University of California-Berkeley Top Questions

The difficulty of the coursework compared with other schools

How seperated engineering is from the rest of campus and how fast everything would pass along with the work load and exetreeeeeemely harsh gpa's.

Knowing how to pick classes and what I would need to take for a certain major or to be given recommendations that applied for my general education credits. That, and not to be narrow minded to the classes you should take by branching out and taking other classes.

The campus administration is much more conservative than the student body. This has created a rift between the student government and the administration. The large scale decisions are top down, and many students feel they do not have a voice in either their student government or with the school administration. The large scale party politics, Cal SERVE and Student Action both have good goals and people, but spend much more energy in petty power fueds than in making actual progressive change to the school. The student body overall is very disenchanted with its voice.

The difficulty of being able to date someone and the normality of one nightstands

Read all the fine print for the classes you need and don;'t need to graduate

that i should wait one year and apply to other graduate programs that have better funding

I wish I would have known about all the options to get involved in research as an undergarduate and taken andvantage of them sooner in my time there.

You might be close to San Francisco, but you are so busy you don't get to go very often.

There are many textbook exchange services available.

I wish I would have known how competitive it was. I am not pursuing a degree in a competitive school or capped major, however, I was required to take several classes with students who are, and their competitive nature made those classes unbareable. They would never agree to study together, review homework, or share notes with eachother or myself.

students arn't very emblematic of the "Berkeley" spirit and are overly career-oriented; try to meet friends right away because it gets alot harder when work-load gets heavier; though professors are sometimes hard to contact, talk to them after class and they will usually be willing to give you a lot of attention... these bonds will be useful and insightful

how much i would have not liked it

I wish I had made an effort to get more involved. Also, I wish I had thought about how happy the students would be. They're not ver happy here.

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The importance of GPA to finding jobs.

I wish I had known just how many people there were here and how many different things there are to do in the area. It makes the experience very interesting and diverse but it also makes it hard to manage your academics while enjoying all that the school and the area has to offer.

I wish I had known that the campus is not nearly liberal or as diverse as it claims to be. I feel that perhaps in comparison to other campuses, or depending on what aspects of diversity you are observing, Berkeley is diverse. However in the sense of overall ethnic makeup, the campus is pretty monoracial and there are very few people of color. I also dont appreciate the way the university co-opts the liberal movements of previous decades as a Berkeley phenomena as if they were encouraged when in fact during these revolutions most administration was opposed to them.

You have to do a lot on your own. The school is big, and you have to be able to learn how to work with the administrative system on your own.

make more friends in dorms