You may be able to see the beach from a Berkeley dorm room, but it is not on the beach. UCSB would have the easiest beach access.
For Purdue, find out how high the GPA thresholds are to get into any of your possible engineering majors after taking the first year engineering courses.
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/Academics/FirstYear/T2M
For Berkeley, if you may want to change your major to something other than nuclear engineering, find out how difficult (GPA etc.) your other possible majors will be to get into.
http://engineering.berkeley.edu/academics/majors-minors/change-major