Advice for a new Freshmen?

NewBear
Sat, 19 May 2012 04:26:21 +0000

Hey Guys… sooooo I’m a new Golden Bear starting this fall (fyeah). I’m also a lurker on this forum for a while, and judging by the threads I have read, I can tell that academic life at Cal is really tough, especially as an EECS major. I hope to balance that by taking a few interesting PEs/DeCals every semester, while hopefully not flunking my grades :D. I also have some non-academic questions I want to ask you guys


In your opinion, where do most people usually hang out in the weekend? Do people generally go to SF? Is there any cinema or some sort of entertainment at Berkeley during the weekend that I should know? :D
Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to bring my bike with me to school… I also don’t want to skateboard either because I heard that the north side of campus is pretty hilly. So, do you find it’s feasible to just walk on bare foot and/or use public transportation to get to class and/or around the city?
What is your overall experience with the dorms? If you have any experience with Foothill specifically, would you mind sharing it with me?
Where do people usually shop for food and some other trivial stuff? When I visited during Cal Day, I only got the chance to check out the Walgreen right across Telegraph (buy some batteries for my cam) and the Asian Ghetto (boba!) and they were both pretty good with reasonable price. Any other recommendations? :D
Back to DeCals/PE, if you have taken any of those, what was your experience, in terms of workload and time commitment? Specifically, I want to do some sort of tennis/swimming, and a couple of interesting DeCals. Like, there’s even a DeCal in Pokemon here at Berkeley! But seriously, even though the workload in Berkeley classes are high, I shouldn’t expect a term paper in Pokemon right? haha
Finally, what is one thing that you wish you had known prior to starting your freshmen year at Cal?
Any other advice for a new freshmen? Any other things I should be aware of? :D


Thanks guys, I’d appreciate it if you can share some of your experience here with me.