<p>Hello fellow Trojans,
I am a spring admit who's currently doing her studies 1st semester at UC Berkeley. Bio major and fine arts minor. For the past couple of months, I have been more than loving pretty much EVERYTHING about UC Berkeley. I won't go on and rave too much about Cal, but I have to say that I am in love with Cal's Multicultural Bridges Recruitment and Retention Centers, especially about the current political aspects regarding SB185, AB 130/131, and the recent Occupy movement. I truly enjoy the student's liberalism here. We always outreach to other underprivileged high schools, advocating higher education and also bring them here to Berkeley for a weekend, which I find highly amazing; I always had a soft spot for preaching about education to the underprivileged/under resourced.</p>
<p>So I'm wondering, how does USC compare to Berkeley in this aspect? I understand that USC is not a UC and therefore not affected by SB185/tuition hike, but I have a strong passion for these and feel I can freely speak my mind through actions at Berkeley (protests yay!). I also realize that USC has their own multicultural centers, but is it as strong as Berkeley's? I mean, do we outreach and also house hs students at USC for a couple days?</p>
<p>Looking as USC's side, I am also interested in their video game minor, and plan to double minor in that and 2D studies. USC's alumni network is also amazing and it can truly benefit me in the future (especially in this economy) but I feel like I would have more experiences at Cal. In addition, I really dislike Berkeley's "cutthroat"-ness and I have a really low GPA because of it (go pre-meds, ughh) and I believe that USC would help me more in terms of education since it's private, but I haven't personal stories about this yet. To be honest I really only want to stay here for one more semester but I can't do that since USC doesn't allow it for their spring semester. So this is now a matter of staying for four years at either school; and I really don't want to go through the transferring process again for personal reasons.</p>
<p>I've had PLENTY of Berkeley friends (and made really close friends here) trying to persuade me to stay and it's slightly working, but it's unfair because I haven't given USC a chance. So, please, if you all can, enlighten me about USC! (on another note I don't really care TOO much about school pride/greek orgs/parties/etc; I'm just mainly focused on outreaching and higher accessible education in terms of extracurriculars.)
FYI I'm not too sure about my future; I may go into the sciences or into art/game production, so... </p>
<p>To withdraw from Cal or to withdraw from USC, that is the question.</p>
Then why would you leave? This would be a discussion if you had not yet attended either school and both were filled with unknowns, but you already know that you love Berkeley. You might love USC just as much (or even more), but it is more likely that any and all tiny problems or setbacks would be magnified by your regret over leaving a school you already know that you love.</p>
<p>It is time to jump in to Berkeley with both feet and let go of USC.</p>
<p>I think you should stay. I agree with everything alamemom said. You don’t have to give USC a chance. Most people don’t have the opportunity to test-drive another school, and you’ve been very lucky. </p>
<p>I think Cal is a great school, and if you love it with that much enthusiasm, why leave?</p>
<p>To me, its a real toss up. Ill start with the cons of you coming to USC. </p>
<p>I doubt that you’d find yourself as comfortable at USC as you seem to be at UC Berkley. Berkley is heavily liberal; USC is split 50/50. You’ll meet die hard republicans just as often as bleeding heart liberals. That’s one reason the Occupy movement failed here: that doesn’t work when only 50% agrees with you, and a small fraction of that will join you. </p>
<p>You also said that you don’t care about sports or school spirit, but thats an integral part of being a USC student. Now, you can ignore all that stuff, but you’d be missing out on a lot. Just for an example, and because you mentioned Occupy Berkley, this last week (from the USC-Oregon game until USC-UCLA) Tommy Trojan and the Campus Center have been camped out by students. These students were on Tommy watch, protecting the statue and showing school pride. This went on 24/7. Occupy USC, on the other hand, lasted maybe 2 days, and didn’t ever reach a night shift. </p>
<p>That said, USC offers much more than Berkley in terms of outreach to at-risk community. We never bus in or house at-risk kids, mainly because the at-risk neighborhoods we work with are within walking distance, not even 5 minutes away. I live across the street from a low-income elementary school. You’d probably have more opportunity to work with outreaching at USC than any where else. </p>
<p>why would you consider leaving Cal, which is a much higher rated school unless you didn’t like it? If you look into almost all majors, Berkeley is in the top ten. I’m sure you can get find a major that would work for 2D and video game design there, and the sciences are top rate. Yes, it is cut throat, and they definitely will not hold your hand, but I think there is still a ton of support from national and international communities for a Cal grad. If you are happy there, I’d stay.</p>
<p>I don’t think she should have left Cal based on her original post. Both colleges are great but it seems that OP has already jumped into Cal life and is living it up - why would someone change at that time? I am interested as well as to where she decided to study for spring.</p>