The famous red cup parties are combined with an impressive American Football game in a stadium with a capacity of 63,000 fans. On game days, the ‘Golden Bears’ madness is strongly present. Everyone is wearing shirts with ‘Cal’ on it, resulting in a wave of golden-blue colored fans on their way to the stadium to support their college football team. There is a strong rivalry with Stanford. Therefore, students would not tolerate wearing a red shirt, since that is the Stanford color.

The campus buildings have a magical vibe; I am thus not the only one who would say that Hogwarts (the Harry Potter school) is based on UC Berkeley. You could even buy a shirt that says: “Voldemort went to Stanford” at every Cal Store, located in every single block in the city. There are even more Cal stores than snackbars! Every now and then UC Berkeley also organizes Quidditch tournaments.

Finally, to also give some attention to the world of technology: In UC Berkeley there is a start-up madness going on. It is a common dream to make it at Silicon Valley, which is supported by start-up weekends and tech talks all over the place, all hosted by the biggest players in the field. This is also why you share the classrooms with students who already have an impressive career at companies such as LinkedIn or Google.