<p>Berkeley has awesome weather (ignoring the epic storms we had like a week ago).
Berkeley has San Francisco cable cars to shuttle you around campus (...can we really afford this?)
Berkeley is fun.
Most everyone is happy at Berkeley. </p>
<p>Discuss.</p>
<hr>
<p>I gave tours around the College of Engineering and gave honest answers when asked about classes and environment...I think I may have turned off one kid in particular, who was trying to decide between Cal and UCLA (my exact position last year).</p>
<p>We went to Cal Day today and it was great. The weather WAS awesome. We saw the cable cars. We had so much fun seeing museums and offices that are normally off-limits. There were thousands of people there, and most of them seemed pretty happy.</p>
<p>One bummer: the Museum of Paleontology tickets were all distributed by the time we stopped by the booth, less than an hour after they started giving them out.</p>
<p>I think honest answers are what people want to hear. Honestly, Berkeley is amazing and so was Cal Day.</p>
<p>Cal Day takes place on the south side opening to campus, and in the general vicinity. Go to Evans Hall and there ain’t any Cal Day happening. I find the south side of campus is like a theme park for the most part anyway, and not so with the north side.</p>
<p>Not that people on the north side aren’t super friendly and everything – just that it’s not the same kind of friendly and general bustle.</p>
<p>@icesplendor: You did the right thing by being honest. If someone hears the real story and wants to come here, then that’s great for them because their reasons for wanting to come might be better-grounded. I also got tired of schools telling all their admits how great we were and I found it somewhat presumptuous of students whose most convincing points relied on the brand name of the school.</p>
<p>I’ve actually convinced students to come by telling it how it is - if you’re good, you’ll do well here and get something out of your four years here that you wouldn’t find at a lot of other places. A large school means there are many opportunities but it also means that if you’re a sinker, don’t waste your time with the swimmers. How hard you want to swim is up to you but you can always find new challenges here.</p>
<p>REALLY?!?! Its Cal Day! You swear like it was suppose to imitate a real day in the day of a Cal student. FYI I dont think people assume that we have oskiland everyday. Its a festival! It’s like going to New Orleans on Mardi Gras and assuming that there are parades and people flashing their jugs everyday, every night, every second.</p>
<p>Berkeley had amazing weather. Much better than that of San Jose’s. In fact, my family and I noticed the sky becoming less and less cloudier as we headed towards Berk.</p>
<p>I noticed the cable cars. They looked pretty cool.</p>
<p>Berkeley was sort of fun. I ventured a lot around Sproul Hall, since I didn’t bother doing any activities related to my major.</p>
<p>People looked happy at Berk, lol</p>
<p>Fun great day. Got a sweater at Bancroft for only 20 bucks…pretty good deal.</p>
<p>The great icesplendor was there during Cal Day? Dang it, wanted to say hi, lol</p>
<p>Oh, it was Cal Day? I didn’t realize because I spent all day studying in Soda. Damn, already the third time I missed it! But that explains the crowds I saw when walking home…</p>
<p>The prospective students that honestly believe Cal Day’s hullabaloo is a representation of a typical Saturday on campus, they shouldn’t have been admitted to Cal.</p>
<p>i remembered after cal day 2 years ago, people were talking about how berkeley goggles was just a stupid rumor… until they accepted the SLR and came back for caltopia</p>
<p>well first off…it took me like 2 minutes to figure out what ur post meant lol</p>
<p>but i went to OHP and cal day…annd cal day kinda sucked. well idk its kool to get free stuff i guess? but OHP realllyyy set it up for me. i LOVE berkeley now : ]] i’ll post a longer thread on OHP, but i think cal day doesn’t really give u the experience like OHP becuz its a buncha booths set up to give info about clubs and all that…it doesn’t really help u decide if u “like” it. anyways…that probably has nothing to do with ur post…or maybe it does? idk bye!</p>
<p>However, I didn’t feel that OHP was much better than Cal Day. OHP was nice because I got to connect with kids from all over the place, but it wasn’t anything very special. I felt OHP was not very well organized, but that’s just a part of the university experience. I think Cal Day better demonstrated the whole “it’s what you make of it” mentality, because you weren’t goaded on by the school and given all the info; you really had to fish it out yourself.</p>
<p>… but yeah, I like Cal, and my opinion of it hasn’t been swayed at all by attending the OHP -i’m just better acquainted with the university and it’s buildings and their location. I didn’t feel like I got anything very special or powerful enough to really sway me out of OHP/Cal Day.</p>
<p>lol yeah i guess my answer’s are kinda biased because i made friends really quickly and kinda just hung out with them/followed our group. but maybe, if it weren’t for them, i might’ve hated it. but the people i met through OHP were sooo nice–like the hosts and all that. it kinda showed me what people are like, what they do daily, and the type of food/shops/school they have. but yeah i gotta sleep ttyl</p>
<p>"Cal is just so social and inclusive and it’s really similar to the type of people in San Francisco… just hella hella hellaaaaa chill.</p>
<h2>Why did I ever feel that cal was gloomy, gray, and incredibly drab? Maybe I just went on a bad day. The people there make up for the incompetent bay area weather. There’s so much life and spirit on campus, and dude…today was just a Saturday. Imagine it during the weekdays with students all around campus… i cannot, cannot, cannot wait to be a part of it :)"</h2>
<p>^That came from someone from my high school who attended Cal Day. It sounds like she was convinced that because Cal Day was awesome, her days at Berkeley will be awesome. Cute. Should I correct her thinking…maybe those gloomy and drab days are more usual than she’d think.</p>
<p>The cable cars. Just for funsies? Does it really have anything to do with Cal, or do they only serve as a hard reminder that San Francisco is close by? Because being close to a tourist city during your college years is important, right? (Totally not a factor for me, since I had already spent my life there. I wanted to get away, hence UCLA’s pull.)</p>
<p>The kid I talked to during one of my tours asked, why don’t I transfer to UCLA, since I’ve found that I don’t really like it here? But the truth is, I just never decided where I should go. I still don’t know. Hence, it’s more convenient for me to stay now that I’m already here. I also said to him, if I had been rejected from UCLA, I’d probably have little/no regret going to Cal.
Perhaps I’m just a horribly indecisive person who loves to complain. It’s like the only thing that keeps me from saying “I love Berkeley” is the thought that I could have gone to SoCal… (P.S. If you really think you’re better off getting a job out of Cal vs out of UCLA…don’t believe that is 100% true.)</p>
<p>Honestly, I never visited Cal before Calso. And I came here with an open mind. I still don’t know whether I made the right choice. And you really should put your friend into reality.</p>
<p>I definitely had a lot of fun, although I was mostly on North Side. </p>
<p>I may be one of the few who thought it was too hot yesterday, I hope it isn’t like that everyday. Especially in the dorms, and in the labs, it was fairly uncomfortable. Assuming it rains much more frequently I will be very happy.</p>
<p>Cal Day was awesome, especially for gaining information. I totally revised my intended class schedule for both the summer and freshman semesters after talking to advisors, other EECS majors, people doing EECS with minors and double majors in areas I’m interested in, and an overall great vibe of the department.</p>
<p>Unfortunately I now have to make decisions about my courses. Should I take certain ones in the summer or get awesome professors during the year? Should I take it easy during the summer and fall semesters, or should I take all of the exciting classes (and risk damaging my GPA). The last seminar and the panel for EECS really helped me narrow down what I will do, but some part of me still wants to take 20 units from the start.</p>
<p>Overall Cal Day was awesome, the people were extremely helpful, the campus was awesome (great locations of buildings, only downside is the gym is far away from Foothill and Foothill doesnt’ have a weight room), and the environment was great. I can’t wait to start classes and do research and internships.</p>