www.studentsreview.com/CA/UCB_c.html#comments
I'm in a tiny, poor department, but my faculty and fellow students have been so dedicated and helpful that I would never change my major for lack of resources. I don't know how it is in the bigger departments like EECS. You can't help but love Cal because everyone else does, too. Everyone wears Cal gear all the time, and most of us know a fight song or two. All kinds of great minds and talent flock to the University to perform or give guest lectures. Performances are reasonably priced and often have student discounts. Apr 21 2004 1st Year Female Class 2007 64 Contact Electrical Engineering Quite Bright I am currently closing out my first year here at good ol' Cal. Admittantly it hasn't been the easiest of years, however I have to say this has been my most fun year of schooling since I first shoved a crayon up my nose. You've got SF nearby, you've got sports to watch and play. You've got good looking people (if you look hard enough) who are usually quite intelligent. Courseload wise, yes Cal is not easy, but do you really want to go through college unchallenged? Now I live on the East Coast, at the mercy of public transit and unsmiling crowds of people, not to mention the excruciatingly cold winters. If you'd like my advice, it's this: if you have a chance to go to a school outside of California, especially the East Coast, go for it. I've learned that the myths about California are generally true--comparatively, people there are--or become--more superficial. They'll be your best friends for two hours and then forget about you, and after a while you may find yourself feeling lost without an anchor. Sometimes that anchor can be found in a good-paying job in Silicon Valley and people with whom you can play video games. If that's the life you want--to graduate and settle into a nice suburb with other computer and marketing geeks--then more power to you. Traveling a lot doesn't teach you as much about new places as actually living there. Berkeleyites tend to be--or become--arrogant in their opinions and are some of the most narrow-minded liberals I have ever encountered. For someone to not have a good experience in Berkeley or to not agree on a certain political view means that person is WRONG and not good enough for the Bay Area. You can show your compassion for all the poor people in the world while you crank out good grades--maybe you'll volunteer as a tutor or build low-income housing. The "backwards hicks" of rural areas will never learn otherwise--and you'll find that they're a helluva lot more intelligent than college at Cal can ever show you. Carolina's Research Triangle, smile at a cold Bostonian and you'll get doors opened for you, talk to a blustery New York florist and hear a fascinating life history. Berkeley is full of wonderful people, but most of them think the same way, and I'm sorry to say that Cal has become a cookie-cutter university. I'm telling you this not out of a grudge against my alma mater but because only after I moved away did I become confident enough to offer generalizations about my experience. I was never confident in my opinions while I lived in Berkeley--I was afraid of being ostracized and alienated. I tried to keep my mouth shut and guess what--I ended up isolated anyway. The truth is, wherever you go, you'll realize that the stereotypes about that place are true. Political correctness is a sham, and the reason the Bay Area holds so many protests and rallies and marches and parades is out of displaced racial/sexual/emotional tension. If you can't say what you really think, you don't know what to do with yourself, and then you've got to find another way to expend all of that energy. Problems are solved by going to the source of the problem and tackling bureaucracy, not by having a parade about it. Honesty builds character and below-freezing winters build resilience. Mar 26 2004 Alumna Female Class 1998 Computer Science Quite Bright The professors and a good number of students at Berkeley are absolutely brilliant. I have been working for 4 years and most people (from UCLA, USC) I have met professionally are not even close to how smart the people are at Cal. If you want to foster your brain, Cal is the place to go. Since most people at Berkeley are very smart, be very prepared, it can get very competitive. Some of the students are so geeky that they don't care about social life. I see a lot of people complaining about not enough good looking girls. What do you expect from girls who stay up studying every night? Although it was mighty funny to go into the computer lab wearing a skirt, they always look at me as if I were a dinosaur. It has one of the most recongizable name in the country, if not the world. However, like many people have said before, this is really a sink or swim place. Professors expects you to work hard, the work load is insane in ANY major (yes i know the EECS guys often brags and waine about their EE stuff, but even as a Poli Sci student I have about 400-500 pages of heavy reading to go through per week on average, more sometimes) And because everyone in your classes are bright, hard work is what counts here, if you don't put in the effort, you won't do well in class, that's a fact. I guess this is why Berkeley prepare you for real world so well, it instill into its graduates a sense of self sufficiency and good work ethics. Couple that will good brains, you have a proven formula to a successful life. Campus can be very overwhelming, people in general are superfacially friendly, in my opinion it is very hard to make good friends at Cal, mainly because so many people spend so much time studying and worrying about their grades. You'll find a general sense of school pride and arrogorance, lot's of people here geniunely think they're smarter then kids at just about every other universities. As for social life, there is some, but you have to actively go out and find it. Because it is such a big campus and meeting people can be challanging, a lot of folks though social life don't exist, which is not true. Acedemically rigious or not, it is a college and people party and do the college thing. Furthermore, going out to shops and resturants are great here, there are a lot of small and unique places to go, however, Berkeley by in large is an expensive place: Rent is sky high, there's no place to park and stuff cost more in general. So be prepare to fork out some dough if u want an eventful life. It's not a place where you can chill and mellow out and things and support will come to you. Feb 19 2004 1st Year Male Class 2004 65 Contact Political Science Quite Bright The people here take you in as you are. There aren't many cliques and we understand that you got in because there was something "weird" about you. The competition here is really cutthroat especially among Molecular/Cell Biology majors and prospective Haas Business School undergrads. When you think about Political Science at Berkeley, a very liberal image comes to mind. But they are very non-partisan and fair in looking at politics as a whole. For those of you that are looking for a good athletics program, Cal has an awesome one. We beat co-national champion USC and Virginia Tech at the Insight Bowl in football this year. We have an invincible rugy team, a fairly good basketball team, 2nd ranked Softball team, and much more. And finally, for those of you that may have heard that Berkely is full of hippies. People still might sell tie-dye t-shirts, but that's really no big deal. And there are homeless people there too but they really do no harm. Feb 6 2004 2nd Year Male Class 2006 66 Contact Math Super Brilliant Berkeley is a wonderful place to be. Creativity, independence, and self-awareness are all encouraged above busywork. It's a diverse environment in which anyone who wants to become engaged in the world will thrive. My brother just graduated from here as well and he still hasnt found a job 7 months so dont think the name is going to save you. Im a little disappointed in the make up of the student body however. Like another poster said women on campus arent that much too look at. Im getting sick of the Apple think different attitude ar...
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