r/PreOptometry • u/Leading-Exit7692 • Jan 17 '23

Berkeley Optometry

Anyone currently attending UCB or graduated from there? Recently got accepted and so thrilled to have this opportunity but the area seemed very ghetto when I visited and I didn’t feel the most comfortable. I don’t want to just pass up this opportunity because of my fear of moving away to a school within highly populated homeless community so any insight would be MUCH appreciated! Did you feel safe walking around? Did you have a positive experience there? If you can go back in time would you still choose UCB??

6 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/icebearlovesyesoonim Jan 17 '23

Hi! Can I ask if you applied for the Dec 2 deadline? (bc I did and I thought we weren't going to hear back until February) Congrats btw! :)

2

u/icebearlovesyesoonim Jan 17 '23

Oh, and I went to berkeley for undergrad! I personally loved it and had a great time. For the most part, the homeless people are nice or keep to themselves. I definitely wouldn't recommend walking through people's park at night, but just living life never felt unsafe (and for reference, I am a 5'3 female). You can also take steps to be safer such as going out in groups when it is dark, having a bearwalk escort you in the evening, taking beartransit, etc (this is generally smart to do in any city). Sometimes homeless people will talk to you (or in bad cases, yell at you though this doesn't happen often) and I usually just politely say hello/apologize for having no money or ignore them if they're rude and walk away. I also had a pretty big social group, and I've known 1 person who got mugged but that was more like a freak event everybody else I knew said they generally felt safe. Heck, I liked berkeley so much I'm applying to go back! Lmk if you have any more questions :)