University of California-Berkeley

Pros: Excellent educational opportunities; diverse student body
Cons: Somewhat chaotic environment; terrible housing situation; little individual attention

A brief blurb about my background (to let you know what I faced at Berkeley): Despite the humble immigrant beginnings of my family, I was fortunate enough to spend most of my formative years in an affluent neighborhood in Southern California ...

Pros: research; sports; professional schools; size; reputation (academic)
Cons: size; impersonality; difficult to navigate; reputation (wacko)

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm...

Stark naked, he would enter classrooms and walk down streets with nothing on but his sandals and backpack. One day, my sister was walking down the streets of Berzerkely--I mean Berkeley--and there he...

Pros: clean, substance free
Cons: bad lighting in rooms

I spent my first year at The University of California, Berkeley living in Freeborn Hall, one of the four residence halls in Unit 1. For those who do not know the layout of the dorms here at Berkeley, I'll give a brief overview. There are basically 7...

Pros: diversity, reputation, social/political climate,
Cons: bureaucracy

An overview of this epinion:

1. City and campus
2. Academics, Departments, Majors
3. A note on bureaucracy
4. Food/Housing/Costs/Student Life
5. Getting in
6. The Bottom Line
7. A response to certain criticisms...

Pros: Prestige, Marketable degree, Academics, Diversity, People
Cons: Football team, Berkeley (the city), lack of housing

I've already written a review on Cal, also known as University of California, Berkeley. I feel the need to write another review since I have experienced a different side of Cal since my last review (Freshman year). However, I will cover the basics:...

Pros: Great educational and cultural center; Huge diversity and excellence in education
Cons: Students' housing headache

One of the things that most Central Valley (CA) high school graduates like doing is to get out of the area and apply to schools on the coast. That's what one of my buddies from church decided to do despite the fact I was going to pursue my studies near...

Pros: Diversity, Location
Cons: Too big

So, as a Stanford student I had to write a review of UC-Berkeley. It is institutionally ingrained in me to hiss when someone mentions Cal and to believe that students who go to Cal are just there because they couldn't get into Stanford. With that said, I...

Pros: meet lots of people, lots to do, learn all important life skills
Cons: can be noisy, getting more crowded

Melodramatic title aside, it really wasn't that bad living in the dorms. I lived in two different dorms during my freshman and sophomore years, and then moved out to an apartment. I also worked as a dorm security monitor for three years, so...

Pros: Good professors, nice people, good research and teaching opportunities
Cons: Heavily theoretical, not-so-good variety of courses within the department

Let me preface this opinion with a little bit of a statement. UC Berkeley is a very good school. The professors are of a high quality, the people are nice, and there are many great things about being there.

That said, I think that the...

Pros: great academics, great social diversity
Cons: no personal attention, can be too diverse for some

I attended CAL because it was the best school for the least amount of tuition around (and perhaps a little subtle encouragement from my father, a Cal grad. himself). I wasn't an obvious choice for Berkeley. When I graduated from high school, I was a...

Pros: spacious, separate sex bathrooms!!!, nice place to live, close to campus
Cons: new in '92, may not be as modern now

I've lived in two different dorms, and I worked for three years as a security monitor, so I've seen them all. All things considered, I thought that Haste-Channing was the far and away the best place to live.

By a quirky twist of fate, I was...

Pros: Cheap tuition, diverse clinical opportunities, good size
Cons: Not-so-pretty facilities, smelly trees in the courtyard

GENERAL:

As an undergrad at Stanford, I could never have envisioned myself amongst the Berkeley "weenies", as we Stanfordites call Berkeley students. Yet lo and behold, I find myself two years later, incredibly happy that I chose to...

Pros: If you conquer the program, you can conquer anything
Cons: horrible faculty, knowledge learned is seldom useful

The chemical engineering department at Berkeley is reknown for its graduate program. However, little is publicly written about its undergraduate program... till now. I am a recent graduate of the undergrad program.

CONS:
1. The faculty...

Pros: #1 west coast public school
Cons: crowded

What I would like to write about in this epinion is about the great diversity Cal offers. I am not a student there, but like many Bay Area college students from other schools, I go there to study and hang out as well as socialize. Most reviews I...

Pros: very competitive, if you like that sort of thing; practically MADE for self-starters, you'll become one or perish
Cons: perhaps OVERLY competitive in some people's minds, forced to learn mostly from books and study groups rather than profs

Throughout high school I took pride in knowing that I knew the material in nearly all of my classes to the point of mastery. I relished being able to flaunt my skills on testing days. In fact I didn't even keep track of when my tests were scheduled so...