You pick up those books your going to read
And not remember and you roll man...
Today marks the commencement of the Final Exam period, right before the festive season. It's 8 days over here at Cal, and usually there's no study week. You just go straight from classes on Friday, and your first exam could be on Saturday morning. This semester was the first semester that they introduced a 'dead' week, which suits me fine. But as you can guess, this sort of exam schedule encourages cramming, all-nighters, caffeine-induced violence and all that other good stuff that characterises the reality of college life.
Christmas tree, warm fire, hot coffee and...a great book to read: Control & Dynamics of Engineering Processes. Oh yeah, Santa came early.
Most residence halls are completely self-contained, and mine - I-House - has some of the best facilities. The library here has been packed out for the last week, so much so that they've opened the Dining Hall from 9pm-5am as an extra study location. Shit is serious. They even provide donuts and coffee for free from 11pm onwards to help fuel our sleep deprived bodies.
Old school classic. Who needs fancy computers and labs like abacus and UWA biz school? They only end up getting used by Indians for Bollywood marathons.
A lot of guys I know are seniors, so they're graduating after this semester, and are hitting the books hardcore. The thing is, unlike in Australia, its pretty much the norm to go to graduate school after you get your bachelors, unless you have a highly technical degree (e.g. Engineering). The system here is quite different. Med school and Law school can only be entered as a graduate, so you can spend 4 years studying something ridiculous like liberal arts, then (some how) get accepted into Harvard Law and then 3 years and a bar exam later you can be in a courtroom. That's a long time to invest.
...You get that associate degree, okay,
Then you get your bachelors, then you get your masters
Then you get your master's masters,
Then you get your doctorate...
Speaking of Law school, the one here at Berkeley is actually top 10 in the States. But I reckon it has the number one name: BOALT (like Usain Bolt).
The cafe is also a pretty popular place if you want easy access to coffee and a bit more background noise.
Anyway, like I've mentioned a few times before the workload here is at least 5x more than in Australia (no exaggeration) and consequently the study ethic is pretty high. Another positive correlation is the amount of stupid superstitions that come along with it. Here are my top superstition picks:
1. Do not step on any UC Berkeley seals (plaques located around campus).
2. Roll down '4.0 hill' in your Freshman year - the GPA range here goes from 0-4.0 (not 4.0-7.0 like at UWA), but the 'hill' in question is more of a moderate incline than a hill.
3. Run through 'Main Stacks' (the massive archive of literature stuck underground between the two biggest libraries on campus) naked on the first day of Finals. This actually happens in an organised group, and they are definitely in their birthday suits. Main stacks is inevitably filled with people trying to study when the naked run goes through, and is yet another demonstration of how err, alternative, people in the Bay area are.
How any of that is supposed to help is beyond me, but the naked run was quite a sight. I didn't have anything on hand to capture the moment but here's what happened in Spring '07:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtuWpB8YuKU&feature=related
Another interesting thing to know is that all the libraries on campus (there are 26) are actually all connected via underground tunnels and secret walkways. Perhaps it was inspired by the Viet Cong, but either way its pretty cool to know that if something like 'I am Legend' ever happened and you holed up in Berkeley you'd at least have access to all the books.
...You go man, then when everybody says quit
You show them those degrees man, when
Everybody says hey, your not working,
Your not making any money,
You say look at my degrees and you look at my life...
Just to illustrate how serious they are about hitting the books, check out the notices that have been popping up around the residence hall:
They love fines here in California, as you'll recall from my minor $250 bike infringement (http://davidatberkeley.blogspot.com/2009/10/five-o-five-o.html), but as ridiculous as this sounds, its probably actually a good idea since we live right on frat row.
So yeah, a semester at college is pretty much a slog all the way through, since the assessments are non-stop. It's not like its that much more difficult, its just the sheer volume of it all. But I guess you get what you pay for, or you should at least try to get what you paid for. Tuition fees here are around $15k USD a semester for an undergrad if your a Californian resident, and closer to $30k if your interstate or international (no discrimination whether you're all the way from say Europe or your just coming down from Oregon). Remember that this is UC Berkeley, which, despite being a damn good school is still just a public school. Want to go to a private school? Try USC: University of Southern California aka University of Spoilt (Asian) Children and you'll end up giving up an apartment on the foreshore in South Perth at the end of your Bachelor's.
Thankfully for us exchange students we only have to pay our fees from back home. This applies to everyone in the EAP system, so I know some people who are coming from the University of Mexico (UNAM) who are literally paying the equivalent of 1 USD to be here. That's like, 13 pesos, or 5 tortillas! Don't laugh.
But study isn't all that bad, because the American system lets you be so much more flexible while you're an undergrad, since you basically spend the rest of your life specialising in grad school and research. Berkeley takes it one step further: they offer 'DeCal' classes which are actually taught by students and the subjects are amazing! My personal favourites are, in ascending order:
7. Integrative Medicine
6. Jewish Social Justice
5. James Bond: Politics, Pop Culture, Hero
4. Introduction to Magic: the Gathering
3. History of Middle Earth
2. Star Wars Galaxy
OK, you may be thinking that the the last 3 aren't real, and that David is failing at a stupid joke attempt. But wait, no, I'm not kidding- THEY ARE REAL (see the entire list of course offerings here: http://www.decal.org/courses/). Which leads me to my absolute favourite, which unfortunately has been taken off the curriculum as of last year:
1. StarCraft: Strategic Analysis
Now I finally understand why there are a bunch of 30 yr old Korean guys who always bring takeout from shabu shabu to the computer lab and have heated debates where they would occasionally yell: 'sunken colony' and 'psionic storm'.
So yeah, you could basically spend an entire lifetime studying at Cal. But, I for one still don't understand the massive cramming they do for Finals. I mean, its only worth 35% of your final grade.
We DOUBLE or nothing that shit over in UWA.
...Yeah I'm 52, so what, hate all you want,
But I'm smart, I'm so smart, and I'm in school,
And these guys are out here making money all these ways,
And I'm spending mine to be smart.
You know why?
Because when I die, buddy,
You know what's going to keep me warm?
That's right, those degrees.
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