Discover Berkeley

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Home / DISCOVER BERKELEY

When you become a Golden Bear, you connect with a long tradition of academic excellence and community pride.

Come to UC Berkeley, the world’s premier public university. Study with Nobel laureate faculty at top research facilities. Meet the best students from the United States and around the globe. And graduate with a diploma that introduces you to a family of more than 450,000 alumni.

At Berkeley, learning opportunities present themselves both in and out of the classroom. Giving back to the community and participating in campus life are vital aspects to the Cal culture. You’ll find yourself among leaders of all kinds: Peace Corps volunteers, non-profit founders, student-government presidents, scholarship winners, and club organizers.

Academics

Students can discover their academic interests in one of over 100 undergraduate programs. Whether it is our discovery courses, or a DeCal, or a large lecture, or a small discussion seminar, our students thrive inside the classroom in a variety of different fields.

Around 70% of undergraduate classes have fewer than 30 students. Our student-to-faculty ratio is about 18:1. Students are encouraged to engage with our world-class faculty.

Learn more about our academic programs and majors.

Arts & Culture

From blockbuster concerts at the Greek Theater to more intimate performances in the redwood grove of the campus’s Botanical Garden, there is no shortage of cultural events happening in and around the Berkeley campus. Recent guests include Simpson creator Matt Groening and cartoonist Lynda Barry, writer Margaret Atwood, humorist David Sedaris, musician Kehlani, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Learn about upcoming performances and events.

Bay Area and Berkeley

Discover what makes Berkeley, well, Berkeley - pizza co-ops, independent bookshops, architectural wonders, eclectic live music venues, farmer’s markets, idyllic swimming holes, breathtaking scenic lookouts, charming neighborhoods, and more. Enjoy exploring a college town nestled in a bustling city. And should you want to discover further, Oakland and San Francisco are just a short BART ride away. And within 40 miles you’ll have access to the Napa Valley, with hundreds of wineries and gourmet food, as well as the tech hub of Silicon Valley.

Cal Athletics

Cal’s Division I athletic program is legendary. And at Berkeley, it is tradition to cheer on the California Golden Bears. In recent years, our women’s basketball team has made it to the Final Four, the NFL and NBA have drafted Cal football and men’s basketball players, and many athletes in soccer and swimming have gone on to win world championships and olympic medals. As the Fall semester nears, Cal’s students and fans are ready to storm the historic California Memorial Stadium to scream “Roll on you Bears!” to our football team.

Learn more about our athletics program or how to be recruited as an athlete at CalBears.com.

Housing

Virtually all entering freshmen live in university housing. The residence halls provide students with a meal plan, Academic Services Centers, live-in faculty and residential assistants, security monitoring programs, live-in health workers, computing centers, tutoring, and a community that cares about the academic success of our students. Berkeley also offers a Theme Program experience which allows students to benefit from being a part of a smaller community of people with similar interests and identities.

Berkeley maintains a commitment to making housing available for students. The recent addition of the 752-bed Blackwell Hall and a concerted campus effort to address the housing crunch have improved the availability of housing for students in their first year at Berkeley and beyond.

Learn more about housing opportunities at Berkeley.

Safety

While Berkeley is in an urban environment, the campus offers a wide range of safety services such as late-night shuttles, campus escorts, and self-defense courses. The Berkeley campus has a dedicated, full-service police department with 77 officers, 45 full-time non-sworn personnel, and 60 student employees.

Wellness

The campus offers comprehensive healthcare services—as well as health promotion, public-health services, and personal, career, and crisis counseling—for all Berkeley students at the Tang Health Center. You’ll also find help for any special needs (disabled students, gender equity, etc.).

UC Berkeley is a tobacco-free campus. The goal is to create a healthier environment for students, faculty, staff, and visitors; help support tobacco users who are trying to quit; and reduce the number of new tobacco users by promoting the social norm of a tobacco-free environment.

Berkeley, along with all of the UC campuses, has implemented immunization requirements to ensure that students are educated about and receive vaccinations to prevent potentially serious and contagious diseases. To see what immunizations are now required, visit the University Health Services (Tang Center) website.

Don’t know where to start? Check out the Dean of Student’s wellness resources.

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