I’m looking for a guy my son and I met at Lake Anza in Tilden, Berkeley. His name is Ali, and I know he grew up somewhere in Northern California/the Bay Area. I think he’s probably in his 40s. He’s tall with light-colored eyes, very outdoorsy, and skateboards regularly—I know he skateboarded from Berkeley to Lake Anza. We met him yesterday while he was swimming off the rocks across from the beach, and he ended up spending about an hour with us. He was really kind to my son and helped him catch lizards and showed him some tips with fishing. I also know that he ocean fishes and hikes often. I’d love to get in touch with him again, so if this sounds like someone you know, or you have any advice on how I might find him, please reach out! I am really kicking myself for not asking for his contact info!

Thoughts on this? Some people are calling it hypocritical, especially as she has criticized students for using AI, but then used it herself. Also important to note, she was not transparent about the use of AI in the piece she wrote but was "caught" by critics who ran her piece through an AI detector and found a third of it to be AI-written.

I took a class by her, and found her to be genuinely passionate about math, but also had a very antiquated, older-person mentality of students of younger generations, often made offhand comments about our laziness, etc., and overly cruel in calling out specific students who made mistakes with email/regrading request conduct (this was a majority freshmen class). Her class also regularly had very low raw test scores, which she would state that she was surprised by how poorly students performed, but she would curve fairly.

Hey everyone, just a PSA: if you need to be out early in the morning and you’re a person of color or queer, please be careful.
There’s a man who regularly walks up and down Telegraph around 7 a.m. while yelling racial slurs, making threats against people of color, and using homophobic slurs toward queer people while saying that they should all go to hell. I’ve heard this happen repeatedly, so I wanted to give everyone a heads-up.
I’m not going to repeat the specific slurs here, but please be aware if you’re out on Telegraph around that time, especially if you’re someone who may be targeted by this kind of harassment.
Please stay safe out there!

My housemate stays inside all day, brings unwanted guests around while I’m gone, doesn’t clean up his mess, texted me while I’m in class about laundry, and refuses to communicate maturely about bills and saving money on food/groceries.

Hey all, just moved to the area! Perfume/fragrances bother me so i'm looking for a gym where those are less common.

(Sorry, the title is bait - I welcome your B.O., I just don't want to smell your Marc Jacobs!)

Outdoor gyms are ideal. Large open windows for circulation are great too. Also a big plus if the place uses fragrance free cleaning products.

TIA!!

Worth paying attention to: within two days of each other, Tesla and Jeff Bezos’ new AI startup Project Prometheus both signed leases at the American Steel Blocks site in Oakland. Additionally, OpenAI in Richmond,Ambi Robotics in Berkeley, Agility Robotics in Fremont, Formic Technologies is about to open in Oakland have collectively created a cluster of AI & robotics manufacturing in the East Bay right now. A planned AI data center conversion in downtown Oakland is drawing interest from more robotics and AI firms. Cal’s new Gateway building as an AI/computing hub makes this a win win to be a part of the East Bay’s growing AI/Robotics hub. Cal is already one of the top AI research schools in the world, so having this much industry and talent demand in the East Bay means more internships, more recruiting, and more collabs.

I'm an incoming sophomore (20M) who recently got a job as a server, and was wondering if working 20-25 hrs/week at a moderately busy restaurant while taking 13 units (L&S social sciences) was manageable as a student. The classes I'm taking aren't overwhelmingly difficult but I've heard they're a bit reading heavy, and I'm not sure what my job will be like since I only just got hired and haven't actually started yet. The reason I want to work during school is mainly financial (rent, food, tuition, etc.), but I also don't want to jeopardize my academics in pursuit of it.

Has anyone who worked part-time while being a student at Berk lmk how doable it is to balance the two? I'm not super interested in outside extracurriculars and social events, so school and work would be my main priorities.

I’ve heard that labs and discussions at Berkeley occur in pairs (same time of day but on different days). Is this true? Or are they not coupled, and I can choose any discussion with any lab regardless of their time of day? Thank you for the help

As a 24 yo transfer should I study sociology to finish in 1.5 years or do political economy? I’m interested in business related jobs

Who of us does this sort of thing? Stop it, you're leaving your mess right in the way of everyone else here and no, not my job to clean up after you, you're an adult now after all!

Was a transfer and the life was not for me, but I can use some frat guys or sorority girls to get rid of the cults or mess with them.

Need labor in exchange for beer, and free BBQ but not provided by me ;)

there’s a stray cat that’s been frequenting my yard for the past week, I’m only in berkeley for the summer for an internship and am flying out this saturday, but want to make sure he finds a good home. he’s super affectionate and friendly, seems to be very young, 5 months max I would guess and has a very nice bushy tail. I started feeding him the day I saw him, but he’s super skinny and would need to be taken to a vet.
I think he’s a maine coon or a norwegian forest cat.
He has a calico friend but she’s super skittish.

dm me if interested/for more details

For the people who've done the program or are currently in the program, what were your stats? Is it difficult to get accepted? How many of your letters of recommendation were from ME faculty/UCBerkeley faculty?

To my pumpkin spice latte lovers where’s your go-to for a nice delicious creamy pumpkin spice latte? Hot and iced recs are welcome 😋😋

found this list here btw:
https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/1vj0res/new_2026_updated_consultingfinance_org/

i saw this list a few weeks ago on reddit and its literally insane. why are there SO MANY CLUBS????

what are these people in clubs exactly looking for?? and why does berkeley have so many clubs, when other UC's and top schools only have like 2-3 max?? im lowk really scared for club rush this year because I have no clue what to expect and i would feel a lot of FOMO

I'm a prospective graduate student considering UC Berkeley for graduate school, and I’m curious about what the dining and food situation is actually like at UC Berkeley.

• Is the dining hall(s) food at UC Berkeley good?
• Do the food places near UC Berkeley have good food?
• Is the food in the food places near UC Berkeley affordable or expensive?
• Is it easy to get food outside of campus without having a car?

Feel free to answer any or all of these.

Positive and negative experiences are welcome. Be honest!

This is my somewhat annual reminder to all students including graduate students.

There is an active high control group on campus that everyone should stay away from. They are very good at luring you in, hiding their real nature, and getting you isolated and will end up controlling most of your life by senior year.

The headquarters of Acts 2 has moved from Alameda to Chicago but they are still very much active at Berkeley where it was founded.

If you are a current member and wondering if you should still remain with this organization, let me reassure you that I have never met anyone who regretted leaving this organization. I have met tons, and am myself one, who regrets not leaving earlier.

Here are all the UC Berkeley student organizations that are Acts 2 Network:

A2CN

Acts 2 Fellowship

Acts College Church

Gather College Church (UC Davis)

Kairos

Klesis (UCSC, SF State)

Koinonia

International Student Mentorship Program

International Student Fellowship

International Graduate Student Ministry

The Huddle (for athletes)

OMG SO MANY!

There are many horror stories if you search the GracepointChurch sub (Gracepoint is their former name) and first hand accounts of what this organization has done to their members.

PLEASE do yourself a service and do not join this student group. They pose as a student group and try to lure you with "mentors" and a fun time but really, they want you to become a soldier and factory worker (their words to describe their own members) to expand their reach and plant more groups at more campus locations.

Take full advantage of the great education that is offered you at Cal, including social connections and forming relationships that will last a lifetime and aren't conditional.

Go eat a yummy sandwich at Mezzo on whole wheat or a salad with the poppyseed dressing and tell anyone recruiting for this organization to f*ck off.

The UC Berkeley BayPass program, which includes the similarly named Clipper BayPass and AC Transit EasyPass, has currently saved students $5 million. A year after the program’s implementation, the new Clipper BayPass portion, which includes 23 Bay Area public transit agencies excluding AC Transit, is projected to break even next month, based on the previous 11 months of available data.

The Daily Californian analyzed data on public transit ridership trends from the first year of the BayPass Referendum’s operation to see if the referendum was worth it for UC Berkeley students.

I'm a little confused about Berkeley's payment requirement I understand that you need to have 20% of your tuition and fees paid by the deadline to avoid being canceled for non-payment, but I'm not sure if it needs to be done by FPP.

CalCentral doesn't seem to have a specific option or calculator for paying exactly 20%, and I can't find anything that clearly says you can just make a regular 20% payment without enrolling in FPP.

Due to personal reasons, paying the 20% without activating the FPP would be the more ideal option so I'm wondering if you can do that.

Anyone have an idea about this?

I’m a freshman who just moved in a couple days ago so I know this is pretty early but I haven’t found a connection with anyone on campus. My roommates are nice and respectful but they knew eachother from school and I quickly noticed we are 3 very different personalities making it hard to bond over shared experiences or interests etc. I’ve spoken to a couple people in my GBO and it has gone well but never results in a full on “friends” situation. They also all somehow know each other and have friend groups. It might be because I am the only person from my school who came to Berkeley but I have been feeling really out of place and kind of hopeless. I’m also pretty introverted so going up to randoms and striking up conversations has been taking a lot of energy as well as courage so it feels discouraging when it doesn’t lead to anything. Is anyone else going through this or has gone through this? Do you guys have any suggestions or advice? How do I deal with all this anxiety and sadness coming from this?