, cycling, martial arts, and much more.
With approximately 500 campus clubs and organizations, UCI is a hub of energy. Whether your interests are academic, multicultural, political, social, international, recreational, service, religious, or performance oriented – UC Irvine has a club for you!
