Some 50 years ago, hundreds of students gathered at Sproul Hall on the University of California–Berkeley campus demanding that administrators not stifle their right to political free speech. That protest established Berkeley as a national hotbed of student activism.
These days, the spirit of protest remains alive and well at Berkeley, the flagship campus of the University of California system and the top-ranked public university in the country.
Students take issues like racial injustice and income inequality very seriously here, while also exuding a certain quirky irreverence in their daily lives. (Consider the Berkeley undergrad walking around this winter day in a pajama onesie blowing bubbles.) Besides regular demonstrations, they frequently flood Sproul Plaza for cultural performances, to socialize and to advertise clubs or events.
Undergrads attend six of the university’s 14 colleges and schools, which also enroll about 10,500 graduate students. Set on 1,232 acres in downtown Berkeley, east of San Francisco Bay, the campus has an urban feel with a healthy dose of nature in the scenic Strawberry Creek and several open glades.
Restaurants, theaters, record shops and other stores are just a short walk away, particularly along Telegraph Avenue to the south. Take Telegraph about five miles farther south to reach Oakland, another popular destination for food, museums, sporting events and other activities.
[Check out great college towns with top schools.]
Commonly known as both Berkeley and Cal, the university is equal parts academic and athletic powerhouse. Students have access to about 120 majors, and faculty members include Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and other esteemed scholars. This is a campus that has its own museum of paleontology — complete with a 40-foot T. rex skeleton — and where more than a dozen chemical elements, including plutonium, were discovered.
Recent political science grad Elizabeth Kirk from Seattle says she was “inspired every day academically.”
The Division I Golden Bears compete in about 30 varsity sports, and students can participate in a range of intramural and club teams, martial arts, and dance and fitness classes.
More than two-thirds of students are native Californians, and roughly 14 percent come from outside the U.S. About 17 percent of the 78,000-plus first-year applicants for fall 2015 were offered admission, putting Berkeley among the most selective public universities in the country.
[Know which questions to ask when touring college campuses.]
Academics can be quite rigorous, students say, though they note that many Cal undergrads tend to be more competitive with themselves than with each other.
But “even when stress does build up,” says senior Humair Burney, a chemistry major from Pakistan, “you have a lot of outlets.” The choices include taking advantage of more formal advising, counseling and tutoring plus the university’s cultural resource centers, and just enjoying concerts or performances at Zellerbach Hall.
With more than 1,200 student organizations, some 8,000 courses and more than a dozen dining halls and cafes, Berkeley can feel overwhelming. “No one’s going to hold your hand,” says senior psychology major Andjelija Janicijevic from Serbia.
But in many ways, “it’s surprising how small it feels,” says junior Kim Lee, a mechanical engineering major from San Rafael, California.
To make tight connections with other students and professors, first- and second-year students can choose from a range of intimate faculty-taught seminars like High Culture, Low Culture: Modernism and the Films of the Coen Brothers or Art and Science on Wheels.
About three-quarters of all classes have fewer than 30 students and larger lectures typically break down into smaller discussion sections. Nearly all freshmen live in Berkeley-affiliated housing, and 10 percent of men and women belong to fraternities and sororities.
Thousands of students participate in public service each year, and Berkeley is the top producer of Peace Corps volunteers in the program’s history. At Berkeley, says senior Melissa Hsu, a business major from San Marino, California, “we actually think that we can change things.”
More From the San Francisco Bay Area College Road Trip:
— University of California–Santa Cruz
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Colleges 2016” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
More from U.S. News
5 Can’t-Miss Best Colleges Rankings Lists
10 Top-Ranked Colleges That Are Flexible With Test Scores
Debunking Myths About the U.S. News Best Colleges Rankings
San Francisco Bay Area College Road Trip: University of California–Berkeley originally appeared on usnews.com