University of California-Berkeley Top Questions

The thing I consider worst about the school I am attending is its size. Although it is a beautiful school and it attempts to accomodate for its students, the classes tend to be too compacted. Withing your freshman year you may find yourself in classes with firve-hundred students. I feel like this takes away from the learning because you can not interact with the professor and other students as well as in a small classroom setting.

It can be dangerous. We are perceived as a place full of hippies and druggies. I've seen some odd people around, shouting or doing strange things, and students often warn each other in our Facebook group about predators they encounter. We also have a whole park where homeless people live, and one of my classmates was robbed near there. One of my friends visited me and was terrified just walking around. This place isn't for delicate people, but it's manageable.

Probably the preasure how time-consuming the work and studying is.

The worst thing about my school is the cost of attendance. I come from a low income family living in a single parent household, so it is very challenging for me to afford to pay 30,000 a year for my schooling. I have talked to my peers, and most of them come from a similar background as mine, or middle class, and they also agree that the cost of attendence is expensive. As a low income student in order to attend such a prestigious school I need finacial aid, work study, and loans.

lack of free tutoring

It is relatively impersonal and very decentralized.

The cost of living and the financial aid process. The cost of living on campus per month was approximatlely $700 per person and this rate did not include food. When food was added to the cost I paid close to $1000 at least for my undergraduate education. This added to my student debt of over $25,000. In addition, the financial aid process was stressful. I felt like financial aid advisors were ineffiecient in providing resources for students funds and instead directed me towards loans and financial packages that increased my debt.

Though there are many good aspects of Berkeley, it can be hard for a student who commutes and works while attending school. They are known to purposley make it difficult for students who do, like me. I cannot afford to live in the area so I commute about an hour and a half each way and I work to support myself, while going full time and participating in an unpaid Research project with one of the faculty. It is hard to find classes at a reasonable hour and only go 2-3 days a week.

The housing is extremely expensive. You can pick from the Units, Clark Kerr, Bowles (all-male), Stern (all-female), or Foothill. Since I'm an bioengineering major, I chose Foothill - it's closest to all the buildings affiliated with engineering. The Units are the cheapest option available. Clark Kerr probably has the best living accomodations. Singles are reserved for the disabled and upperclassmen. I'd recommend going off-campus after freshman year if you can find someone to split rent with.

The only bad thing about my school is that there is too much to do! Students can get overinvolved and have time-management issues if they aren't careful!

The worst thing is probably the large class sizes for many of the required lower division classes for popular majors such as biology and business. Most of these have over 500 students in one class. There is no way around it.

There worst thing about my school is the rising tuition costs. Many people at this school are middle class and if the tuition fee keeps rising it will be hard to pay off loans and send kids to college.

The sheer amount of opportunities at UC Berkeley can be overwhelming and hard to navigate. There is always the possibility to take on too much, particularly at a campus where there is so much available to you to do. However, if you prioritize and stay organized, you can accomplish what you want and still experience a lot. Personally, I was worried that with such large lectures I wouldn't get enough personal attention to learn well. However, large lectures are broken down into smaller discussions that provide the perfect opportunity to review anything that was unclear in lecture.

As it was built in the late 1800s, the campus is old and the city around it has homeless people asking for money. Sometimes, they like to wander into the campus, specifically Sproul Plaza. Cal also has a reputation for being a 'liberal' school, as most of the students hold a liberal view.

The classroom sizes were often too big which meant that students did not recieve a lot of individual attention.

The school is a public university, and as such it is susceptible to unpredictable funding fluctuations as a result of State decisions. Governor Brown is currently proposing to cut $500 million from the entire UC system. To make up for these costs, student fees have gone up over 30{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} in the past two years. I expect the cost of education at UC Berkeley, while relatively low compared to the rest of the country's private school costs, to skyrocket over the next 2 years. Be prepared for a rising sticker price.

I consider the clustering of students based on race the worst part of my school, because it is known to be diverse, but because students tend to hangout with people of the same race, I feel that the student body segregates itself, especially with all the organizations based on ethnicity.

UC Berkeley has a reputation of world class professors, nobel prize winners as staff members, and top ranked students around the country. Unfortunately, many of its courses are over-populated and students dont have the opportunity ti take the class they desire ot need. If Berkeley had more courses, it would benefit both the school and the students.

The fact that Cal is such a large school and with the budget cuts means that there is less room in classes that you need. So sometimes it is frustrating when registering for classes when the wait-list is long or already full. Especially when you need classes for requirements, the outdated and frustrating registration process can leave you feeling ignored in a sea of students. Having said that, with perseverance and flexibility, you can get in the classes you need for the most time.

The administration can seem like bureaucratic mess sometimes. Because it is a public university, UC Berkeley often has its classes run out of space. Waitlists can get really unnerving, and it's difficult to find administrators to give your problems one to one attention.