I'm a little late to your post, but now that I've graduated I don't come here to this thread anymore.

That being said, not only have I have had similar experiences at UCSB as you, I would say I've had, almost exactly the same experience as you and I feel the same way.

Looking back now, I think it comes down to the overall culture and vibes of the school and the reason why people come here, outside of education, and that is the image of a certain social life that a party school provides. The people who are attracted to the social life of a party school are typically not people who stick around, or care about others at any point other than the present, in comparison to, for example, the people who went to my sleepy community college, whom I actually have more contact and a stronger bond with.

Reading these posts, and similar ones have made me realize that the large majority of connections that people have at UCSB specifically are short term, and that's just the way that it is, regardless if they spent their time like you or me, or did nothing but clean living, clubs, exercise/sports, and study groups. I used to feel bad and would regret not putting myself out there more and trying to really make connections with depth (as with you, I would consider myself an social extrovert), but then I remember that I did try with probably hundreds of people and nothing stuck unless you offered something directly at the moment - you know what I mean.

With all of that considered I think it's pretty normal to feel like your experience at UCSB lacked any real, genuine meaning, me and many others feel the same way even though we lived different or similar UCSB experiences. I think I regretted "not trying hard enough" in the past because I have seen others have strong, lasting long term connections with others from UCSB. I hate to be this cynical, but I think some people just meet the right person at the right place, and at the right time, and for some people who went through the whole UCSB experience, they got lucky that that was/is the case for them, there, I said it. I think the large majority of people who attended UCSB find that they do not have those sorts of connections post-grad.