And in particular...the undergraduate and graduate divisions of science and journalism?
What is the location of the university like (cost of living, crime level, etc.)?
2006-08-12 07:10:18 · 3 answers · asked by cassicad75 3 in Education & Reference ➔ Higher Education (University +)
I have had a few friends do the graduate program in journalism and it's very good. Just look up Orville Schell on the web to get some idea of the caliber of people involved with the program.
Of the 3 friends I know who did this program, one now works in the web, 1 is a staff writer at the San Jose Mercury News, and one works for AP in Mexico City. They all had good things to say about the program and learned a lot.
I live in Berkeley and it's a great town. Somewhat wacky, but an interesting combination of city-feel and lots of mellow neighborhoods with beautiful, overgrown front yards.
Oh, and the campus is nowehere near Oakland. And not all of Oakland is crime-riddled. You want to be careful in parts of Oakland but Berkeley, especially UCB, is tucked away in a beautiful, actually quite wealthy area with many gorgeous mansions on all sides.
2006-08-12 07:17:41 · answer #1 · answered by scarabrain 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I got my PhD at Berkeley. Great school -- but I hated the town.
I'm more of an East Coast kind of guy and was in my 40s when I was there -- so some of it is me.
The campus is very nice. The weather in Spring, Summer and Fall is beautiful. It drizzles a lot on winter.
The town has a really bad homeless problem -- worse than NYC during the Reagan years. And they aren't the kind you feel sorry for -- more like 50 year old lifelong drug addicts and angry teenage runaways.
The politics of the town are also strange. The city council has this "Wouldn't it be nice if . . . " attitude towards making laws. For example -- "wouldn't it be nice if people drove less" -- so they tried to pass a law that said that no household could have more than one car.
The Bay Area is an expensive place to live. But many of the best schools are in places where housing is expensive. If I were an undergraduate, I'd want to live on campus. It is safer and more convenient. The town of Berkeley is just north of Oakland -- but is much nicer. There are very expensive houses in the Berkeley Hills -- and lots of apartments in the flat parts of town.
Bottom line -- academically it is one of the best schools in the world -- for nearly every field. For someone who is young, it would be a fun place to be for a few years.
2006-08-12 07:58:08 · answer #2 · answered by Ranto 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
UC Berkeley is highly competitive and hard to get into. As for location, I personally wouldn't want to live there. The campus is nice, but you're basically near Oakland, San Francisco's ugly stepchild of a city...with a high crime rate and dirty, dirty air.
2006-08-12 07:16:40 · answer #3 · answered by seattlecutiepie 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋