UC Berkeley vs Lewis & Clark vs Hampshire

CalAlum
Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:31:59 +0000

I’d recommend logging onto the course scheduling modules of all three schools. Search the lower-division English classes that were offered last fall and this spring. That will give your daughter a really good picture of the classes actually offered (versus what’s in the catalog).

Socially, Berkeley now is a very different place than Berkeley 10 years ago. It can be difficult to get the classes you need, and although large often seems to equate to highly energetic and the possibility of making many friends, large can often be quite lonely. It’s been a mixed bag for my daughter’s friends, young women who entered in Fall of 2007. For one family in particular, that 30+% increase in tuition and fees after the first year was a shock, and prices are supposed to rise again next year as well.

I don’t know much about Hampshire, but Lewis and Clark would be a great place for a student interested in study abroad and travel. My niece attended there and went abroad three times, studying biology on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, sociology in Africa, and urban studies in an east European country. She loved it there, but she also described the on-campus life as sleepy.