After having experienced a week or more in UC Berkeley, I feel that this is really one fantastic university. I am proud to be part of Cal.

The student life is really vibrant and really alive. There are so many things to do on campus that I sometimes feel really lost at what to do next. There are so many options to choose from, at least during Orientation days. Located inside the town of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a place teeming with activity and opportunities. These people really play hard and work hard. The culture of fun is not lost at Berkeley even though it is known as a strong academic university.

I am now staying in Bowles Hall, an all-guys dorm (or rather the only one here). Now, people here will go “what? why in the world did you pick all guys dorm for?” I don’t know. I just prefer it. With an all guys dorm you can play Bowles Ball at 2 AM in the morning with Bowles guys running around the field half-naked (I joined the half-naked team to differentiate from the other team) (read: cold…). Bowles Ball is basically ultimate frisbee played with a tennis ball instead of a frisbee. Very very fun, expecially with all the guys in the dorm. Things like that makes the Cal experience great.

One bad thing though is that Cal is dependent on public funding. The state of California is currently cutting state funding to UC universities and thus the amount Berkeley is receiving from the State is decreasing. Hence as part of the cost cutting in the university “Welcome Week” is actually, in fact, two days, but I feel it is okay since there are lots of things going on during the nights for the rest of the week so there are really lots happening here. It will also hurt the hiring of new faculty members, and Cal might suffer in rankings since it may not have enough funding to hire more faculty members to keep it’s student to faculty ratio low. But then again, it’s is not sitting still and doing nothing about it. Cal is now going to work on it’s endowment. And is still a great university because of its people.

The research focus here at Cal is fantastic. There are lots of research opportunities and ways to develop your intellect. There are lots of resources for students to go all out and achieve their best. This place is teeming with abundant resources. But the catch is that Cal students are not spoon-fed. We are trained to go all out and get what we want. Ask for what we want. Pester and seek for what we want. Which is also a differentiating factor when comparing Cal students with that of other universities, at least that is how employers view Cal graduates.

Anyhow, I am taking 20 units this semester (actually 21, if you count E98, a 1-unit course teaching students how to survive Berkeley Engineering) and people think I am crazy. We’ll see how the load is. Classes start tomorrow. Bye for now.