<p>I’ll take my swing at this and offer my experiences/explanations:</p>
<p>-hobos: I liked the colorful, by choice hobos like Huck Finn and the Crow Lady, but they disappeared at some point when I was at school and then we just got sad, creepy hobos. 
-hippies: I liked the real hippies who were laid back and could chew the fat without getting in your face about stuff and offer insightful views that were way out there. It was the fake hippies that ticked me off.
-druggies: Ya, they can be annoying, but most are harmless.
-smokers: If you hate smokers, I would advise against studying abroad or going anywhere outside of California. And as far as pot? I’d rather deal with a pothead than a drunk.
-thugs: Urban environment. Berkeley is sandwiched between Richmond and Oakland, consistently rated in the top 10 of Forbes’ Most Dangerous Cities in America. There will be many many thugs. Unless you are talking about middle-class suburban kids who think they’re thugs, then yes. They are really annoying.
-telegraph: Yea, Telegraph is kinda gross. But it’s a college town and I liked Fat Slice.
-protests: There’s plenty to protest right now. However, our protesters protest stupid stuff. Always have since the 1970s, always will.
-politics: It’s a liberal city. A very, very, off-kiltered, so far to the left, as to be off of the mainland liberal city, so yea, the politics can be pretty shrill and nonsensical. There are people there that make Obama look like a radical conservative on his most liberal days.
-ugly buildings: Evans Hall comes to mind. The stuff on the South End of Campus is beautiful though in its own way.
-crowed lecture hall: Big University.
-crazies that shout “The end of the world is coming mann, you’ve been warned!” while waiting at Jamba for my Mango-A-Go-Go: Well, 2012 is coming up…
-the overcompensation for nerdyness in high school: Wait… I thought this was just an extension of high school. You mean I actually went to college? Not some weird high school that grants Bachelors Degrees? How can you overcompensate for nerdyness in high school when you have a bunch of kids trying to recapture high school w/o supervision as ‘popular’ kids. Let’s face it. College has basically become Grades 13, 14, 15, 16. I hear Grad School is no better.</p>
<p>-the fact that every English professor dresses like a Physics professor and that every Physics professor dresses like an Afghani refugee: The physics professors are Afghani Refugees maybe? Okay, seriously, PC police, don’t jump down my throat, but there are a lot of foreigners in the science departments. Have a sense of humor. In perfect honesty, I did not notice a lot of this, but I enjoyed the ethnic flair some of my professors had. <em>Shrugs</em></p>
<p>-waitlists: Big school. Gonna happen. Go in with high standing and chances of this get greatly reduced. Unfortunately, you also start getting called about donations and graduation gifts sooner.
-telebears: Satan.
-bspace (it’s not bad but it’s far from good): No idea what this is. Might not have existed.
-departments posting broken links: I blame this on the staff. They really din’t give too craps about the students, let’s face it. And if you shot them back an email asking for the right one, they either ignored it or got back to you and told you to be ‘pro-active’ on your own time.
-the lack of intelligence I was expecting from my peers: I actually thought my high school peers were smarter than a lot of people I met at Berkeley. The disgustingly willful ignorance and close-mindedness of some of the students was actually quite appalling. There were a few bright minds there, but they were really difficult to find and often kept to themselves or tried to bring themselves down to the level of the plebes by drinking heavily.
-the fear of getting hit by a car, bike, or earthquake: I’m more scared of the rain than any of that and that’s not saying much, as I am not afraid of the rain at all. If getting hit by cars and bikes worries you, don’t do the ‘berkeley walk’. Earthquakes? You are gonna have to deal with the off chance of that regardless of where you are unless you want to move to a tectonically dead world like Mars. Even the moon has quakes.
-the starving hobos that walk around with starving dogs: Some of those dogs are treated better, better trained, and better fed than some of the dogs the rich have.
-the terrible options for transportation: Yea. AC transit sucks, Muni is a joke, and BART has serious issues. Owning a car is a huge pain in the butt.
-the fact that you can see San Fransisco from Berkeley but it takes you 1 hour 30 minutes to actually get there: Again, this has to do with BART and AC transit.
-peoples park: Yea. Despite what everyone might think, that is government property, and it used to be a decent park, but has long since become a creepy hobo camp. It’s urban blight. Not a park.
-everyone who doesn’t live in California thinks that UC Merced is a prestigious satellite campus of UC Berkeley that Michelle Obama gave a speech at: Hey, if I’d have taken Michelle Obama over Danny Glover at my Convocation. Danny Glover refused to come because of the UC Workers strike and crossing the picket line. The thing was, is the picket line was nowhere near the Greek Theater. I had to get a half-assed, but brilliant speech, from Birgeneau rather than a half-assed speech from Glover. I’d love to get a speaker at the school that isn’t an idealogue or who won’t get shouted down and abused by idealogues.
-primentel hall at 8:00 in the morning: It’s Pimer.
-primentel hall at 6:00 at night: See above.
-the unhelpfulness of the administrative faculty: Yea. You have to file an arcane, undecipherable bureaucratic form to get a class you need to graduate on time and the office closes in 10 minutes, meanwhile, one of the clerks sits there regailing her coworker of her exploits at the club the night before and are told to wait. Then the 10 minutes runs out, they close down and you have to spend another semester at Cal. Thank you, you lazy bureaucrats.
-counselors who tell you to talk to your major adviser: Yep. More lazy paper-pushers who don’t want to do their jobs and just pull a paycheck.
-major advisers who tell you to talk to your counselor: Oh yea. More lazy paper-pushers who don’t want to do their jobs and just pull a paycheck.
-the 20th century computers in the library: …it’s a state school. We’re lucky to even have microcomputers in the library. We’re lucky to have computers at all that aren’t punch-card mainframes.
-CARS: Never dealt with it. Was too rich for financial aid.
-BART: Crappy transit.
-DARS: No idea what that is, never dealt with it.
-pre-med gunners: They’re pre-meds. Best to just ignore them. They volunteered for a life of misery.
-art history majors: I dated one. Fiend in the sack but a headache and a half to be around. Though if you could find one that wasn’t too insufferable, you could have some interesting convos about art and culture.
-the fact that it costs almost as much to go to a private school but with double the students, half the talent, a quarter of the opportunities, and triple the work: And is an extension or redux of high school for a lot of them.</p>
<p>-triple the work for 20% less GPA: I know your pain and it makes me afraid to apply to graduate school because then I’ll get rejected from a comparable level school to my alma mater, forcing me into a lower tier one or not get admitted at all and get the same obnoxious lecture from my parents about how I should have studied harder and how I don’t like school… here’s my logic: Grad School wouldn’t even be an -option- if I didn’t like school. I wouldn’t have gone to Cal if I didn’t like school. I didn’t like -high school-. I didn’t even get to go to college. I went to a high school that grants bachelors.
-Mark G. Yudof: No idea who this guy is.
-dorms that are comparable to prison cells: The Units are unpleasant, but livable. Clark Kerr is nice, if you get decent roommates. I did not. Foothill is what it is, and Bowles/Stern – oh well. You’re a college student. Not a freakin’ heir. Get over it. They could be nicer, but that’s life.
-rent is expensive and buildings in the area are old and ugly: And the landlords are pretty uniformly crooked.
-hobos going through your trash: I like to see them as the recycling service.
-the absence of laughter and joy (probably left around the same time William Hung did): I got some funny stories about William Hung, but he’s actually a pretty nice kid. People seem to be too stressed out to enjoy themselves. If they aren’t, don’t get attached. They’ll fail out soon enough.
-the only way to enjoy yourself is by intoxication: Yea. I remember going out to Kips a few times and seeing several people sitting alone with two pitchers next to them. By the time I left, a third one was polished off and I had not seen a friend or drinking buddy in the entire time I was there. I, too, got smashed regularly because it was the only way to get rid of my throbbing stress headache and deaden the anxiety for awhile. Though the headache I would wake up with would be as bad or worse. 
-the weather: I liked the weather. A touch cooler than SoCal and just a little bit rainier.
-everyone seems to be in a rush (probably to go home and get hammered): Yea, that’s actually pretty accurate. Yea, I was a Greek, but I remember people sitting there drinking heavily because they had a bad feeling about their mid-term. Then a few days later, they’d get it back and drink whether they did well or not. I think Cal has a secret substance abuse problem.
-hobos that scream at you: Ignored them for the most part.
-the unhelpful guy that works at the career center: I think I know who you are talking about. He was a serious d-bag.
-the people who work at the career center giving “career advice”: Yea. I got told that I had a “Golden Ticket” to any job I wanted because I have a “marketable” Cal Degree. Some career advice. :P</p>
Haha, yeah, this sounds a little over the top, but coming from someone who is out-of-state and a small-ish town… the lure of Berkeley as a refreshingly young (young vibe/people), eclectic, diverse, and super-involved college town is awesome! Plus you all have to admit that the campus, the buildings, the Campanile, etc. are all friggin gorgeous</p>