<p>I currently go to Michigan and spontaneously decided to take a Chinese class at UCB or UCLA for the summer session. I figure both schools are similar in academics and I will learn a lot, so which would provide the better social atmosphere over the summer? (things to do, parties, people to meet) I hear it's pretty hard to get around on public transportation in LA.</p>
<p>If you stay in the dorms at either place you should have plenty of opportunities to meet people and have fun. UCLA is right next to Westwood, so you shouldn’t need a car to have fun.</p>
<p>UCLA is probably better for what you want</p>
<p>From Berkeley you can go anywhere in the Bay Area on public transportation, easily and fairly quickly. You can spend time in San Francisco, go hiking in the hills, you name it.</p>
<p>From UCLA you can take buses downtown, to the beach etc. but it takes longer,and you will probably spend a lot of time waiting.</p>
<p>I’m a parent, so I will defer to the younger posters re: social life.</p>
<p>I know Cal offers an intensive one year in one summer Chinese 1A-B course in summer. If your goal is to get the most Mandarin as possible in one summer, you should check if UCLA has a comparable program.</p>
<p>Berkeley coops= best parties.</p>
<p>Yeah I plan on living in a dorm, I will have finished my first year of Mandarin at Michigan going into the summer, and both UCB and UCLA offer an intensive second year Mandarin program. While learning more Chinese and living in California over the summer are obviously the two main reasons I’m going, if my parents are going to shell out $3,000 for this, I want to meet people, have fun, and play hard as well.</p>
<p>if you’re taking it for credit, you should probably know that berkeley is semester-based while ucla is quarter-based, probably matters when you’re transferring credits</p>