Now that most of us are back home and caught up with friends from high school, we’re again reminded of the many differences between everyone’s respective colleges. Here are a couple of things about our beloved Berkeley that your friends from back home might not be able to identify with.

1) Everything is more expensive here — everything

Something that your friends going to school in areas that aren’t the Bay Area might not understand is the burden of the insanely high cost of living here. It’s difficult to stomach your friends casually disclosing that they’re paying $300-$500 for a single room in a spacious new three-bedroom house while you may pay two to three times that for half of a room in a cramped 50-year-old apartment. Not to mention the fact that you can rarely pay less than $8 to $9 for a decent lunch and often feel like you have to save up just to pay for for toiletries at Walgreens.

2) There are basically no such things as cars

With sidewalks and public transportation, you’re pretty much set to go anywhere you need to go for all four years here. You might have that one friend with a car, but you silently judge that friend for being too lazy to walk or too proud to use public transportation (even though you’re also slightly jealous). You’re perfectly fine with carrying your groceries home or taking the BART to San Francisco. Your high school friends, on the other hand, who see cars as a necessity, may be appalled at your adaptation to such a simple lifestyle.

3) There are always options for fun things to do and new things to try

You rarely hear people complain about boredom unless it’s in the middle of a bad professor’s lecture. In the (minimal) free time we have as Berkeley students, there’s almost always a park to explore, a new city to visit, a show to attend or a new restaurant to try. While your high school friends may resort to hitting the frats or bars every weekend to pass the time, we can at least be thankful that there’s a variety of ways to have fun here.

4) Missing boba and other foodie favorites

We all have that one food addiction, whether it’s boba, froyo, Top Dog or Sheng Kee bread. It might be such a regular part of your diet that you begin to have withdrawals when you go home after each semester ends. You might go to a coffee or ice cream shop to catch up with your high school friends but it’s just not the same. It will never be the same.

5) Having only computer science (and other STEM) friends

If you’re not a computer science, or CS (or other STEM), major yourself, you probably have CS (or other STEM) friends and frequently find yourself caught up in conversations revolving CS (or other STEM fields) with either nothing to contribute or no idea of what you’re talking about. You often think to yourself that you must take Computer Science 61A to feel relevant in the world of science and technology today. Your high school friends on the other hand seem to find this surprising since they may go to schools with more emphasis in other areas, perhaps the social sciences or even arts.

6) Summer break is really not a break at all

If you’re not taking classes or don’t have at an internship in your prospective field, you may not be doing summer the conventional Berkeley student way. Apparently at Berkeley, summer “break” is not really a break, it’s actually an unofficial third semester that you feel obligated to use in order to get ahead of your peers. While your friends from back home are looking forward to their summer flipping burgers or backpacking around Europe, you’ll be pulling your hair out as usual to add that next line to your resume or transcript.

7) Always having to worry about safety

You’ve probably grown accustomed to hearing about crime in neighborhoods you or your friends live in. You may have subconsciously trained yourself to keep your belongings extra safe and to fear being out too late without companionship. Your high school friends, especially those who go to schools in small towns, may only be exposed to petty crimes. They rarely worry about the same things you do and can’t imagine what it’s like to always be conscious about personal safety.

Contact Jasmine Tatah at [email protected].