UC Berkeley

Exactly 4 years ago, I was 16 years old and entering my final year of high school, meaning that it was finally time for my classmates and me to go through the exciting, stressful, and sometimes disappointing process of college applications. And while UC Berkeley wasn’t the only school I applied to, I think in my gut I knew that it would end up being my university, the one where I would make lifelong friendships and set myself up for a successful future. Attending high school in the California Bay Area, it seemed only natural to apply to UC Berkeley, but despite its strong international recognition, I realize some may be less familiar with my university.

The University of California - Berkeley, oftentimes just called “Cal,” is consistently ranked as the #1 public university in the United States, ranking highly worldwide as well. As its name suggests, it’s located in the city of Berkeley, California and has about 25,000 undergraduate students and 10,000 graduate students. A few of the most popular areas of study on campus are Engineering, Business/Economics, and Biology but almost every department at Berkeley is top-ranked. The campus has an urban city feel with the restaurants and nightlife of downtown located conveniently next to campus but also comes with the panhandlers and the unfortunate occasional sidewalk messes expected in the city.

Our undergraduate program is structured across 4 years in a 2 semester system, with our Fall semester lasting from August to December and Spring semester lasting from January to May, but many students choose to take additional courses during the optional summer sessions between May and August. Typically students will take 4-5 courses each semester which tend to comprise of about 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion or lab each week, although lab-focused classes like physics or chemistry will often require 3 or 4 hours of lab each week. Even though Berkeley is a large school with a very diverse student population, for the most part students tend to take their studies very seriously and prioritize it highly. Apart from classes, students also get involved with student organizations like clubs and fraternities, research opportunities, and internships during their time at Cal.

With respect to industry, I can only speak from my own experience as an EECS (Electrical Engineering/Computer Science) and Psychology major and have found the relationship Berkeley has with industry to be extremely strong. Each week there are a number of infosessions and tech talks put on by big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft as well as more formal recruiting from business, finance and consulting companies like Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, and McKinsey. It is very common for undergraduates to spend their summers as a paid intern for one of these companies and I personally have interned for Google, Morgan Stanley, and an ad targeting company called Adara Media over my last three summers. Upon graduation, employment prospects can vary significantly based on major and GPA, but being in the CS program at Berkeley there is no shortage of big and small companies competing to hire fresh talent. Our career fairs are packed with company booths where recruiters are so eager to talk to students, they give out free company gifts (“swag”) in exchange for student resumes.

On the whole, many of UC Berkeley’s pros and cons are largely the result of its size. There is so much going on all the time from the long list of research opportunities to the very long list of extracurricular activities. Whatever your interests may be, there are students here who share that interest and there’s a way for you to get involved and grow. There are so many resources here and more opportunities than you’d ever need, but it’s up to each student to take advantage of these resources for themselves. However, simply because there are so many students, there is lots of bureaucracy and oftentimes rules you just have to learn to navigate. UC Berkeley sometimes gets called Berzerkeley, a merging of Berkeley and berserk, and I think it’s an extremely appropriate title. It’s kind of a crazy place with frequent protests, newsmaking scientific discoveries, and lots of quirky but brilliant people. Most of all, I think Berkeley is what you make of it, whether you stay up until 5 in the morning meeting new friends at a party, finishing up homework in a computer lab, or building something you’re passionate about. For self-motivated students who are eager to make the most of their years in college, there’s no place quite like it.