The University of California - Berkeley

Date: Jan 21 2001
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
Come to UC Berkeley for the top-notch academics. Everyone here knows that Berkeley is ranked as the top public school in the country, and we're all highly proud of it. However, get ready to get your ass kicked in academics. All the students here were top scholars in high school, but unfortunately, most won't pull off the A's that everyone is so used to getting in high school. It makes perfect sense: Put 22,000 top students in one school, and competition for good grades becomes very cut-throat. And another thing: You may feel inferior if you come to Berkeley to study something in the humanities or social sciences. The engineering and business students are the major big-shots on campus.

As for extracurriculars, I find them plentiful. Berkeley is a very diverse and dynamic town. Come here and you will find the prototypical college town atmosphere. Definitely not a commuter school—most students live in Berkeley and walk, bike, or take the bus to campus. The fact that most students live so close to each other makes it easy to form study groups or have parties. And everyone gets around town without a car—makes for a nice, intimate, "true" college town atmosphere. Be sure to find one or two student groups (including Greek) that you can get heavily involved with. Otherwise, you'll just feel like one lonely person in a sea of a large student population. Once dorm life is over, the only way to make friends are through clubs and activities (definitely not through classes). And another thing: Contrary to overly popular opinion, the girls here are cute and pretty. I think that people say the opposite because they're so absorbed with studying that they don't have time to get out and hook up with others. They use the "Berkeley girls are ugly" statement as a cop-out.

And because I'm a huge sports fan, I must comment on Cal athletics. Cal is pathetic in the "money sports". Football routinely has losing seasons, and men's basketball hasn't been that competitive until recently. And considering the number of students and alumni, attendance at the games are meagher. Too many students enroll at Cal and never attend or even watch on TV a game in their four years. In fact, I know many general sports fans on campus who don't even care about Cal sports—hell, we're a major conference team! I just wish that Cal had the same combination of academic and athletic pride as some other prestigious public universities (e.g., Michigan and North Carolina).