University of California-Berkeley Top Questions

You really have to take iniative to learn. If you want a B, you can just show up to class and turn in the homework. If you want an A, you have to go to office hours, ask questions, start assignments early, find a study group, and take time ot talk to the professor. Also, liberal arts classes are much easier than science classes.

That no matter how hard you study it feels like the midterms and finals test you on material you never learned or tricks that you would never think of while experiencing the pressure of taking a test.

Everybody is super competetive with thier grades.

Adjusting to the level of work expected. You are expected to work harder than you've ever worked before and it can be a shock at first.

Because it's so big, you often have to figure things out for yourself and be very VERY aggressive at time

Being an out of state student

People can be too uppity.

When attending such a large and competitive university, it is easy to get lost in your thoughts, dreams, motives, etc,. This in turn often results in great confusion. Sometimes this confusion is beneficial, as one is able to truly discover their passions. At other times it is the complete opposite outcome; one can easily become engulfed in competition that he/she loses sight of what it is they love. It becomes more a competition of how much better you can look than your peers, versus a coming together of great minds to solve the worlds problems.

Parking!

Very bureaucratic, hard to get into classes, Business school changed their policy (i.e., if I knew ahead of time the business program had a mandatory summer program that didn't allow students to have internships I would have considered another major or another school)

It's very hard to make friends

The difficulty of many of the classes coupled with the high levels of competition from other students. It is hard to adjust from being at the top level accademically in high school to being mid-tier in college.

Because of budget cuts, it is very often the case that people don't get into the classes that they want or need, which screws up everyone's schedules. Also, the creative writing program's policies regarding admittance make it very difficult to plan schedules around it. The online bill paying website is also very difficult and counter-intuitive to use, and crashes a lot.