<p>Hey CC, I know your message was never answered and you’re probably long graduated by now. But, I am going to answer it anyway just in case others visit this thread and are wondering the same thing. I am a Cal philosophy undergrad in my last semester right now, and I can definitely say going through the program “trained me to be a meticulous thinker” every bit as well as UCLA could have, probably better. Of course, I never attended UCLA, so I won’t pretend to know exactly what it’s like over there. But, Cal was more than challenging. I was reading that post about UCLA above, and it seemed like a really good guide to Cal philosophy minus a few things: first, the lower div classes are around 100-175 people, not 150-250; second, there is no rule at Cal philosophy about how many students can get an ‘A’-- in fact, the whole class can be awarded an A if the work is deserving (I should note, however, that very few people do end up getting an A since the expectations for such a grade are really high); third, A+'s don’t exist, or at least I’ve never seen or even heard of anyone getting one; and lastly, anything below a B- is rarely given unless your work is extremely confused and unreadable, so don’t worry about B.S. curves. Like the above mentioned post already said, lower div courses are a bit tougher since there is a lot more reading, and since the class sizes are much larger. There are three required lower div courses: modern philosophy, ancient philosophy, and logic. Aside from these, you have to take nine other upper divs to finish the degree, one of which has to be a class called Philosophical Methods. I’m not sure if UCLA has an equivalent to this class, but it’s amazing and crazy hard. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but this class asks you to write A LOT, and what’s especially cool is that you meet with a philosophy grad student one on one for 30 minutes a week to discuss the weekly writing they have you do. This class really straightens your writing out (i.e., makes it clear, concise, precise, structured, elegant, and so on), and makes writing essays almost trivial (i.e., you don’t get so stressed out about essays anymore since, once you’ve completed this class, you have written a **** load of them). As to the point about UCLA being more analytic than Cal, my response is that I really don’t know since I haven’t taken any classes at UCLA. But, at first glance, thinking that UCLA is more analytic seems flat out wrong. And, even if it is true, then all I can say is that really sucks. If cal were anymore focused on analytic philosophy and thought, my head would have likely exploded. The person who said this was probably a UCLA student who doesn’t want to admit Cal’s program is wayyy better. Cal has numerous philosophers who are considered to be some of the best living thinkers, like Barry Stroud, John Searle, Hans Sluga, and Hubert Dreyfus. And, aside from these really famous members of the faculty, I have to say that the less-famous people are amazing as well. They are all brilliant rising stars in their respective fields. Of course, I’m sure UCLA has a great faculty as well, but nothing like Berkeley’s. All in all, if you’re trying to choose between these two schools for philosophy, I would recommend Cal. The weather is perfect year round, people are nice, and, from what I gather, the Philosophy program is much less stressful since there is no official curve and since class sizes are smaller. One other major point I should mention is that the grad students at Cal are *<strong><em>ing phenomenal, and I have heard the same cannot be said for UCLA. One reason for this is that Cal, despite what people above said, is ranked higher (a fair bit higher) than UCLA, and thus attracts the best and brightest from around the world. if you doubt what I just said, google the rankings…you probably should stop taking peoples word for it and just check. Anyways, having good grad students makes a massive difference. I would argue that it’s even more important than having good professors. There are a couple reasons for this: first, the one hour discussion per week, which is led by a grad student, is really where one gets to ask all the questions he/she wants answered, and thus it is where one can really grasp what is going on. And second, grad students are the ones who grade your papers and turn in your final grades, not professors-- at least most of the time. So, the good ones will give you helpful feedback, not just some quick *</em></strong>ty notes that don’t help. Alright, well, I feel like I have rambled on enough. I really hope this helps someone. Good luck with philosophy, it is a cold and bitter field of study, but it does help make you a solid thinker!</p>