Written by Anyun Chatterjee
As a lot of freshman are starting to fill out housing contracts, this question is bound to come up quite a bit. I lived in Unit 2 my freshman year, so here’s a general overview of what my experience was:
I met one of my roommates and Facebook and our third roommate was a random. My first roommate and I never got super close or anything, but we were pretty friendly with each other. Our third roommate was a big partier and didn’t really have much in common with us but we were all cool with each other.
Spacewise, we had originally decided to work everything out once we had all gotten to the room, but our third roommate ended up getting there earlier than us and he set up on the loft bed and took on of the desks under it and half of the closet on that side and a full dresser. That was fine though, because the other roommate and I didn’t have a problem with being bunkmates and we each wanted different desks. As for storage space I took two underbed drawers and half a closet, and he took the other two drawers and half of each closet. Honestly, space never became a major issue while we lived there, the only problems arose when one of my roommates left all of his clothes on the ground, but we would always bitch him out for that so he’d pick them up eventually.
So I guess spacewise the best thing to do is to just make sure everyone is happy with their allotted space for the first week of classes, because that’s when you see what works for you.
Also, don’t be scared to move the furniture around, we moved one of the desk to the wall and stashed the dressers in the closets to make space and I had a friend who stacked stuff so neatly that his room seemed huge (but it was the standard room size).
As for food, to be honest your first 4-6 weeks at Berkeley are probably going to be spent exploring all the dining halls which you should definitely do. Make sure to try late night at Crossroads and Foothill, and make the effort to walk to Clark Kerr at least once. You’re also probably going to be a huge fan of Asian Ghetto for the first couple weeks and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all go through our Gypsy’s phase, Montague’s phase, IB’s phase and House of Curries phase (I’m still in that one :P). But I highly recommend you explore your options as much as you can while your workload is still comparatively light. Take the time to just amble down Telegraph or Shattuck or University or College and just walk for a while and get a sense what kinds of foods are close to you. There are a lot of tasty options available, but it’s more fun to discover them for yourself rather than letting us tell you what we liked the most.
I remember I once walked down to Ashby on Telegraph with a couple guys and then we all had Ethiopian food for the first time and it was a wonderful experience. Another time we couldn’t figure out where to eat and we walked all the way down to Shattuck from Piedmont, then walked back, said fuck it and went to Crossroads for late night and it was awful but still fun. These experiences, however exhausting they can be, are what make college so much fun.
So basically, my advice boils down to: explore what you can, whether it be in your dorm, food, or anything else you have the opportunity to explore.
I met one of my roommates and Facebook and our third roommate was a random. My first roommate and I never got super close or anything, but we were pretty friendly with each other. Our third roommate was a big partier and didn’t really have much in common with us but we were all cool with each other.
Spacewise, we had originally decided to work everything out once we had all gotten to the room, but our third roommate ended up getting there earlier than us and he set up on the loft bed and took on of the desks under it and half of the closet on that side and a full dresser. That was fine though, because the other roommate and I didn’t have a problem with being bunkmates and we each wanted different desks. As for storage space I took two underbed drawers and half a closet, and he took the other two drawers and half of each closet. Honestly, space never became a major issue while we lived there, the only problems arose when one of my roommates left all of his clothes on the ground, but we would always bitch him out for that so he’d pick them up eventually.
So I guess spacewise the best thing to do is to just make sure everyone is happy with their allotted space for the first week of classes, because that’s when you see what works for you.
Also, don’t be scared to move the furniture around, we moved one of the desk to the wall and stashed the dressers in the closets to make space and I had a friend who stacked stuff so neatly that his room seemed huge (but it was the standard room size).
As for food, to be honest your first 4-6 weeks at Berkeley are probably going to be spent exploring all the dining halls which you should definitely do. Make sure to try late night at Crossroads and Foothill, and make the effort to walk to Clark Kerr at least once. You’re also probably going to be a huge fan of Asian Ghetto for the first couple weeks and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all go through our Gypsy’s phase, Montague’s phase, IB’s phase and House of Curries phase (I’m still in that one :P). But I highly recommend you explore your options as much as you can while your workload is still comparatively light. Take the time to just amble down Telegraph or Shattuck or University or College and just walk for a while and get a sense what kinds of foods are close to you. There are a lot of tasty options available, but it’s more fun to discover them for yourself rather than letting us tell you what we liked the most.
I remember I once walked down to Ashby on Telegraph with a couple guys and then we all had Ethiopian food for the first time and it was a wonderful experience. Another time we couldn’t figure out where to eat and we walked all the way down to Shattuck from Piedmont, then walked back, said fuck it and went to Crossroads for late night and it was awful but still fun. These experiences, however exhausting they can be, are what make college so much fun.
So basically, my advice boils down to: explore what you can, whether it be in your dorm, food, or anything else you have the opportunity to explore.