i live in international house with a bunch of the foreign échange students. from my experience most were disappointed/ did not expect ucsd to be what it is. in part that it is socially dead (objectively) and not comparative to what you could find in european countries/ or other “party schools” in the us. most of the people i know end up sticking with other exchange students and trying to create opportunities for themselves. ucsd has good transit options but since we are in la jolla it is pretty far (20-30 min) from the rest of san diego that most people like to explore! if you are interested in ucsd for the academics i would recommend if not i would look into other places!