<p>It's very stressful,
because my parents and everyone I know want me to go to Berkeley,
because they say it's a better school than Johns Hopkins...</p>
<p>but I heard that it's really hard to get into classes
(I'm probably Econ/Math/Stat/BioChem major)</p>
<p>and that some classmates will 'sabotage' my lab setups.........
(I love everything else about it,
except for the 'hard-to-get-into-class' syndrome and the cut-throatness.
I'm thinking I want to go to Hopkins because I can't seem to find a fault.. so far.)</p>
<p>I do not want cut-throat atmosphere!! T__T</p>
<p>And now that my parents forced me to send in my SIR,
I hope Berkeley will rescind me cuz I want to go to Hopkins..</p>
<p>please convince me that Berkeley isn't so bad and cut throat...
cuz people make is sound like it is.......</p>
<p>My parents are paying the bill…so they get a big say in my decision.
(and I’m international, so I can’t get loans or pay for college by myself…
I hate to say it but I am completely dependant.)</p>
<p>I like everything about berkeley, except the two factors I mentioned
so no one’s going to … for example: sabotage my lab to throw me off or something?</p>
<p>I’m an intended bio major and I’ve gone through all the lower div prereqs except physics 8B so I’ve met tons of pre-meds. The courses definitely require you to work to get good grades and I definitely don’t feel any pressure from individuals around me. However, I am pre-med so most of the pressure comes from myself because I need to keep my GPA up. Having gone through the ochem labs and such, I haven’t been sabotaged - it’s more a bunch of students trying to get out of lab early so you kind of have to “compete” to get to the balances first or something. But aside from that, messing up on a lab setup for ochem doesn’t really screw up your grade - they understand that experiments can go wrong - you just need to explain what went wrong, what you can do better, etc. It also helps if you have close friends in your lab that you can work with.</p>
<p>As far as getting into classes, there will always be difficulty, especially with budget cuts. However, if you have a lot of AP credit and community college courses done, you can get earlier times, I am a junior-to-be and have tons of AP credit so my appointment to sign up for classes is the second day - which is earlier than some seniors! </p>
<p>Berkeley isn’t that bad - just come in with an open mind and you’ll probably grow to like it. Like most people say, Berkeley is what you make it - it really is up to the individual and what they choose to do with their time here.</p>
<p>I won’t be attend CalSO, so will I be taking all unwanted classes?
and the Budget cut doesn’t sound too cool either… </p>
<p>I really like Berkeley, I wish the atmosphere were less competitive.
But then again, I’ll be facing competition everywhere… so I should get used to it… <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>You might not get into all the classes you want for the first semester, but for the spring semester, everyone’s times are pretty much the same. The first sem doesn’t matter as much anyway since most people tend to take it easy to adjust to college.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that competitiveness depends on your major also - econ/bio will probably be more competitive than math/stats though I am not 100% sure on this, I have little knowledge of the math/stats dept and the major. Bio def. has a lot of premeds.</p>
<p>@stly
Wow I am very, very scared of the competiton…</p>
<p>I come from a very small, rural high school where no one really cares about College -__-;
So I got good grades / had good time without spending much time on homework, and I never had to worry about peer competition and such.</p>
<p>did Anybody else make this ‘transition’, and survived?
I’m scared that I’ll be flattened by all the ambitious/ competitive pre-meds…</p>
<p>Well, I haven’t had any trouble getting into classes I want so far and my telebears appoints (class picking times) have always been fairly late for some reason, but I’ve always gotten into the classes that I wanted in to. I like to think this is because I do a fairly good job of course planning. I’m gonna deny its hard to get all the classes you want immediately, but if you plan well, then you can get into all your classes just fine.</p>
<p>scared of sabotage during labs? well there’s a reason why test tubes and erlenmeyer flasks are made of glass…coughshankcough. </p>
<p>i really don’t think anyone’s gonna sabotage your lab station. like a previous post mentioned, some kids are just really ambitious and want to get the hell out of a 2-4 hour lab sesh that they’ll basically hog the ingredients forever. the more likely story of cut-throatness is that your classmates will reluctantly help you with concepts you might not know or such (the way I see it)</p>
<p>A long time ago they used to have too many saboteurs, so they reworked the 3AL and 3BL grading scale so that lab was no longer curved. (It is a strict scale grading)</p>
<p>Wow, Thanks everyone. HUGE Relief.
I HATE Curved grading… thank god</p>
<p>@Dill_Scout
Hmm… not much… but I live in Victoria (B.C., Canada) so I assume that Berkeley would be warm? (since Victoria is pretty warm too :))
but moving away to east seem like a pretty cool idea also.</p>
<p>How are the two areas?
(in terms of climate and crime rate)</p>
<p>Curved grading is your friend, or at least my friend.</p>
<p>Well, Berkeley is a windier but warmer version of Vancouver. The temperatues never drop below 0 and it never snows. The surroundings are hilly and green and there aren’t many skyscrapers around (earthquake region and all) so you feel that everything is more expansive. The campus is large but its pretty much all centralized in one region. Nearby is the city of SF and home to the US District Court of Appeals of the West Coast and the San Francisco Fed, which makes the region great for law and finance. Silicon Valley and many biotech/pharmaceutical companies are close by too so the region has many opportunities in technology, engineering, biology, chemistry, and so on and so forth. Behind the Berkeley campus itself, are several research facilities on the hill such as the Lawerence Berkeley National Labs, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and Silver Space Science Labs, which also offer research, internships, employment, etc. Berkeley has a moderately high crime rate crime rate I suppose, but its really not that bad if you are vigilant and sensible.</p>
<p>Baltimore, when I visited three years ago, was exceedingly humid even around April with random thunderstorms and showers, and my dad’s friend who we were staying with told me that it was below 0 in the winter and sometimes it snowed. The Johns Hopkins campus reminds me of an odd combination of the NYU and Columbia campuses as in it is both spread out throughout the city of Baltimore (NYU) but distinct from the city at the same time (Columbia). The main campus is nice, quaint, and pastoral and separated from the city of Baltimore, but there are parts of campus in downtown Baltimore that are completely surrounded by urban skyscrapers. It’s incredible close to DC so this is a great location if you’re interested in American politics or history, and even closer to Bethesda, which is great if you’re interested in working/interning for the NIH and other national health and medical agencies. However, downtown Baltimore is rather known for gang violence though the location of the main campus is somewhat safer. </p>
<p>Comparatively, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins are probably about equally safe (if we average the safeness of all the portions of Johns Hopkins campuses). Berkeley is probably more similar in whether to Vancouver than Baltimore. Berkeley is slightly more liberal than Johns Hopkins. The cultures of the two locations are also quite different. The hippie culture can be pretty apparent at some parts of Berkeley still while I felt traces of the Antebellum South ([Antebellum</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antebellum_South]Antebellum”>Antebellum South - Wikipedia)) ingrained deeply in the culture of Baltimore and its surrounding region. My first thoughts on seeing Johns Hopkins’ main campus was that this must have been some wealthy Anglo-Saxon plantation owner’s estate. Johns Hopkins offers great opportunities if you have a desire to join the government and prefer to do things more traditionally whereas Berkeley offers more opportunities in industry and is more interested in your potential for innovation.</p>
