I went to school at UCSB on an academic scholarship. It was a very nice time of my life. I supported the family by working as a California State Park Ranger at the beach parks north of Santa Barbara.
My younger son Adam was born there. In those days you didn't know whether it was a girl or a boy. One day at the beach my wife and I thought of a way to find out. In the area where the waves washed over the sand we used a stick and scratched out "Adam" and "Allison" in the sand. When the waves washed away Adam first we knew that we were going to have a boy. The ocean had spoken.
Poppy
Edit: And congratulations to your son! There are worse choices than UCSB - I had some truly amazing professors there. A Physics class there was the most rigorous mental exercise I've ever faced. At one point the entire class complained to the professor, a freshly minted MIT PhD, that the class was way too hard. His response? "I'm not going down to your level. You will have to come up to mine." Brutal class.