things i learned from my first semester at UC Berkeley -- reflections, looking back, trauma dump

Today I thought I'd do a fun little semester wrap-up and share into the void all of the pros and cons of my first semester at the wonderful and traumatic institution that is the University of California, Berkeley. I'm going to treat this like a little diary so that when I'm literally graduating, I can look back on this and see how naive or stupid I was in these times. 

I've always dreamed about going to college. Ever since sixth grade, I've looked forward to the day when I would get to attend university and be out on my own, studying what I want to study and doing what I want to do. I've watched college admissions videos since middle school, living vicariously through people's acceptances to my dream schools. When it came to apply to college myself, I was deep in the dark web, looking at statistics and trying my best to find any and all ways to maximize my chances of getting in to my top schools. 

I applied Early Decision to Columbia University in New York and I prayed to the lord that I would get in (spoiler alert, I didn't). I dreamed of spending all my time on the East Coast, far away from home and in a brand new state. However, I laugh at those dreams now because I ended up at a college literally twenty minutes away from home. 

I love UC Berkeley. A lot of my family went there and a lot of my current friends committed with me. I took my first unofficial tour a few months ago and I knew that this is where I wanted to be. However, it has its downsides, a reality check that hit me strong in the face within the first week. It's not the romanticized utopia I dreamed college would be but it definitely is my second home. 

I'm a history major (I'm still trying to find my double major) with an intent to study particularly European History. I hope to attend law school so I'm technically on the pre-law track. UC Berkeley is definitely a wide-ranging school with hundreds of majors and areas of study available but I will say that us social sciences/humanities majors are not the most prioritized by the school in comparison to their STEM programs. I also will say there's a lot of unfair stigma around the humanities that exist not just at Cal but in our society itself that is unjust and unkind. I worked hard to get the grades I did and I read hundreds of pages per week, wrote tons of essays, and participated in so many discussions. Just because I wasn't solving some unsolvable math problem doesn't make me any less of a good student. I will talk about this more in the future but it really angers me.

Anyways, I love my classes. Yes, they're all basic level for now until I can upgrade to the higher levels. My intro Euro History class was by far my favorite. I learned so many new things in all my classes and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had. 

CLASSES (FALL 2022)

1. European History (HIST 5) -- 5/5, definitely my favorite class, a repeat of AP Euro with some more in-depth assignments and emphasis on primary sources

2. Gender & Women's Studies Intro (GWS 10) -- 5/5, while this was my longest class and therefore my most tiring, it was also very enlightening and amazing to learn about so many facets of feminism and structural discrimination that exist within our society that are often overlooked or ignored

3. Nordic Cultures and Values (SCANDIN 75) -- 4/5, this class was my "elective" and I have a particular interest in Scandinavia (I literally self-taught myself Swedish and half of Norwegian), but it was also my hardest in the amount of work and midterms and essays

4. English Lit (18th/19th century) (ENG 45B) -- 4/5, this was a very interesting class but it was too early in the morning to be talking about 500 page books, though I did enjoy most of the readings 

OTHER CONS

--FOOD! The food at Cal is just not the best. Everyone knows this. We are nowhere near restaurant quality and while I don't expect Michelin stars, I do expect to be able to eat without finding bugs in my broccoli. Sometimes, though, the dinners at my dorm are BOMB and I have no clue what they put in those.

--DORMS! The appliances literally never work and when they get fixed, they break in the next week. The dorms I'm in are super far from campus so I've become a walking girlie. However, we have the biggest rooms so that's nice. I love my dorm friends <3

--GRADE DEFLATION! A 4.0 at Berkeley is very different from a 4.0 at a school with a lot of grade inflation.

--People hate you for no reason and then their friends will hate you by association.

--My specific dorm floor is horrific.

--Communal bathrooms w/ nasty men.

--Too many people. Impossible to get the classes you want/need, study spaces, etc.

PROS

--Love my friends, love them to the ends of the earth

--Classes are fun, intriguing, and challenging

--The campus is SO pretty and I love exploring (there's so much I've yet to see)

--We are literally a top ranked university so our academics are clearly bombastic

--I live so close to home so I do not have to pay the $5 for laundry everyone else does

--SF is so close, so we can explore the city any weekend and there's so much to do

--I love working in the library archives and analyzing historical documents

--I love my little morning walks to campus (except when it rains)

--The Bay Area is a hit for concerts and we can take free public transportation to venues

--I can go home and visit my family anytime I want

--You can party if you want to but you aren't really that pressured to if you don't want to

--SO many libraries (like we have 28 or something) though there's never spots

--I just love the vibes!

OTHER THINGS

--You will never see your GBO (orientation) friends again tbh

--Even though there's 40K kids, you will always manage to run into the people you most want to avoid

--You will have roommate drama, so please fix that asap because it's trauma

--The Big Game (football) against Stanford is SO fun (especially when we win)

--You won't have time to do a lot of things you used to be able to do (like read)

--Midterm season never ends. 

--Main Stacks library is traumatic but my favorite at the same time because it's literally a tomb

--PAD (my pre-law frat) is just... something.

--Joining any club requires resumes and interviews. Yes, school organizations.

--The competition is real but it's not as cutthroat as people make it out to be

--Save money because those bobas are $8 a drink on average

With all that being said, I'd say I enjoyed my first semester. Even though we literally had a strike where all of our GSIs stopped teaching in order to earn more wages, we persevered. I wasn't a fan of the strike's detriments on the undergrads but at the same time, I wholeheartedly supported my GSIs securing the money they needed to literally live in the Bay Area. The strike was definitely not on my expectations for my first semester but at least we know what to expect at this point.

I love it here. I think I'm going to really love my next 3.5 years <3