<p>His username will remain anonymous for his protection.</p>
<p>rofl (10 char)</p>
<p>lolol…it’s not really a secret that I dislike Berkeley</p>
<p>wow that is pretty terrible.</p>
<p>“I haven’t been to Berkeley, but just from reading this website’s forums I also hold the belief that UCLA is a better school, haha. I will go there over Berkeley.”</p>
<p>pretty sure more than 50% of the posts he read on this forum were yours anyway. why this bitter?</p>
<p>because it’s not worth it. Berkeley has been said to have great academics but most of the education that comes out of here is from a $200 textbook, a 50 minute discussion, and an exam to make sure you have understood the material. At the graduate level, i have little to no doubt that the education received is world class but for us undergrads (who supply the bulk of financial support), the education has been sub par. The amount that we are asked to pay each semester is quadruple what those kids at community college are paying. And for what? a chance to learn out of a textbook with hopes that we can get a 50% on the next midterm. The weather is terrible 85-90% of the days. The city is horrendous, the residents (non-students) are irritating, the dining is acceptable, the students are generally in a rush to go somewhere, the surrounding area is unsafe, the housing is worse than most college cities (let alone one’s in the top 20 or the other UC’s). It’s just a mediocre experience here and college should be more than perceived academics…it should be enjoyable.</p>
<p>and the comment about “no hot chicks at Berkeley” is not really a legitimate reason to dislike it, it makes you seem adolescent and infantile…</p>
<p>Pop quiz -</p>
<p>Would you rather go to Berkeley for four years and get a well-respected degree, or end up in a filthy Syrian jail for writing anti-government cartoons?</p>
<p>For exactly two people, this was a very real decision that they had to make.</p>
<p>its true Berkeley is seriously lacking in the babes department, but if you lower your standards and use your imagination, you should be just fine : )</p>
<p>UG academic here really isn’t that great. Been 3 semesters and I haven’t learned anything that I wasn’t already exposed to in HS.</p>
<p>lower and upper divs are really different. i promise you that problem will not exist by next semester.</p>
<p>i think the quality of education is pretty good here actually, although it’s not like i’ve audited courses at other universities or anything…</p>
<p>yeah berkeley sucks, LOL</p>
<p>jk :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>These describe intro classes, which should be the least defining ones in one’s college experience. To judge the academics at Berkeley based on these is naive in an almost unbelievable way.</p>
<p>I’m sympathetic to frustrations, don’t get me wrong, but really I’m hoping these are just that and not actual conclusions people are drawing, which would be failure.</p>
<p>“but that isnt reason enough to be like “hurr durr berkeley sucks its not my fault my life sucks, it berkeleeeee””</p>
<p>LOL to the hurr durr : P</p>
<p>what’s the difference in weather like?</p>
<p>also, when i visited berkeley [for like an afternoon], there was this awesome hippie area;i adored it–it was like walking through a time machine in to the '60s 
mmm, maybe a bit exaggerated in my head, but does anyone know the area name? or is it just downtown? lol. are those who people refer to as the hobos? D:</p>
<p>Audited ugrad lectures at Caltech for two years back in high school (worked in an on-campus lab, needed to learn a thing or two about what I was doing). Lower division courses suck compared to courses at Caltech, but upper division courses, while much different in style than those at Caltech, are extremely good in terms of academics and definitely comparable to courses at Caltech. Maybe it’s just the CS department, but if you watch webcasts from MIT and Stanford, you’ll see that courses taught on-campus have similar style and similar content to those top schools. </p>
<p>Simply put, lower division courses are not representative of academics at Berkeley.</p>
<p>In short, Berkeley isn’t for everyone.</p>
<p>there is a lot of truth to the fact that lower division classes are vastly different from upper division ones but the important classes that most student need to take are in the lower division classes. For example, many students are premed and for them: Bio 1A/L/B, Chem 1A/3A/L/3B/L, Physics 8A/8B, and math are all huge courses that will drastically effect any chance they have of gaining admission to medical school. But what I am saying is that in retrospect, I would have dolled out some extra money to a private or opted to go to the #2 public university for a better college experience.</p>
<p>^^ OK, in this case your message can be made more accurate by prefacing “it’s not worth it for premeds” – if you’re prelaw, you have tons of flexibility, and if you’re trying to get into grad (not professional) school, they throw out your lower division work. </p>
<p>While plenty of students are premeds, it’s absurd to think everyone reading posts is premed.</p>
<p>that’s not exactly the point. What I’m saying is that the level of education found at Berkeley could be just as easily be found at UCLA or a private of similar caliber. The point is that beyond the academics, beyond one’s future plans for a career, and the assumed prestige, the life that one will have a Berkeley is not as enjoyable as one they could potentially have at another university.</p>