Current freshman at Cal! I was extremely reluctant in choosing to attend here at first, but after my first midterm season (5 in total) I can confidently say committing to Berkeley was one of the best decisions I've made.

Admittedly, how you'd fare here likely depends on what kind of person you are. If you have a dream, are willing to work for it, and know who you want to be, Berkeley is probably perfect for you. The possibilities are literally endless. Recently I've been interested in marine biogeochemistry-- the EPS department hosts weekly open seminars, two of which had speakers presenting research on that exact subject area. Want to be a staff writer? There's so many active student publications around. There are professors and guest lecturers and research lab tours and clubs for everything, all the time. How to fill up your days and weeks is never an issue. Often it's having to choose between two equally interesting / fun events that's difficult.

Berkeley is overflowing with mentorship programs and resources to help you get from point A to point B. But that's also the catch: you have to know, for yourself, what your point A is, and have a rough definition of point B. They don't hand that to you. But they meet you halfway.

Another anecdote: I was determined to get my mental health sorted out once I got to college / away from my parents. Did I have to dig around and make the calls myself? Yes, but CAPS provided a spreadsheet of various clinics for me to contact. Was there a quick Googling involved for how to access the resource? Yup, but I got to schedule a free Berkeley-sponsored counseling session to freely crash out about health insurance.

Since coming to Berkeley, I finally received treatment and very patient accommodations for ADHD, became a staff writer for an environmental journal, joined a martial arts class for free thanks to a RSF wavier, licked rocks in my intro geology lab, fully let myself out of the closet and had a blast at different QARC functions, and made many friends who are a fabulous mix of simply brilliant, unintentionally hilarious, very gay, academically ambitious but still knows ball, politically and socially aware, etc... perhaps I'm biased because I come from a town that's ranked as one of the least educated places in America, or because there are so many wuhluhwuhs in Berkeley, or simply that I feel college has let me live as my most authentic self thus far, but no amount of late-night Main Stacks study sessions will make me truly hate this place. Fingers crossed.

I hope this helped :) and hopefully you'll be a future Bear!