<p>@ goingmeta
my “experience” is the interactions i’ve had with the individuals here and what i’ve acknowledged about their experiences, both past and present</p>
<p>i recognize your point and to answer your question, yes. it’s unfortunate for that to be the case, but it does happen</p>
<p>i think your interpretation on my comments, or maybe life in general, is completely flawed. i believe the accomplishments sets the mentality and by describing that mentality, it’ll allow others to recognize their personal uniqueness and forte. i don’t understand how i’m so caught up in trying to fit in. judging by your previous 145 posts, you seem like a <strong><em>ing </em></strong>* mr cool guy bashing on the confidence and integrity of others. who’re you suggesting to be? will smith? common man… i’ve only had 6 posts but they’ve accounted for more positive feedback than your life probably sums to. please leave my post as i will no longer waste my time addressing someone so unwilling to help others and would rather spend their time and efforts with such negative comments. i’m only here to help and i hope that what i say on this forum aids others in some way or another</p>
<p>@ Investment
thank you for your brilliant contribution. your opinion is valued oh so highly and i must believe what you say given your thorough explanation and supportive arguments (please don’t post why you think… and to be blunt: i don’t care)</p>
<p>@ redoplease
thanks</p>
<p>again, i don’t have many answers to the statistics in play rather the experiences in question that you may have. i can try my best to provide whatever insight possible given my journey here. i’m not trying to impress anyone and i’m not getting paid. i could honestly care less what you say goingmeta so please please do me and everyone else a favor and dip out of my thread as your comments are more worthless than your existence here on this forum…</p>
<p>@Wilabee - Thanks for sharing your personal experiences. I have a question on maybe even more personal experiences. Do you qualify for the Blue and Gold opportunity? Do you also receive Financial Aid (Pell grant, cal grant) on top of that? If so, after those grants, how much more do you have to pay per semester for everything else? How much do you get from pell/cal grant? Do you drive around Cal? How are Cal students when it comes to helping each other out?</p>
<p>@OP: You said a couple of your friends had much higher GPAs than you (like 3.85+), but they didn’t get into UCB? Was it because they applied to impacted majors? How do you think you got in over them? thanks.</p>
<p>I would guess they applied to either Haas or some Engineering major. By the way, Econ is an impacted major. UC Berkeley uses the term Capped major for L&S to represent impacted majors. So there might be something else =/</p>
<p>@ xcaliberse
yes i do and i’m sure i also qualify for fafsa and cal grant aids however i’m rather embarrassed and regretful for not completing my paperwork. my parents work overseas which makes the process of obtaining the necessary figures and paperwork much more complicating (which still doesn’t justify me not completing it for, basically, free tuition money). tuition is paid through increments and i haven’t gotten a chance to tally the entire bill so i’ll withhold on answering that until i find out so as to not give you the wrong impression.</p>
<p>i don’t drive around cal because the layout of the neighborhood just doesn’t allow you to. everything is within distance of everything (i.e. housing, school, library, convenient stores, restraunts, dining halls) despite all campus housing to be physically off campus (surrounds the campus from the north east clockwise to the south). all roadside parking is metered (parking tickets are $40+, $60 on football game days) and parking spots are small and usually taken up by residential housing units. i love cars and i absolutely love me car. i can stare at it and it’ll make me smile (no homo) so i shelled out $75 bucks this month to rent a spot up the street behind another apartment building. parking spots can be rented here from $60-125 or so depending on it’s convenience, location, size, security (gated, monitored, etc). i honestly don’t drive it much besides to get groceries, go back home to San Jose or visit San Francisco.
cal students don’t tend to help each other out. if you’re not a friend, you probably won’t receive help. there isn’t that human tendency to help one another out of good will here strictly because most classes are curved in the sense that your academic ability/work is compared to others. the bell curve is in full effect here (don’t think i need to explain how it works)</p>
<p>@ briceies
one of those individuals i was speaking of was my exgf. she was a go-getter and excelled in academics with a 3.95 applying (couple of A-) and decided to go with Haas. if you don’t know, Haas requires you to write 2 additional papers on top of the general application process because you have to apply into the Haas major. that could’ve very well have been the reason she didn’t get in. secondly, she didn’t have very many things going on for her outside of school. she didn’t have many hobbies, spent very little time through extracurricular passions, had almost no volunteer work, and just didn’t seem to have much to show for her abilities outside of school. the other individuals i can’t speak as specifically or entirely about.
i honestly don’t know how i got over them. my courses were sort of geared towards business (which is what i applied for in all the other uc’s) but economics isn’t that far out so i decided with econ with berkeley (to increase me acceptance odds relative to Haas) and a few other universities as my cc transcript and ec’s aimed for the same direction. i just put everything that defined me on paper and really never looked back at berkeley. kinda weird but i never even considered berkeley to attend because i never in my wildest dreams thought i’d get in which is also why i believe if i can get in, anyone can</p>
<p>@xcaliberse
yeah, definitely a variable worth considering during the admissions process</p>
<p>again, i don’t mind personal questions and will decline to answering if i feel needed. i actually feel like personal questions may be a lot more helpful for you guys and something i can provide a more accurate interpretation with</p>
<p>Can you speak on berkeley’s undergraduate track to research/working experience?</p>
<p>Do they have a well established method for connecting undergraduates with industrial affiliates, researchers, etc?</p>
<p>I work full time while studying mechanical engineering. I have no family in the state to support me. Because of this, I’m well aware of the importance of established paths to professional success. Does Berkeley make these paths known to you?</p>
<p>@ xViral
thanks. i appreciate your appreciation</p>
<p>@ xcaliberse
iss = instyleshoes. it’s the world largest online forum on sneakers but includes a lot of side threads about everything else in the world. a well rounded forum to be on with an incredibly large community. check it out if you find the free time at [Sole</a> Collector | Sneakers, Air Jordan, Vans, Nike, Forum, Shoes, Kicks](<a href=“http://www.issforums.com%5DSole”>http://www.issforums.com) or [Sole</a> Collector | Sneakers, Air Jordan, Vans, Nike, Forum, Shoes, Kicks](<a href=“http://www.solecollector.com%5DSole”>http://www.solecollector.com)</p>
<p>@ Nukewarm
definitely! Berkeley offers all sorts of connections and networking for their undergraduates (not sure about graduates) for employment opportunity, research opportunities, and those alike. they have a website called Callisto where employers from all over the country post employment opportunities and all youhave to do is click send after you upload your resume and sit back for a response. other research/work opportunities can be obtained from intern and job fairs (such as the one on campus this 16th/17th of february) and tabling on campus that allows you to be involved. there isn’t much more they can do to get closer to you with these opportunities besides you walking up and signing your name and email. i feel like, being berkeley (in the sense that it’s the oldest uc institution), berkeley holds a lot of those outlets available to you in many different mediums. researchers and other employers are always looking for undergraduate berkeley students to assist them as, i’m sure, they consider them to be more than qualified for such positions. the downside is that there are more kids besides yourself looking for that opportunity. i didn’t entirely understand your questions so i hope what i answered seemed like a response you were looking to receive. feel free to ask away any other questions that may narrow your answer… and that goes for you all!</p>
<p>@ Willabee: Random, but I thought I remember you saying somewhere in this thread that you live in Wada? If so, that makes 2 of us lol.</p>
<p>Btw, not to hijack, but if anyone wants specifics about the Psych major, URAP advice (research - Im doing mine in Haas), or anything else, feel free to shoot me a PM or just reply here.</p>
<p>@ BostonCrmPie: Wada is awesome. It houses 175 students, all upper division, is studious, quiet, spacy, etc. I may be a nerd, but tbh my favorite part is it has a study room on the 6th floor (top floor) with a nice view. I like using the chalkboard there lol…it makes me feel like a professor. That said, if you want to be around tons of parties, Wada probably isn’t for you. If you like a balance, I would actually recommend Wada because the rooms are huge, we have great views, it’s relatively cheap (4.5k per semester), -and- there are occasionally parties and things like that too.</p>
<p>As for URAP, it was a great idea. I highly highly recommend applying for research right away. URAP is really competitive, so if you wait a semester to apply, you’re certainly not guaranteed to get a spot. I mean out of the 2 positions in Haas that I applied to, both had over 20 applicants and each position accepted 2 new undergrad researchers. Essentially, it’s important to at least apply right away so that you have more opportunities.</p>
<p>In my experience, it does actually involve research i.e. drafting IRB apps, running experiments/giving surveys to people in the lab, coding data, etc. That may or may not sound like grunt work to you, but running the experiments in the lab definitely makes everything seem really meaningful, interesting, and engaging. Oh, also, the reason I’m a psych major but doing research in Haas is because a lot of concepts/skills in psych really relate to the research I’m doing. Often the research in URAP will be in a different field than your major.</p>
<p>Ooh, Wada sounds perfect! I was most concerned about study time since it’s a pain to study in public places. And I love chalkboards, so I’d be taking the chalk for myself if I were there! </p>
<p>I was just going to edit my post to ask about researching in other fields, lol. These URAP tips are gold. Thanks!</p>
<p>Hey guys, i was just looking at the uc berkeley forum on cc when i ran across this thread; i’m taking 3rd year mathematics courses at uc berkeley and i just wanted to try to explain what studying at berkeley is like:</p>
<p>So i’m taking 12 upper-div units of math and its soo different from community college. the problem sets (homework) is no more that 3-4 problems per week per class, but each problem WILL take you a long time to understand. One course I’m in is abstract algebra (:: [MATH</a> 113 - Introduction To Abstract Algebra | Cal - University of California, Berkeley | MyEdu](<a href=“http://www.myedu.com/MATH-113-Introduction-To-Abstract-Algebra/course/s/445643/profile/]MATH”>http://www.myedu.com/MATH-113-Introduction-To-Abstract-Algebra/course/s/445643/profile/) ) which is rediculous; it took me 3-4 different books from the library to answer a single problem. The course load on the website says “medium” but its crazy, and i’m in the honors which is even more fun!</p>
<p>Attending the courses alone takes alot of energy, and its not nearly as mindless as cc was(for me, please don’t get upset!); sometimes i feel like i was reading an essay upside down when i leave these classes;</p>
<p>You will LOVE your proffesors; i have not met a proffesor at cal who has not shaped our world in such an amazing way, this semester:
one of my proffesors contributed so significantly to the world of cs: <a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/~ilya/interview/interview-local-copy.html[/url]”>http://math.berkeley.edu/~ilya/interview/interview-local-copy.html</a> )
another one won the Mcarther genius award, and another contributed to the work which won the Abel Prize (known as the noble prize in mathematics). get to know these guys beacuse they ARE AMAZING, and you will never have such easy access to such brilliant minds again in your life.
But please don’t get me wrong: berkeley is great and all of you will love it, REALLY, but just be prepared to study SOOOO MUCH when you get here. Community college is great, really: it helped me get my head on straight before going to a university and it helped instill those basic fundamentals, which i lacked in high school. But cc math DOES NOT prepare you for upper div math unfortunatly; berkeley lower div math students are introduced to rigorous proofs from day 1, but at cc i was never taught to prove anything in the math series. my best firends are eecs and physics majors and the upper div phyiscs labs ARE AMAZING, you guys will love them; but the “prove the #### law” in upper div phyiscs and eecs take getting use to and requires alot of problem sets.</p>
<p>when you finish a day at cal you feel soo “complete” (cheesy i kno!), there’s absolutly nothing better than trying your hardest at such abstract concepts that ALL MAJORS at cal have; all of you will love it, but just be prepared for the difference in type of lifestyle once at cal. One thing great about cal is that there is NEVER (this is in nooooo way a joke, there really is NEVERRRR) a day that does not challenge you in some way.</p>
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