Hey, what's up, guys? I'm Ferrari St. Paul and this is YOUniversityTV, where we put you in univerisity. Today we're here at California State University, San Marcos. Let's go on a tour!

[ Music ] California State University San Marcos is located near San Diego, California, a little more than an hour from both L.A. and Mexico. The university is also close to southern California beaches and world famous attractions, such as the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park, Legoland California, and the Birch Aquarium. CSU San Marcos features a scenic 304-acre campus, with Mediterranean village style buildings and small piazzas, set in the foothills overlooking San Marcos, California.

I wanted to find a place where I could really feel at home, that I knew they would make a positive impact on me; that there was just something so genuine and true about the school that it called me, and it called my name from the beginning.

California State University San Marcos has approximately 9,000 students, with a student body that is 62 percent women and 37 percent men. To be considered for admission, you must complete a college prep high school curriculum and have a B average. California residents with a GPA of 3.0 or higher would be eligible for admission with any ACT or SAT score. Students with a GPA between a 2.0 and 2.99 must achieve specific scores on the ACT or SAT to be eligible for admission. California residents can expect to pay around $18,000 per year for tuition, while out-of-staters can expect to pay around $28,000 per year. This includes the price of books, food, housing, any necessary transportation, and all other personal expenses. Cal State San Marcos offers 28 undergraduate majors, 11 graduate programs, and seven teacher credential programs. Some of the most popular majors on campus include business administration, liberal studies, communication, and psychology.

Our students get a lot of practical experience outside the classroom. In about three or four of our classes, they're actually designing their own research studies, they're collecting their own data, analyzing data and then presenting their data either to the class or in some cases, to the university in, like a student research competition.

We try and place all of our majors into some kind of internship. We've been very successful, either at national laboratories or at local companies.

Our College of Business Administration offers a senior experience program in which groups of two to four students are actually serving as a consultant for a local business or non-profit or government agency.

CSU San Marcos employs some of the best faculty around. Of the 227 professors on campus, 223 have a terminal degree in their discipline.

One of our major strengths here is our small class size and the ability to interact one on one with students, and they take advantage of that in a very positive way.

One thing that's great about the professors here is their accessibility. If you contact them and they're in their office hours or if you shoot them an e-mail, I haven't had a professor yet that hasn't gotten back to me in 24 hours; everyone that I've always had, and they're very willing to help.

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High five, Crash!

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Crash, the cougar, is a pretty fierce mascot. He's always ready to put his tail on the line for the team. He couldn't wait to show me this track, where Cal State San Marcos track and field team gets ready to run the show in the NAIA.

[ Sound of cougar growling ] Looking to live on campus? Cal State San Marcos recently built housing units in their University Village, which features apartment style living and houses 620 full-time students. Home sweet home or University Village; is there a difference? Well, here the chances of your mom waking you up at 7AM to walk the dog are pretty slim. But other than that, you have all the comforts of home and maybe even more in the apartment style dorms.

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There's a number of programs to really support students in their first year. We have a living learning community; our San Marcos experience that's actually a part of our residence halls where students are living together with the same students that they actually take a number of their first year classes with, and so that naturally builds camaraderie, builds study groups instantly and just is a really way to be supportive of your fellow students your first year.

Our director here at the dormitories, Brian Daustin; he has Monday night dinners that he holds. It's a, it's a free dinner that you don't have to worry about during the week and it's a great time to come together as a community.

In case you're wondering what goes on outside of class?

We have over 80 student organizations on campus, including fraternities, organizations, clubs, sororities. We have multiple intramural sports that happen every semester; they're on the club level.

As an incoming freshman, I would almost view this as a playground, you know, because you can, you can start an organization if you wanted to or you could join an organization. You can make things happen.

Did you know that CSUSM has designed and built brand new classrooms, labs, offices and libraries that incorporate the latest technologies? This is so cool. Cal State is really in step with technology, and the students get to take advantage of that. Every classroom on campus is what they call a smart classroom, meaning they offer WiFi. This allows the professors to present interactively with the students, right on the computer. So, if a mid-sized university with a high tech, yet personal classroom atmosphere close to California's best beaches is what you're looking for in your college search, be sure to check out California State University San Marcos. Thanks for joining us here on our tour of California State University San Marcos. I'm Ferrari St. Paul, and I'll see you around campus.

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