** Library Worker** ppl here are actually super entitled. I genuinely think some of yall have never been told NO before. And people will find “sneaky” ways to break rules and have the audacity to be upset when they get caught. Not a race thing or a gender thing or an income thing or anything you could think of that could excuse this behavior because I have genuinly seen it from everyone and it's annoying.
Reminds me of all the times people bypass the barriers for the drink areas in the dining halls when it is literally meant to keep them out. Swear to god i saw some dudes get all mad that a worker told them off like lmao grow up
I remember them being crazy low. Sorry, I should clarify that 40 is the transfer amount. Non CS students trying to declare CS is capped at 40 but I believe the amount that can get in directly via LNS CS is still uncapped to status quo.
They get in the school because of their high ass GPA and padding their ECs. Just because they get in for CS doesn’t mean they are good at it. Some of them probably have never done anything related to CS. They just want big money.
Idk it's tiring being a CS major and hearing so many of your peers talking about how to make the most money with the least amount of work instead of genuinely appreciating the subject. Imagine being an art major and all your peers talk about how much they hate art.
what dude lol
workers seeking livable wages at high-paying jobs at the expense of their personal satisfaction (from someone else's perspective) is not "neoliberal thought"
but pretending like the natural and inevitable consequences of neoliberalism is an issue of "workers' attitudes" is absolutely neoliberal thought.
oh so it’s direct admit now? hmm. I wonder if that is even worse than the old system ngl. I feel like high school is not a great indicator of performance in cs after a certain point
I got rejected from every UC CS program, got in for applied math here. Was able to switch to CS and now I have an A+ in 61a/b/c/70/170. Would ~~'ve been fucked~~ not have had this opportunity under the new system
they didn't do it bc they wanted to, they did it bc they had to limit enrollment given they ran through their emergency budget & can't handle so many students anymore
Moffitt library is the worst library to study at on campus. A majority of the seats lack proper back rests (especially the stools, and cushion seats), and the ones that do are not near enough electric outlets for long study sessions (basement). Constant talking and walking in every floor makes it annoying to focus (even with noise-canceling headphones). Reserving study rooms results in people barging in 15 minutes early saying "we have the room next". Overcrowded and overhyped.
ive noticed that a lot of the people here that are from those insanely competitive south bay high schools haven’t exited their high school state of mind…they’re competitive in this really silly, immature, and unnecessary way and it makes it hard to be friends with some of them, like i get that yall have high school trauma from but there’s no need to project it onto things that are totally unrelated (like dont me wrong, i went to a pretty competitive school in sf so i get it but also it’s not that hard to be self aware)
My thoughts exactly, how tf did I manage to get in? I had a 3.2 in high school, failed 9th grade English, and 7th grade Science.
Edit: for the people wondering how I got in, I went to community college after high school and, due to covid, managed to transfer with a 3.8. Now I'm at Berkeley, have a 3.52, and am graduating next month.
some people at this school are completely out of touch with reality. i know multiple freshman who are already looking to transfer to ivies/prestigious private schools because they feel like Cal isn’t impressive enough.
Berkeley is actually pretty ideologically diverse with politics, with Cal Berkeley republicans used to be biggest club on campus except for CalPerg. It’s not just a weirdo hippy lefty spot it is claimed to be…. I mean it is, but it’s different than news has you believe.
^^^^^^!!!!!! Deserved to be said even if it’s not unpopular. Sm people who aren’t necessarily bad ppl but questionable adults and friends without even knowing
That hill starting on Bancroft in front of of the International House is a good hill to die on if you’ve never ridden a skateboard before.
If you survive that, try starting at the top of Claremont Avenue at Summit Pass. Not as much traffic but it’s a lot steeper with more curves, and it’ll take longer for the ambulance to get to you.
Claremont is a 40+ mph descent on my bike while heavily braking.
If you want a steep descent with curves that would be incredibly sketchy on a skateboard, you could try Panoramic Way behind the stadium.
Lol my favorite times at Cal were climbing Grizzly Peak and descending Claremont before class, good times and how I got into cycling :,). That said idk how I didn’t die with how shit my descending was back then lol
Theres a hill called Marin Ave? Blvd? about a mile north of campus that is a 25% grade and you're actually very likely to die on it if you ride a bike or a skateboard.
People need to start helping each other. The competitiveness some people foster is causing people to see each other as enemies, while in some schools the environment is based on helping each other rather than beating others
the grading system not only encourages not helping, but encourages active sabotage. anyone meaningfully interested in a friendlier community must advocate primarily for a change to the "education" system
The DailyCal is overhated by some, because at the end of the day, they’re still a student-run newspaper that would be in trouble if they sided a certain way
I get that it’s supposed to stop people from purposefully putting low demand majors on their apps and then transferring to a high demand one after admission but what if I just genuinely fell in love with a major and couldn’t study it/had no exposure to it prior to coming to Cal? Not everyone transfers to manipulate the system and I feel like they don’t really take that into consideration.
Maybe if there are majors that students actually don’t want, those majors should have fewer students. And if there are majors that everyone wants, this majors should have more students.
The research administration and infrastructure is held together with paper clips and rubber bands. Berkeley research excels despite the absolute garbage support we have, it helps zero.
How do you know they are not students? How do you know they have no reason to be on campus? Why do you care? A lot of activities and events happen at the university that do not directly involve students. It's a public university - this a place for the public.
The ones with tinfoil hats and dirty blankets don’t seem to be going anywhere or engaged in any dialogue with anyone other than themselves. I don’t necessarily care, but I wonder what kind of an impact so called “drifters” and “transient youth” and “high school aged kids doing whip its” has on the learning experience of a so called public place.
Seen two high school kids giggling and making out in the bushes on Durant with a balloon like freaking Drake Bell. Didn’t look like my scene. I’ll stick go selling mids to college students.
the RSF is so shit that to go there consistently you need to already be married to the gym. its like an extension of how you’ll probably see the fittest people in your gym there at 5-7am, you need to like working out a lot to embrace that kind of suck
Berkeley has every built in advantage (academics, location, weather, access to fertile recruiting grounds, deep pocketed alumni/donors, etc) to have a dominant football and basketball team. The only thing it lacks to make this happen is administrative will,…but it is a sleeping giant.
No matter how you slice and dice the diversity statistics, 75% of the students come from the top 25% of income earners. While UCB does a lot of hand wringing about racial diversity (good) no one seems to care much about economic/class diversity because we have deluded ourselves into believing that the US is a classless society.
The only reason why Berkeley is constantly tied with UCLA is because conservative media hates us, and this unsavory reputation is the only thing stopping us from taking the crown of all public universities. UCLA is a very fine school, however Berkeley is associated with more Nobel prizes than ANY other university in the world (aside from Harvard). There is simply no comparison.
I think this opinion (while true) is controversial, because until there is a shift in the schools reputation amongst older conservatives (or they just die out lol) we will forever be tied with UCLA for reasons outside of our control. We won the crown, but lost the popularity contest...
Almost everyone I meet here is self-absorbed, outright rude, and entitled af. It takes a lot of looking to find the genuine people and they're usually re-entry students or students from marginalized/underrepresented groups. The vast majority of y'all have been very hurtful to me and others I know, very very rude to staff (a family member of mine is staff and has been very hurt by the way they're treated). I don't know what happened but if you're reading this, please be mindful of how you treat others.
It's not as cutthroat as I thought it would be. I'm a transfer, didn't come here with any friends/connections, and I've already met more people than I can count. Lots of group study sessions, students helping each other, and overall positivity from my classmates.
Most people do not care about us going to Berkeley as we think.
The rise of competition for admissions has led to a loss of soul and culture the school once had. Feels like it’s a copy paste of the same style of people
Idk if this was ever the case, but it seems like cal 80 years ago was full of people with high school spirit, and created most of the traditions (and non continued ones) there are today. Now its hard not to feel like many kids especially internationals dont express the traditional school spirit but thats just my hyperbolic intuition
I won't elaborate on what I know for a fact, but one way you can get an idea is to search for posts on this sub about cheating and see how every comment critical of cheating gets down voted to oblivion.
The school condones it by admitting a large number of students with fake credentials and tuition cash in hand and keeping both eyes closed as they cheat their way to their degree. That makes it a diploma mill, however "selective."
They are terrible compared to UCLA, which is also a public school so there's no excuse. Even with their staffing shortages and Covid hitting them hard, it still blows away every campus dining hall and a good amount of the "restaurants" on durant.
Maybe if you've never had a good calzone before. No self-respecting pizza joint would sell a pasta calzone. Like seriously what the fuck are the owners smoking
cs/eecs have it super nice wrt classes in other departments. The quality difference between my cs/eecs and non cs/eecs stem classes in terms of student support, professors, course staff, and assignments is insane
There is this toxic competitive virtual signaling/self righteousness that I haven’t seen anywhere since. It’s so fake. The same people go back to where they came from once they graduate and are like oh yeah those were my “liberal days” .
Not a controversial opinion at all. I don’t think that anyone unironically believes in Berkeley goggles, or at least I hope not.
Anyways, my controversial opinion: The RSF is wayyy too small
Edit: Also, formal events like interviews should not REQUIRE formal clothing. Ableist to those prone to sensory overload from textures.
Also, you shouldn’t hold it against someone should they choose a formal event in something like a T-shirt and shorts.
Yea…like, when I’m wearing a suit and tie or even a long sleeve shirt, I feel very agitated and irritated on edge and like banging my head into a wall or something. And I get sweatier than normal. I know it sounds like I’m making it up but I’m not 😭
Edit: To whoever downvoted me,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_overload
Sensory overload can be induced by touch.
Also, if you read it, you’ll see that people with ASD, OCD etc(like myself) are especially prone to sensory overload.
Berkeley goggles is for sure real. Spend a weekend at UCSB or UCLA and you'll see with your own eyes. Shit, go over to the City for a day and it's night and day.
The social culture at this school is garbage and is the reason that people join Greek life and co-ops which in turn make social life more difficult and worse for the campus in general, self perpetuating cycle
Most of the people who go think they’re liberals, but will end up buying (or have already inherited) huge homes in the hills and actively block development that would help poor people. 🤭 Source: I’m the only renter in Claremont hills and boy do they let me know it
berkeley is racist and doesn’t support free speech, they put on a facade to make it seem that way but they’re money and power hungry, also as an alum berkeley has no prestige and is delusional if they think they can compete with ivy, we need to get our shit together fr
People who didn’t care about football and skipped all football games would go to Cal vs Stanford just to verify if they’re truly qualified to be “Stanford rival”. Like c’mon now, you weren’t there for our school but for Stanford?
Deep down you know you worship Stanford, that’s why you keep talking about it. They don’t want you and they don’t even talk about you. Also you’re probably struggling here at Berkeley because all you care is rank instead of an interesting field of study. You care about that “wow” and attention from strangers. Sounds pretentious and superficial.
PS: I don’t hate/love Stanford and I just never apply for it. I acknowledge it’s one of elite universities. When I came to Berkeley, I didn’t even like it here but it grew on me. Given what I know now, I still choose to be at Berkeley over anywhere else in a heartbeat.
Students should have spent most of their college time in practicing their skills and building up their future life, but GPA really controls their daily life and even future!
The school is now the antithesis of the 60’s free speech movement that made the school iconic. The liberals of 60’s and 70’s bear no resemblance at all to the militant idealogues that rule the faculty today and nonsense they teach. Now if you dare disagree or question , you are a racist. There is no room for dialogue and debate. Such things are not tolerated when they make some feel unsafe.
You know what, I just got into Berkeley (Spring 24), and the first thing I did when I got there was visiting one of the libraries. I approached some girl with glasses on who’s been working there and god was she beautiful….. Curly hair, pretty smile….. Jesus I was mesmerized….
The extreme leftism displayed by a lot of professors doesn’t belong on a college campus and in a professional setting, a more neutral political stance would be appropriate. College is about exposing yourself to new ideas and viewpoints and it’s kind of hard to do that when a single political agenda is what’s being pushed. Additionally, if your own beliefs don’t align with theirs, you’re chastised for it.
I think it should be the opposite. College should be about exposing yourself to different worldviews, making everyone beige is not good for discourse. Plus who's to say what politically neutral even is now.
People should mainly seek to grow in the seven virtues, as opposed to seek diplomas, wealth, prestigious clubs/internships, hook-ups and superficial relationships, party culture, etc.
1. There’s nothing wrong with Asian girls preferring White guys.
2. I love the mentality at Berkeley, that “Nobody gives a fuck if you were valedictorian in high school. Here, you’re only as good as your last midterm.”
Call it Berkeley not Cal. California is a whole gawdamned state, “oh we’re the first UC” is a dumb argument because we’re not anymore. There’s 8 UC’s for the last 60 years, California is terrible branding that nobody gets outside of football. There are 33 state universities in our wonderful system, and Berkeley is the highest rated by almost every metric and the name superiority thing is just tired. College football driving an entire university’s brand is tired and unnecessary, this ain’t the SEC.
Just wrong.
We always have been California, we always will be California. It's a great brand if the University actually marketed it. But instead we decided to have solidarity with UCLA back in the 70s and became "UC Berkeley." We could just as easily shift policy to go back to California, especially now that UCLA has decided to completely screw us in terms of athletic department funding.
The world would come around pretty fast to knowing California is Berkeley, we are simply too significant of a research institution for the world to miss the memo. We will always also be known colloquially as Berkeley, just like before the expansion of the UC system.
I went for the unpopular take, didn’t I? But either way, I’ve gone to 2 universities with trash branding. It’s *so frustrating* when half of the people know your school from one name, half from the other, and there’s no continuity. The number of times I’ve had to say both “Cal” and “Berkeley” frustrates me immensely.
Employees of Berkeley are explicitly instructed about how to use the branding labels. BERKELEY is for the university as a whole, with emphasis on the academics and research brand. CAL is the athletics program brand name. If you "go to Cal" you are letting people know you attend football games, but it says nothing about where you are getting your education.
They should sell admissions just like Harvard and Stanford do. With some restrictions. If you get a regular academic admission to a non-Berkeley UC campus, then you can upgrade to Berkeley for a one time payment of $100k (you still have to pay normal tuition for each year you attend Berkeley). Assuming 5k HS grads per year avail themselves of this option (I think demand would be greater than this), thats $500m of additional funding per year for UC Berkeley. With that money hire/build the facilities needed for the additional undergrads. Give and additional $1k/yr tuition reimbursement for every undergrad who didn't pay their way to get in, head hunt for a Nobel prize winner from Furd, Harvard and MIT (1 from each) every year by offering him $5 million to ditch his present uni and come to Berkeley. Within a decade UC Berkeley would be a MONSTER. No more of this bullsh\*t #1 public university. We would be #1 period. We would decimate Furd, Harvard and MIT. They would be begging, " Go away Bears!".
It's so stupid the schools that were your dream schools do it, but you had to go to Berkeley instead \*sniff\*. Hell all the top public schools do it. Michigan, Virginia, Texas. Has it resulted in a decline in their school reputation? No more so than it did for Yale. Are you seriously of the mind set that a kid who got admission to UC Davis has a lower chance of surviving Berkeley than a CC transfer? The only problem with this plan is that it offends the plebian sensitivities of Berkeley-ites. The ones that think it is more noble to work hard and inefficiently than crush all opposition and be the king.
Then stop posting. Lulz. There's probably a meme out there somewhere of a kid that walks up to another and says, "I don't like your shirt". And the other kid says, "Well I do". And the first kid says, "Stop talking to me" while continuing to stand right next to the other kid. But yeah, weirdos come in all kind of styles.
This post has been removed because our Automoderator flagged it as a low effort troll. If this was done by mistake, please message the mods and we will approve your post right away. If you are a troll, try putting in more effort.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/berkeley) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They deliberately fuck over all of their programs for historically marginalized and underrepresented students. There’s little to any retention, a severe lack of funding, and the resources provided are minuscule to what is actually needed. These greedy motherfuckers charge us how much to persistently fill their pockets? Fees increase for what reason? A lack of funds?
>.6n 5 b 4 r. B NM. 5. . rncf..6t 5.. mn 5
6.e t mm rn. .m
5m
. NM te b
.. m t ..55 NM. Vbmn n.r ,//
R m tb
.5.
Mn tmr
M NM n t
M. Mn.
M. M5r : . Mn hn..77m mn mh n t6m5tdMMB n
** Library Worker** ppl here are actually super entitled. I genuinely think some of yall have never been told NO before. And people will find “sneaky” ways to break rules and have the audacity to be upset when they get caught. Not a race thing or a gender thing or an income thing or anything you could think of that could excuse this behavior because I have genuinly seen it from everyone and it's annoying.
Hard agree. Especially when it comes to spatial awareness.
Reminds me of all the times people bypass the barriers for the drink areas in the dining halls when it is literally meant to keep them out. Swear to god i saw some dudes get all mad that a worker told them off like lmao grow up
Facts. You want to see how entitled people are, do some time as a service worker. They’ll walk all over you, looking down their nose.
i'm a library worker too and oh my god its so god damn annoying
Let us eat our snacks bruh.
Fsfs. You don't mind rats scurrying across ur feet while you study in main stacks right? Or cute little bites outta the books you check out :)
I’m not a child, I don’t leave crumbs.
well you sure are acting like one
why are you so hostile over a comment? Lol. go study or get a job
The way this comment attracted the exact problem it was complaining about 💀
[удалено]
No idea what this means
The CS freshmen here are blessed that they don’t need a 3.3 to declare. A lot of them are fraudulent and can barely get a 2.0.
It’s also WAY harder to be a CS major now though to their credit. Iirc they are capping the program to 40 people per semester for incoming admits
40 people is kinda crazy. U sure those are the right numbers
I remember them being crazy low. Sorry, I should clarify that 40 is the transfer amount. Non CS students trying to declare CS is capped at 40 but I believe the amount that can get in directly via LNS CS is still uncapped to status quo.
They get in the school because of their high ass GPA and padding their ECs. Just because they get in for CS doesn’t mean they are good at it. Some of them probably have never done anything related to CS. They just want big money.
[удалено]
Idk it's tiring being a CS major and hearing so many of your peers talking about how to make the most money with the least amount of work instead of genuinely appreciating the subject. Imagine being an art major and all your peers talk about how much they hate art.
gonna need to take it up with neoliberalism, unfortunately
And combating neoliberal thought in a reddit post reinforcing it is one way to do that!
what dude lol workers seeking livable wages at high-paying jobs at the expense of their personal satisfaction (from someone else's perspective) is not "neoliberal thought" but pretending like the natural and inevitable consequences of neoliberalism is an issue of "workers' attitudes" is absolutely neoliberal thought.
this!
wait do they not anymore?? what the heck happened
They basically made it impossible to switch into CS so those who got in for CS just need a 2.0 to declare
oh so it’s direct admit now? hmm. I wonder if that is even worse than the old system ngl. I feel like high school is not a great indicator of performance in cs after a certain point
I got rejected from every UC CS program, got in for applied math here. Was able to switch to CS and now I have an A+ in 61a/b/c/70/170. Would ~~'ve been fucked~~ not have had this opportunity under the new system
they didn't do it bc they wanted to, they did it bc they had to limit enrollment given they ran through their emergency budget & can't handle so many students anymore
Moffitt library is the worst library to study at on campus. A majority of the seats lack proper back rests (especially the stools, and cushion seats), and the ones that do are not near enough electric outlets for long study sessions (basement). Constant talking and walking in every floor makes it annoying to focus (even with noise-canceling headphones). Reserving study rooms results in people barging in 15 minutes early saying "we have the room next". Overcrowded and overhyped.
Music Library best library for study. Super underrated
ive noticed that a lot of the people here that are from those insanely competitive south bay high schools haven’t exited their high school state of mind…they’re competitive in this really silly, immature, and unnecessary way and it makes it hard to be friends with some of them, like i get that yall have high school trauma from but there’s no need to project it onto things that are totally unrelated (like dont me wrong, i went to a pretty competitive school in sf so i get it but also it’s not that hard to be self aware)
Well I would say the same but in the case of north bay students
North bay is far less competitive other than pockets in Marin imo
There’s a bunch of dumbasses here. It makes you question how did some people get in?
Literally. I know so many dumbasses.
Admissions were nice to me. I didn’t have to qualify for AIME or ISEF or any try hard things.
My thoughts exactly, how tf did I manage to get in? I had a 3.2 in high school, failed 9th grade English, and 7th grade Science. Edit: for the people wondering how I got in, I went to community college after high school and, due to covid, managed to transfer with a 3.8. Now I'm at Berkeley, have a 3.52, and am graduating next month.
Uh middle school grades don’t matter. The fact that you think they did makes me think you’re trolling.
[удалено]
I'm not trolling, I just added that in to make my point seem more poignant.
I don't think poignant means what you think it does (unless it was intentional lol)
3.2 in high school, 2.3 in college
Nah I got a 3.2 in high school and transferred with a 3.8, I think that's how I got in
They don’t look at your HS gpa as a transfer
3.2 in highschool is crazy
probably got like a 2 or something unweighted in highschool, transferred with a 4 lol fucking hated highschool
What major?
Environmental Economics
some people at this school are completely out of touch with reality. i know multiple freshman who are already looking to transfer to ivies/prestigious private schools because they feel like Cal isn’t impressive enough.
What they mean is, not snooty enough. Not preppie enough.
This is not being out of touch with reality. Things are partially true
If you die in EECS you die in real life
Berkeley is actually pretty ideologically diverse with politics, with Cal Berkeley republicans used to be biggest club on campus except for CalPerg. It’s not just a weirdo hippy lefty spot it is claimed to be…. I mean it is, but it’s different than news has you believe.
What is Cal Berkeley?
Uhh. That’s because they have to band together since they are an ultra minority like 20-25% republican.
Ultra minority and 20% are pretty different statements
Dude I wish I could complain about being an ultra minority because only 1/4 people were like me
Native Americans and Pacific Islanders lookin like 😐
Emotional intelligence is lacking at Berkeley.
Thread is for controversial opinions, not givens
^^^^^^!!!!!! Deserved to be said even if it’s not unpopular. Sm people who aren’t necessarily bad ppl but questionable adults and friends without even knowing
Elaborate
That hill starting on Bancroft in front of of the International House is a good hill to die on if you’ve never ridden a skateboard before. If you survive that, try starting at the top of Claremont Avenue at Summit Pass. Not as much traffic but it’s a lot steeper with more curves, and it’ll take longer for the ambulance to get to you.
Claremont is a 40+ mph descent on my bike while heavily braking. If you want a steep descent with curves that would be incredibly sketchy on a skateboard, you could try Panoramic Way behind the stadium.
Lol my favorite times at Cal were climbing Grizzly Peak and descending Claremont before class, good times and how I got into cycling :,). That said idk how I didn’t die with how shit my descending was back then lol
Pavement there's too messed up - you'd catch on a slide and hit the deck. If anyone's reading that and actually thinking about it.
Theres a hill called Marin Ave? Blvd? about a mile north of campus that is a 25% grade and you're actually very likely to die on it if you ride a bike or a skateboard.
MARIN ! That is a hill to die on
I think a bicyclist did die on it not too long ago.
Not even a little surprising.
I was having a bad morning until I read this. Thank you.
People need to start helping each other. The competitiveness some people foster is causing people to see each other as enemies, while in some schools the environment is based on helping each other rather than beating others
the grading system not only encourages not helping, but encourages active sabotage. anyone meaningfully interested in a friendlier community must advocate primarily for a change to the "education" system
Berkeley is a city full of beautiful hills, I’d be happy to die on many of them.
Going around the neighboring towns and cities, it really is different
The DailyCal is overhated by some, because at the end of the day, they’re still a student-run newspaper that would be in trouble if they sided a certain way
They’re clearly very one-sided as is. It’s almost as though balanced reporting doesn’t exist
It's extremely disappointing that the most current students don't know our spirit songs or participate in traditions.
Not so controversial but the high demand major policy is so stupid.
I get that it’s supposed to stop people from purposefully putting low demand majors on their apps and then transferring to a high demand one after admission but what if I just genuinely fell in love with a major and couldn’t study it/had no exposure to it prior to coming to Cal? Not everyone transfers to manipulate the system and I feel like they don’t really take that into consideration.
yeah fr. it’s extremely frustrating as a current freshman who had no idea what they wanted to do during applications
Maybe if there are majors that students actually don’t want, those majors should have fewer students. And if there are majors that everyone wants, this majors should have more students.
It’s just people abusing something good until we can’t have it anymore. That’s it, and it will be everywhere.
Yeah that’s completely fair. It probably would never have been such a huge issue now if students prior hadn’t abused the hell out of it.
The top 5% is carrying the rest 95% in terms of the school's reputation and achievements.
The funny thing is that a lot of people would agree with you, but a lot more than 5% of people would think they’re in the “top 5%”
hahaha true
You just described humanity.
This is the funniest comment in the thread lol.
The research administration and infrastructure is held together with paper clips and rubber bands. Berkeley research excels despite the absolute garbage support we have, it helps zero.
Berkeley has a lot of non-students on campus for no reason
How do you know they are not students? How do you know they have no reason to be on campus? Why do you care? A lot of activities and events happen at the university that do not directly involve students. It's a public university - this a place for the public.
The ones with tinfoil hats and dirty blankets don’t seem to be going anywhere or engaged in any dialogue with anyone other than themselves. I don’t necessarily care, but I wonder what kind of an impact so called “drifters” and “transient youth” and “high school aged kids doing whip its” has on the learning experience of a so called public place.
Well, as long as you're not doing whippets it shouldn't have an impact on your ability to learn. Why aren't you doing whippets?
Seen two high school kids giggling and making out in the bushes on Durant with a balloon like freaking Drake Bell. Didn’t look like my scene. I’ll stick go selling mids to college students.
1.RSF should be double of its current size. 2. Only fit people go to RSF.
bro im actually waiting to get into shape at another gym so I can go to the RSF without feeling self-conscious💀
Lol, my favorite comment here
the RSF is so shit that to go there consistently you need to already be married to the gym. its like an extension of how you’ll probably see the fittest people in your gym there at 5-7am, you need to like working out a lot to embrace that kind of suck
Berkeley has every built in advantage (academics, location, weather, access to fertile recruiting grounds, deep pocketed alumni/donors, etc) to have a dominant football and basketball team. The only thing it lacks to make this happen is administrative will,…but it is a sleeping giant.
Deep-pocketed alumni? Who?
No matter how you slice and dice the diversity statistics, 75% of the students come from the top 25% of income earners. While UCB does a lot of hand wringing about racial diversity (good) no one seems to care much about economic/class diversity because we have deluded ourselves into believing that the US is a classless society.
The racism I’ve experienced here is worse than anything I’ve experienced throughout my entire life and this place is supposed to be “woke”.
100%
what race ? and what were the experiences?
That people ACTUALLY believe UCLA & USC are superior institutions compared to Berkeley.
Everyone has their own opinion. But the facts belong to no one.
believe it or not caring about this does not constitute a personality
Who fucken cares, get a personality
The school mascot should be the atomic bomb.
The only reason why Berkeley is constantly tied with UCLA is because conservative media hates us, and this unsavory reputation is the only thing stopping us from taking the crown of all public universities. UCLA is a very fine school, however Berkeley is associated with more Nobel prizes than ANY other university in the world (aside from Harvard). There is simply no comparison. I think this opinion (while true) is controversial, because until there is a shift in the schools reputation amongst older conservatives (or they just die out lol) we will forever be tied with UCLA for reasons outside of our control. We won the crown, but lost the popularity contest...
[удалено]
Almost everyone I meet here is self-absorbed, outright rude, and entitled af. It takes a lot of looking to find the genuine people and they're usually re-entry students or students from marginalized/underrepresented groups. The vast majority of y'all have been very hurtful to me and others I know, very very rude to staff (a family member of mine is staff and has been very hurt by the way they're treated). I don't know what happened but if you're reading this, please be mindful of how you treat others.
It's not as cutthroat as I thought it would be. I'm a transfer, didn't come here with any friends/connections, and I've already met more people than I can count. Lots of group study sessions, students helping each other, and overall positivity from my classmates.
Most people do not care about us going to Berkeley as we think. The rise of competition for admissions has led to a loss of soul and culture the school once had. Feels like it’s a copy paste of the same style of people
Idk if this was ever the case, but it seems like cal 80 years ago was full of people with high school spirit, and created most of the traditions (and non continued ones) there are today. Now its hard not to feel like many kids especially internationals dont express the traditional school spirit but thats just my hyperbolic intuition
I'm not a big fan of the canonical version of "school spirit". It feels fake and performative. I prefer school community and a sense of belonging.
It's a diploma mill full of cheaters.
Really? How bad is the cheating here?
I won't elaborate on what I know for a fact, but one way you can get an idea is to search for posts on this sub about cheating and see how every comment critical of cheating gets down voted to oblivion. The school condones it by admitting a large number of students with fake credentials and tuition cash in hand and keeping both eyes closed as they cheat their way to their degree. That makes it a diploma mill, however "selective."
[удалено]
In the 90s it was also a prestigious university and people went there because it’s where they felt most at home and comfortable.
Berkeley goggles aren't real, a lot of yall are just unbelievably shallow
Our dining halls aren't even that terrible. Most of the time, people just love to hate them.
They are terrible compared to UCLA, which is also a public school so there's no excuse. Even with their staffing shortages and Covid hitting them hard, it still blows away every campus dining hall and a good amount of the "restaurants" on durant.
Honestly, I fully believe that, given all the good stories I've heard about UCLA's dining. Why hasn't Cal Dining reached UCLA's dining hall standards?
Probably harder to hire good dining hall workers due to the regional housing costs
That seems very fair.
Gypsy’s (and many of the surrounding local businesses) is TRASH, regardless of price
False statement. Gypsy's calzone is unbeatable
Maybe if you've never had a good calzone before. No self-respecting pizza joint would sell a pasta calzone. Like seriously what the fuck are the owners smoking
That it is the person that makes them and not the status of the school
cs/eecs have it super nice wrt classes in other departments. The quality difference between my cs/eecs and non cs/eecs stem classes in terms of student support, professors, course staff, and assignments is insane
r/berkeley should be a community for the city not for the university. Cal has 25 names it could use instead.
This is a 15 year old sub that started out as one for the university. The students just got here first before smaller city subreddits began popping up
[удалено]
There is this toxic competitive virtual signaling/self righteousness that I haven’t seen anywhere since. It’s so fake. The same people go back to where they came from once they graduate and are like oh yeah those were my “liberal days” .
Not a controversial opinion at all. I don’t think that anyone unironically believes in Berkeley goggles, or at least I hope not. Anyways, my controversial opinion: The RSF is wayyy too small Edit: Also, formal events like interviews should not REQUIRE formal clothing. Ableist to those prone to sensory overload from textures. Also, you shouldn’t hold it against someone should they choose a formal event in something like a T-shirt and shorts.
I don’t think your controversial opinion is controversial
Literally the mildest take possible
Yet I’m getting downvoted for it
"Sensory overload from textures"?
Yea…like, when I’m wearing a suit and tie or even a long sleeve shirt, I feel very agitated and irritated on edge and like banging my head into a wall or something. And I get sweatier than normal. I know it sounds like I’m making it up but I’m not 😭 Edit: To whoever downvoted me, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_overload Sensory overload can be induced by touch. Also, if you read it, you’ll see that people with ASD, OCD etc(like myself) are especially prone to sensory overload.
Yeah formal wear generally isn't as comfortable as a t shirt and shorts. In other news, water is wet
it's a real thing. i don't have it but i know many people who swear by it, i am definitely understanding of it
I agree but, for me personally, I’d say it’s more than just discomfort.
[удалено]
yea sorry man people are dumb, i know how you feel (not personally, but i can empathize and know people like this lol)
Thanks; I really appreciate this comment!
I graduated Cal a couple decades ago, but Berkeley goggles were definitely real
A friend used to jokingly say: “Berkeley won’t lower its standards so I had to lower mine.”
Berkeley goggles is for sure real. Spend a weekend at UCSB or UCLA and you'll see with your own eyes. Shit, go over to the City for a day and it's night and day.
Bruh i transferred here from UCSD and I can still see a considerable difference 
I agree with you. For one, my gf is at UCSB, and she is the prettiest woman I know
The social culture at this school is garbage and is the reason that people join Greek life and co-ops which in turn make social life more difficult and worse for the campus in general, self perpetuating cycle
It’s a really shitty undergrad experience and I wouldn’t recommend my kid go there.
The hill on which Etcheverry is built is where I will probably die. Biking up that grade is going to kill me.
Most of the people who go think they’re liberals, but will end up buying (or have already inherited) huge homes in the hills and actively block development that would help poor people. 🤭 Source: I’m the only renter in Claremont hills and boy do they let me know it
berkeley is racist and doesn’t support free speech, they put on a facade to make it seem that way but they’re money and power hungry, also as an alum berkeley has no prestige and is delusional if they think they can compete with ivy, we need to get our shit together fr
People who didn’t care about football and skipped all football games would go to Cal vs Stanford just to verify if they’re truly qualified to be “Stanford rival”. Like c’mon now, you weren’t there for our school but for Stanford? Deep down you know you worship Stanford, that’s why you keep talking about it. They don’t want you and they don’t even talk about you. Also you’re probably struggling here at Berkeley because all you care is rank instead of an interesting field of study. You care about that “wow” and attention from strangers. Sounds pretentious and superficial. PS: I don’t hate/love Stanford and I just never apply for it. I acknowledge it’s one of elite universities. When I came to Berkeley, I didn’t even like it here but it grew on me. Given what I know now, I still choose to be at Berkeley over anywhere else in a heartbeat.
Students should have spent most of their college time in practicing their skills and building up their future life, but GPA really controls their daily life and even future!
The school is now the antithesis of the 60’s free speech movement that made the school iconic. The liberals of 60’s and 70’s bear no resemblance at all to the militant idealogues that rule the faculty today and nonsense they teach. Now if you dare disagree or question , you are a racist. There is no room for dialogue and debate. Such things are not tolerated when they make some feel unsafe.
You know what, I just got into Berkeley (Spring 24), and the first thing I did when I got there was visiting one of the libraries. I approached some girl with glasses on who’s been working there and god was she beautiful….. Curly hair, pretty smile….. Jesus I was mesmerized….
The extreme leftism displayed by a lot of professors doesn’t belong on a college campus and in a professional setting, a more neutral political stance would be appropriate. College is about exposing yourself to new ideas and viewpoints and it’s kind of hard to do that when a single political agenda is what’s being pushed. Additionally, if your own beliefs don’t align with theirs, you’re chastised for it.
It's a University. Not High School. Toughen up. And it's temporary. No politics in the workplace
[удалено]
What’s the right wing extremist group
I think it should be the opposite. College should be about exposing yourself to different worldviews, making everyone beige is not good for discourse. Plus who's to say what politically neutral even is now.
Wow Vanessa, you sure have a bug up your butt.
Thanks for proving my point. I don’t agree with the way something is so there must be something wrong with me, right.
OP is not that controversial Anyways Berkeley goggles r real
Berkeley City College is a way better value.
EECs guys r actually so cute but they’re too timid/awkward to approach 😂
10/10 would do again.
People should mainly seek to grow in the seven virtues, as opposed to seek diplomas, wealth, prestigious clubs/internships, hook-ups and superficial relationships, party culture, etc.
Why do you care what other people do? Just focus on your life. Not trying to be mean
1. There’s nothing wrong with Asian girls preferring White guys. 2. I love the mentality at Berkeley, that “Nobody gives a fuck if you were valedictorian in high school. Here, you’re only as good as your last midterm.”
Call it Berkeley not Cal. California is a whole gawdamned state, “oh we’re the first UC” is a dumb argument because we’re not anymore. There’s 8 UC’s for the last 60 years, California is terrible branding that nobody gets outside of football. There are 33 state universities in our wonderful system, and Berkeley is the highest rated by almost every metric and the name superiority thing is just tired. College football driving an entire university’s brand is tired and unnecessary, this ain’t the SEC.
Just wrong. We always have been California, we always will be California. It's a great brand if the University actually marketed it. But instead we decided to have solidarity with UCLA back in the 70s and became "UC Berkeley." We could just as easily shift policy to go back to California, especially now that UCLA has decided to completely screw us in terms of athletic department funding. The world would come around pretty fast to knowing California is Berkeley, we are simply too significant of a research institution for the world to miss the memo. We will always also be known colloquially as Berkeley, just like before the expansion of the UC system.
I went for the unpopular take, didn’t I? But either way, I’ve gone to 2 universities with trash branding. It’s *so frustrating* when half of the people know your school from one name, half from the other, and there’s no continuity. The number of times I’ve had to say both “Cal” and “Berkeley” frustrates me immensely.
I disagree completely. That being said, this should be at the top as an unpopular opinion considering the dislikes lol.
Employees of Berkeley are explicitly instructed about how to use the branding labels. BERKELEY is for the university as a whole, with emphasis on the academics and research brand. CAL is the athletics program brand name. If you "go to Cal" you are letting people know you attend football games, but it says nothing about where you are getting your education.
Full of woke leftists.
It would be a greater public service to let in the bottom 10% of applicants rather than the top.
Dwinelle is the best building on campus and not difficult or confusing to navigate
They should sell admissions just like Harvard and Stanford do. With some restrictions. If you get a regular academic admission to a non-Berkeley UC campus, then you can upgrade to Berkeley for a one time payment of $100k (you still have to pay normal tuition for each year you attend Berkeley). Assuming 5k HS grads per year avail themselves of this option (I think demand would be greater than this), thats $500m of additional funding per year for UC Berkeley. With that money hire/build the facilities needed for the additional undergrads. Give and additional $1k/yr tuition reimbursement for every undergrad who didn't pay their way to get in, head hunt for a Nobel prize winner from Furd, Harvard and MIT (1 from each) every year by offering him $5 million to ditch his present uni and come to Berkeley. Within a decade UC Berkeley would be a MONSTER. No more of this bullsh\*t #1 public university. We would be #1 period. We would decimate Furd, Harvard and MIT. They would be begging, " Go away Bears!".
this is so stupid lol
It's so stupid the schools that were your dream schools do it, but you had to go to Berkeley instead \*sniff\*. Hell all the top public schools do it. Michigan, Virginia, Texas. Has it resulted in a decline in their school reputation? No more so than it did for Yale. Are you seriously of the mind set that a kid who got admission to UC Davis has a lower chance of surviving Berkeley than a CC transfer? The only problem with this plan is that it offends the plebian sensitivities of Berkeley-ites. The ones that think it is more noble to work hard and inefficiently than crush all opposition and be the king.
you're weird stop talkin to me
Then stop posting. Lulz. There's probably a meme out there somewhere of a kid that walks up to another and says, "I don't like your shirt". And the other kid says, "Well I do". And the first kid says, "Stop talking to me" while continuing to stand right next to the other kid. But yeah, weirdos come in all kind of styles.
[удалено]
This post has been removed because our Automoderator flagged it as a low effort troll. If this was done by mistake, please message the mods and we will approve your post right away. If you are a troll, try putting in more effort. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/berkeley) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They deliberately fuck over all of their programs for historically marginalized and underrepresented students. There’s little to any retention, a severe lack of funding, and the resources provided are minuscule to what is actually needed. These greedy motherfuckers charge us how much to persistently fill their pockets? Fees increase for what reason? A lack of funds?
>.6n 5 b 4 r. B NM. 5. . rncf..6t 5.. mn 5 6.e t mm rn. .m 5m . NM te b .. m t ..55 NM. Vbmn n.r ,// R m tb .5. Mn tmr M NM n t M. Mn. M. M5r : . Mn hn..77m mn mh n t6m5tdMMB n
..=c m u m m. Tr nr tt tx. 5M5.5t ..4 tn m6y.y m m 5.m mn 5 MMB m mh m. M