<p>lolololol, why do you hate Cal and are dropping out?</p>
<p>you know, in all honesty, college IS what you make of it. you’re not going to like it here if you just want to study all the time. because let’s face it, berkeley curves are no fun. but you WILL like it here if you want to have an active social life. join in a few clubs, get involved in school, and i guarantee you, you will be happy here. i don’t know where you’re finding all these hypocritical people, but i’m pretty happy with the friends i’ve made here. the food is yummy and there’s always things to do. you’ll get used to the hobos. avoiding them is like second nature now. im very happy at cal. if you come in with the expectation that you’ll hate it here, of course you won’t like it. but you really need to make an effort to meet people, and your college experience will take off from there.</p>
<p>i didn’t even know people hated berkeley until i saw this thread. everyone i know loves it here.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree ^. I didn’t think anyone hated it either!</p>
<p>I don’t like half the kids I’ve met that go to the school (that’s 1.5 years worth of meeting new people and I’ve met a buttload). And an active social life is not synonymous with happiness.</p>
<p>MyLifeisAverage.com </p>
<p>:) Keeps me happy.</p>
<p>To Batman – Perhaps try different places. College is full of different groups of people, perhaps more useful a characterization than that taking into account differences among individuals. I found I liked different groups of people than the ones I first met.</p>
<p>Errrrr I actually think that liking half the people you’ve met is pretty good! Let’s assume you met 20 people and you like 10 of them and become good friends with 2-3… That’s pretty good. I think sometimes people are so caught up with the quantity of friends that they forgot about the quality. I mean, who has hella best friends anyways? No one has 100 best friends >_<.</p>
<p>Chairman Meow
[SWHarborfan: When has a 97% in physics ever yielded a B+? Which physics class is this?! That is pretty ridiculous considering all the physics classes I’ve ever taken (7 series) had around a 65/100 average on tests.]</p>
<p>Mid-80s. There was an enormous hew and a cry; kids (a lot from Lowell high school in San Francisco) headed, en masse, to the physics dept. chair about a lot of them missing an A-, which was a 98%. I don’t know how the series has been renumbered or not (but this was in the required, lower division, Physics series for Engineering (not Life Sciences) Sciences. Furthermore, it was a series with the designation H (for honors) in front of it–e.g. H6A, H6B, etc.–as I said, I don’t know what the designation is for the series, now. Grading may have become “kinder” since then, although I hear not.</p>
<p>
Oh, just to clarify, I didn’t mean the Bay Area has no good food (Though I still believe that LA is superior in that aspect). I’m sure there are good places in SF and other ares, but even not on Telegraph or the surrounding area (that’s where I live).</p>
<p>
Yes, that’s a good point. I wasn’t comparing to Westwood specifically, but more to the greater LA area. When I lived in LA it was normal for me to leave Westwood almost every day (don’t get me wrong, I love Westwood too). However, here in Berkeley it feels like SF is like a day-trip away. I’m quite sure why this is, maybe my perspective is just skewed or I’m too busy and don’t have time to go.</p>
<p>
A Japanese sushi place with a Korean owner who eats his own lunch at the Korean place next to him. A Korean “Ramen” (!) place that recycles Shin Bowl Noodles to make their ramen, and a Korean BBQ place with only mexican workers and no Koreans whatsoever. I don’t even wanna start about the quality of the Chinese place. And most restaurants in Berkeley I’ve been to are exactly like that (that’s what I mean by authentic). The Thai place and Boba store (Quickly, not Sweetheart cafe) are decent though =) However, eating there every day is getting boring too.</p>
<p>
Yes, but they’re about the same quality as above-mentioned ;)</p>
<p>
Same here.</p>
<p>And I’m not the only one who is saying that, most of my international friends agree with me on the food point. Seems like I really need to go to SF more often!</p>
<p>“People are different”
Hm, they’re not less friendly than LA people but they seem very focused on school. When in LA I asked someone to do whatever (go out to eat, go to beach, etc), I get a “yes” (or at least a “how abt tomorrow or day after”) 80% of the time. In Berkeley it’s the other way round. 80% of the time I get “Oh, I have a midterm/quiz”, “Oh I really need to finish this assignment”, or no answer at all and a message 6 days later “sorry, I was busy with school”. </p>
<p>Also, this might just be my illusion though, but are people at Berkeley on average younger than people a UCLA? I’m meeting tons of underage people here, which is a problem since I like to go out to drink. Yes, I realize that most college students are underage but at UCLA I somehow seemed to meet a lot of older people.</p>
<p>SWHarborfan: I can’t speak for the other physics classes but the ones I’ve taken (the one for “scientists and engineers”) don’t have nearly as harsh a curve as the one you’ve described. I remember my physics professor stating that the curve is set so that the average gpa is set to around a 2.7 and 2/3rds of the class get A’s or B’s of some sort. The tests are fairly difficult so a 97% usually nets you an A+. Perhaps it’s only in the honors series, which are probably full of motivated physics majors, where the professor has to resort to such harsh grading.</p>
<p>^Physics 7A does that, average grade is a B. 27% gets A’s of some sort. It is still harder than you’d think just because a lot of the people in the class already knows mechanics pretty well, and the applications of basic principles really test your understanding of the concepts versus memorization of problem types, which high school seems to focus on. In that sense, it’s pretty hard.</p>
<p>I think the majority of the people at Cal are happy. No offense but I think the people here who aren’t probably won’t be happy in any competitive school. They need to realize that others here are just as smart/if not smarter than they are, and just suck it up and work hard. Whining about the school’s problems/harsh curves are not going to change anything. Nobody is forced to enroll here, and if Berkeley is not what they thought it was, then that’s their fault for not doing their research beforehand.</p>
<p>^^ Spoken like a wise animal with webbed feet.</p>
<p>food.</p>
<p>The food is surprisingly good I think, I am from Asia and it is close to impossible to find authentic Asian food anywhere in the U.S. but I actually think Berkeley had done a pretty good job for their prices. (note: I have not been to LA before, and I am not known to whine over not having enough choices.)</p>
<p>Grades.</p>
<p>Well I am a Freshmen, so I will not claim that anything I say is true, but I am getting the feeling that Berkeley likes to knock you down. Then, you either learn to dust yourself off and get back up, or you sit on the floor whining. Most people thing they are smart before they get here, then they take a Chem 1A or math 1B midterm, suddenly they realise they will have to start working hard or they complain Berkeley is hard. Then you have a decision to make, do you study more and play less, get better grades possibly at the expense of enjoying college, or do you try and have fun in college, but end up with a GPA around 3 or less.
I think that Berkeley is maybe the best school to get students used to the real world (once again I have seen more of the Asian side), but from what I know people are busy. </p>
<p>When ppl are busy, they tend to think about themselves most of the time and care less about others. So, I do not think the working world is particularly friendly or easy to compete with. </p>
<p>However, thanks to Berkeley (I am assuming I will graduate) I am confident that in the future making friends in a hostile competitive environment will become second nature.</p>
<p>Also, I have come to realise that I tend to make closer friends when we suffer together, so if one does not try to be a loner, generally you will make friends and through the suffering (not quite as bad as it sounds) will from a bond of friendship that should withstand the test of time.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Quite true.</p>
<p>I chose to trade in ‘happiness’ for a 3.8+ GPA a long time ago. Now, on the brink of graduation, I’m glad I did.</p>
<p>probably a tough choice i need to make, having fun is not hard for me, working hard, now that i need to work on</p>
<p>Mathboy, glad to have your approval, as always :)</p>
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</p>
<p>I knew what that was like, back in high school. So at the beginning of freshman year, I decided maybe I should consider my happiness before grades. Then I ended up trading my soul in order to not fail my finals… and I’m glad I did, because winter break is just better knowing that I didn’t slack off beforehand, that I earned my time to relax.</p>
<p>You dont have to “achieve” happiness. </p>
<p>Happiness is your nature, and the “story” in your head is what makes you unhappy.</p>
<p>Self-esteem works the same way</p>
<p>:) 
:)</p>
<p>Absolutely, duck. </p>
<p>And you’re right, collegeboss. That’s a message I believe in too.</p>
<p>If you did IB in high school then you wouldn’t even be complaining about how hard Berkely is.</p>
<p>I believe in working hard then drinking to forget I did in the first place. It’s worked out pretty well, so far. My own ****ed up version of happiness.</p>