<p>At Berkeley, you’ll have advisers and whatnot, but you’re basically on your own. This sounds kind of scary but you’ll become better at taking initiatives and your willpower grows. Sounds cheesy, but I was a lazya$$ before coming to Berkeley. I’m still lazy, but I feel like if I had gone to a “hand-holding school” (Dunno if UIUC is one, but to give an example: my friend at a small liberal arts college has his adviser find internships for him and he gets advice on basically every step of his college career… which sounds nice but I feel like my friend’s gonna leave thinking everything will just come to him) I wouldn’t have become so independent.</p>
<p>/end cheesiness</p>