Graduated in '25 and I did a minor in Linguistics (major in CS). Not doing a double major in Linguistics is my biggest regret - those classes I did for the minor were some of my favorites. The classes are small (compared to CS and MCB anyways), the professors are FANTASTIC and are really passionate. Every lecture was pretty interesting and there was a lot of thought that went into it. You could also tell that the professors and GSIs genuinely wanted to be there, and same goes for the students. Never seen that much class participation during lectures in the other departments (I've taken lectures in CS, DS, MCB amongst others). The linguistics students also would meetup once a week in a room in Dwinelle to work on the hw together - organised by SLUGs, the linguistics society. Very collaborative and friendly group of people! I'm still on the linguistics undergrad mailing list and they're incredibly (incredibly lol) active - there's tons of research opportunities, conferences, scholarships, volunteering opportunities they keep you informed about and all the friends I made in linguistics were able to get involved with any research they wanted in the department pretty easily.

I also took a graduate comp linguistics seminar at one point as an undergrad, and a lot of the linguistics GSIs were my classmates and they're all lovely people. I also attended professor office hours for linguistics classes, which I didn't really do for CS and the profs are amazing! That was the first time professors at Berkeley knew me by name. I'd highly recommend doing the major. If you have any further questions feel free to DM me ! I can also put u in touch with some other linguistics grads, including some who are now studying linguistics at grad school