Long story short, it’s not good. Although UC Berkeley is academically prestigious and stressful, its housing situation is one of the worst ones among other top-ranking universities. For those who are considering to put UC Berkeley on their college applications or those who are committed to this university, here are some tips and things you probably should know. It will lower your expectations for Berkeley, and, in turn, won’t make you disappointed when you encounter some problems.
Dorms
I lived in a standard triple room in Unit 2 Ehrman. The room is very very small. If you put a chair in the middle of the room, the room becomes barely accessible. So, don’t bring too many stuff with you, unless you will be living in a suite (then the situation is way better than that in the standard dorms). Since it’s a triple, I share the room with two other roommates. Fortunately, my roommates are nice people, and we all respect each other’s boundaries and needs. However, we still need to communicate with each other to express our concerns and complaints. So, communication is essential to maintain a non-aggressive roommate relationship. If things can be resolved using kind words, prioritize this form of resolution, or else things can go badly quickly, and to make things worse, transferring dorms is a very cumbersome process.
For triples, there is a lofted bed with two desks underneath, which is actually quite spacious. the desks are enough for computers, books, and other accessories. However, I would suggest not bringing too many decorations with you, because after all, it’ll make the desk messier, and with a small space to live in, it will only make the situation even messier. There will also be a bunkbed and a separate desk in the room. There will also be a shelf, three closets for each person, and three hangers for each person. Clothes-wise, bring what is necessary. I personally don’t care too much about dressing up myself, so my clothes (both casual and formal) can fit inside the closet and have free space to spare. However, if you are the type of people who think thrice before dressing up, think thrice before packing all your clothes in (unless you will be living in the suites).
There will be a refrigerator, including a freezer, and a microwave in the room. However, the plugs may not be plugged in. For me, when I first arrived at the dorms, I realized that there are no sockets near the fridge. So, my roommate (and my savior) bought an extension and made the fridge work. Don’t start leaving stuff in the fridge as soon as you arrive – the plugs might not be plugged in.
Wi-Fi will be of some annoyance, but only occasionally. In general, the Wi-Fi should work fine. However, for some places on campus, the Wi-Fi is destined to be bad there. Whether the university will actually fix this, I do not know. And a small tip, if you want to play the Nintendo Switch online using Ethernet, you might need to submit a form to the university, but I’m not very well-versed in Switch Online, so do your research if you want a smooth Switch Online experience.
Floor
One of my friends, Brandon, lives at Foothill. His experience on his floor is mixed – he needs to live at the dorms so he has somewhere to live in, but he also wants to avoid that region because it gets messy from time to time. Depending on the floor, there will be some assholes who mess around at the hallway, trash the toilet, and do other annoying things. For my floor, I don’t hold many grudges towards my floormates. Instead, they are all nice and friendly people, although a lot of them sleep pretty late.
Sleeping is a bit of an issue for those who sleeps early (before 23:59). Because from what I know, a lot of people here like to sleep very late (by my standards), which is after 1:00. So, there is a large possibility that they will have some activities on the floor before they sleep. In other words, they might wake early-sleepers up. In these cases, just open the door and politely tell them to be quiet. The university has a “quiet hours” policy, so your complaint is valid by university standards. Don’t just lie on your bed and hate your floormates – they aren’t bad people; they just have a different lifestyle than yours. Again, floormate communication is important. You can expand your social influence by interacting with them. Also, buy earplugs and eye covers. They are life savers.
The restrooms and showers are usually co-ed. All people on the floor, regardless of gender, use the same bathroom unless stated otherwise. At first, I was a bit hesitant to go into a restroom with people with different genders. However, this hesitance just disappears after a few weeks – it’s perfectly fine now. People can be a bit shocked and even distanced when they first encounter the gender-neutral restrooms. But after a while, it’s nothing to be worried about. So, this shouldn’t be a turn-off for those who want to go to Berkeley. And just another tip, go shower at weird times. Don’t go shower at night or in the morning – most people also shower at that time, thus decreasing the water pressure. Go shower at a time where most people are busy with other stuff. You can enjoy all the water pressure you want. And be aware of toilet flushes when you’re showering. Toilet flushes use cold water, so the showering water will suddenly get hot for a few seconds before cold water gets replenished.
There will be several laundry rooms in the whole building. Luckily, my room is situated just opposite to the laundry room, which serves to be a huge convenience because I don’t have to carry my laundry all the way from wherever I came from just to find out it’s all occupied – do your laundry at weekdays in the afternoon or early in the evening. When you finished your laundry, make extra sure you picked up all your belongings in the washing/drying machine, especially the drying one. People lost a lot of underwear and socks because they are hidden on the inside of the drying machine, where it’s semi-blocked by a filter frame. Laundry stealing and dumping will occur, so make sure you don’t occupy a machine and let it idle for too long – someone will remove them.
There will be study lounges on some floors and a lounge in the building. I didn’t use them because I just study in my room, but if you want to use those rooms, feel free to study there.
What’s Next
Want to move out of on-campus housing next year? Start planning in January and apply in February. Berkeley housing is very competitive. As a result, finding housing can be stressful. For continuing students, on-campus housing applications will be open for around two weeks in February, so keep an eye out of university housing emails.
For off-campus housing, a very important part is to find future roommates. That is why I suggest getting along with your roommates and floormates – they can be potential future floormates when you move out. Since the housing price is, obviously, very high in the Bay Area, sharing an apartment with several people can decrease the price per person (from around 1800 per month per person to less than 1200 if enough). It would be best if you start finding future roommates during January. And, a very important tip, start looking for apartments. Apartments are very competitive, and sometimes can take up a lot of time just to find a good place to live. Different people have different tastes and needs, and different apartments have different things to offer (level of furnishing, appliances, utilities coverage, etc.). Make sure you communicated with your future roommates and your parents clearly; make sure you got all information from the apartments so you don’t get scammed; and make sure you give yourself enough time to talk this out with both parties. Sometimes people get stressed when they’re rushing to get the application done. As a result, they get a bit aggressive. Therefore, give yourself ample time to sort this thing out. A general rule of thumb is: start planning in mid-January and start applying in early-February.
Conclusion
Although I was mostly complaining in this post, Berkeley housing is still not as bad as one think. People can be a bit shocked when they just moved in, but after a while, things will get calmer until the next housing application season strikes again.
Yun-Fan Wu 