UC Berkeley

                                         by Wang Libing(Maths class of 2016)

My thoughts returned to the afternoon I had just arrived at San Francisco Airport.When I got off the plane, I saw a lot of English in front of me. People passing by were speaking different languages and had different complexions. Seeing the huge words "San Francisco" at the airport, I felt nervous and strange apart from the excitement of coming to the new environment. I was worried about whether I will be able to adapt to life here next month and whether I could communicate fluently with local people in English and whether I can really learn something in the summer courses .

Although the summersession is very short, I still had a thorough experience of Berkeley's strong academic atmosphere and their open teaching methods. On the first day, we found that all the tables and chairs were movable, and there were not many people in one classroom. I took two courses, Fundamental ofPopulation and LanguageLearning: Television. During class, the teacher preferred encouraging our own thought and group discussion to just giving information. Sometimes the teacher randomly assigned a discussion topic, we moved the table and chair to form a small circle and started discussion. In class, most of the time was spent in group discussions. And for our discussion results, teachers often did not give non-black or white comments such as right or wrong. Instead of this, they made comments with praise and inspiration to guide us to think further.

Berkeley's studywasnot only confined to the classroom, but also expanded to extra-curricular. Each course has field work, such as three weekly interviews with locals and a visit to a local public service television station in Berkeley. This is an opportunity for us to get closer to American culture, to experience cultural differences from multiple perspectives and to improve our English.

Each of Berkeley's building is unique. When you walked into the college buildings at random,you may be at a place where more than a dozen Nobel Prize winners had stayed before. The world's third tallest clock tower, Sather Tower is one of the campus' iconic buildings. If you climb on to the top of it, you will be able to capture the campus and even the San Francisco Bay area. The near-by green spaceiswhere students readbooks, take a nap and play Frisbee.In the distancelocatedthe Golden Gate Bridge, which straddles both sides in a foggy atmosphere. Between those two are small houses arranged in neat order in Berkeley city. Downtown Berkeley outside the school is a business district with restaurants, supermarkets and gyms. It is worth mentioning that there are not only American Cafes like Subway and Starbucks, but also Chinese restaurants such as Guyue Fragrance and Outside Bakery and some Japanese food, Southeast Asian food,and Mexican food, etc.

What I want to say is, the world is so large and weneed to have a good look at it.