The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California),
is a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
land-grant research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...
in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...
philosopher
George Berkeley
George Berkeley ( ; 12 March 168514 January 1753), known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, writer, and clergyman who is regarded as the founder of "immaterialism", a philos ...
, it is the state's first
land-grant university
A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts, Morrill Acts of 1862 and ...
and is the founding campus of the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
system.
Berkeley has an enrollment of more than 45,000 students. The university is organized around fifteen schools of study on the same campus, including the
College of Chemistry, the
College of Engineering,
College of Letters and Science, and the
Haas School of Business. It is
classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was originally founded as part of the university.
Berkeley was a founding member of the
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of predominantly American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 69 public and private ...
and was one of the original eight "
Public Ivy" schools. In 2021, the federal funding for campus research and development exceeded $1 billion.
Thirty-two libraries also compose the
Berkeley library system which is the
sixth largest research library by number of volumes held in the United States.
Berkeley students compete in thirty
varsity athletic sports, and the university is one of eighteen full-member institutions in the
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...
(ACC). Berkeley's athletic teams, the
California Golden Bears, have also won 107 national championships, 196 individual national titles, and
223 Olympic medals (including 121 gold). Berkeley's
alumni,
faculty, and researchers include 59
Nobel laureates and 19
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
winners,
and the university is also a producer of
Rhodes Scholars,
Marshall Scholars, and
Fulbright Scholars.
History
Founding
Made possible by
President Lincoln's signing of the
Morrill Act in 1862, the University of California was founded in 1868 as the state's first land-grant university, inheriting the land and facilities of the private
College of California and the federal-funding eligibility of a public agricultural, mining, and mechanical arts college.
The Organic Act states that the "University shall have for its design, to provide instruction and thorough and complete education in all departments of science, literature and art, industrial and professional pursuits, and general education, and also special courses of instruction in preparation for the professions."
Ten faculty members and forty male students made up the fledgling university when it opened in Oakland in 1869.
Frederick Billings, a trustee of the College of California, suggested that a new campus site north of Oakland be named in honor of
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...
philosopher
George Berkeley
George Berkeley ( ; 12 March 168514 January 1753), known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, writer, and clergyman who is regarded as the founder of "immaterialism", a philos ...
.
The university began admitting women the following year. In 1870,
Henry Durant, founder of the College of California, became its first president. With the completion of North and
South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students.
The first female student to graduate was in 1874, admitted in the first class to include women in 1870.
Beginning in 1891,
Phoebe Apperson Hearst funded several programs and new buildings and, in 1898, sponsored an international competition in
Antwerp
Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
, where French architect
Émile Bénard submitted the winning design for a campus master plan. Although the University of California system does not have an official
flagship campus, many scholars and experts consider Berkeley to be its unofficial flagship. It shares this unofficial status with the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
.
20th century

In 1905, the University Farm was established near
Sacramento, ultimately becoming the
University of California, Davis.
In 1919, the Los Angeles branch of the
California State Normal School San Jose State University, San José State University traces back to 1857 when the institution operated as a normal school for the San Francisco Unified School District, San Francisco public school system. It grew in size and scope until May 2, 1862 ...
became the southern branch of the university, which ultimately became the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
. By the 1920s, the number of campus buildings in Berkeley had grown substantially and included twenty structures designed by architect
John Galen Howard. In 1917, one of the nation's first
ROTC programs was established at Berkeley and its School of Military Aeronautics began training pilots, including
Jimmy Doolittle. In 1926, future
Fleet Admiral
An admiral of the fleet or shortened to fleet admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, usually equivalent to field marshal and marshal of the air force. An admiral of the fleet is typically senior to an admiral.
It is also a generic ter ...
Chester W. Nimitz established the first
Naval ROTC unit at Berkeley. Berkeley ROTC alumni include former Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American businessman and government official who served as the eighth United States secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson ...
, Army Chief of Staff
Frederick C. Weyand, sixteen other
general officers, ten Navy
flag officers, and AFROTC alumna Captain
Theresa Claiborne.
In the 1930s,
Ernest Orlando Lawrence helped establish the Radiation Laboratory (now
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and invented the
cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Januar ...
, which won him the Nobel physics prize in 1939. Using the cyclotron, Berkeley professors and Berkeley Lab researchers went on to discover sixteen
chemical elements
A chemical element is a chemical substance whose atoms all have the same number of protons. The number of protons is called the atomic number of that element. For example, oxygen has an atomic number of 8: each oxygen atom has 8 protons in i ...
—more than any other university in the world.
In particular, during World War II and following
Glenn Seaborg's then-secret discovery of plutonium, Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb. Physics professor
J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley founded and was then a partner in managing two other labs,
Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943) and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952).
In 1952, the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus given a chancellor, and
Clark Kerr became Berkeley's first chancellor, while
Robert Sproul remained in place as the president of the University of California.
Berkeley gained a worldwide reputation for
political activism in the 1960s. In 1964, the
Free Speech Movement organized student resistance to the university's restrictions on political activities on campus—most conspicuously, student activities related to the
Civil Rights Movement.
The arrest in Sproul Plaza of
Jack Weinberg, a recent Berkeley alumnus and chair of Campus
CORE, prompted a series of student-led acts of formal remonstrance and civil disobedience that ultimately gave rise to the Free Speech Movement, which movement would prevail and serve as a precedent for student
opposition to America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1982, the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) was established on campus with support from the
National Science Foundation
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
and at the request of three Berkeley mathematicians—
Shiing-Shen Chern,
Calvin Moore, and
Isadore M. Singer. The institute is now widely regarded as a leading center for collaborative mathematical research, drawing thousands of visiting researchers from around the world each year.
21st century
In the current century, Berkeley has become less politically active, although more liberal. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of nine to one, which is a ratio similar to that of American academia generally. The school has become more focused on
STEM disciplines and fundraising.
In 2007, the
Energy Biosciences Institute was established with funding from
BP and Stanley Hall, a research facility and headquarters for the
California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, opened. Supported by a grant from alumnus
Jim Simons, the
Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing was established in 2012. In 2015, Berkeley and its sister campus,
UCSF, established the
Innovative Genomics Institute to develop
CRISPR gene editing, and, in 2020, an anonymous donor pledged $252 million to help fund a new center for computing and data science. For the 2020 fiscal year, Berkeley set a fundraising record, receiving over $1 billion in gifts and pledges, and two years later, it broke that record, raising over $1.2 billion.
Controversies
* Various research ethics, human rights, and animal rights advocates have been in conflict with Berkeley.
Native Americans contended with the school over repatriation of remains from the
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Student activists have urged the university to cut financial ties with
Tyson Foods and
PepsiCo. Faculty member
Ignacio Chapela prominently criticized the university's financial ties to
Novartis
Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical company, pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by re ...
.
PETA has challenged the university's use of animals for research and argued that it may violate the
Animal Welfare Act.
* Cal's
Memorial Stadium reopened in September 2012 after renovations. The university incurred a controversial $445 million of debt for the stadium and a new $153 million student athletic center, which it financed with the sale of special stadium endowment seats. The roughly $18 million interest-only annual payments on the debt consumes 20 percent of Cal's athletics' budget; principal repayment begins in 2032 and is scheduled to conclude in 2113.
* On May 1, 2014, Berkeley was named one of fifty-five higher education institutions under investigation by the
U.S. Department of Education's
Office of Civil Rights "for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints" by the
White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. Investigations continued into 2016, with hundreds of pages of records released in April 2016, showing a pattern of documented sexual harassment and firings of non-tenured staff.
* On July 25, 2019, Berkeley was removed from the
''U.S. News'' Best Colleges Ranking for misreporting statistics. Berkeley had originally reported that its two-year average alumni giving rate for fiscal years 2017 and 2016 was 11.6 percent, ''
U.S. News'' said. The school later told ''U.S. News'' the correct average alumni giving rate for the 2016 fiscal year was just 7.9 percent. The school incorrectly overstated its alumni giving data to ''U.S. News'' since at least 2014. The alumni giving rate accounts for five percent of the Best Colleges ranking.
* Berkeley community members have criticized UC Berkeley's increasing enrollment. Berkeley residents filed a lawsuit alleging that the university's expanding enrollment violated
California Environmental Quality Act and that the area lacked the infrastructure to support more students. Critics of the lawsuit accused these community members of
NIMBYism. In August 2021, a judge from the
Superior Court of Alameda County ruled in favor of the residents, and on March 3, 2022, the
California Supreme Court also ruled in favor of the residents, saying that the university needed to freeze its admission rates at 2020–2021 levels. On March 11, 2022, state legislators released a proposal to change CEQA to exempt the university from its restrictions. On March 14, Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law. Berkeley has continued to face a housing shortage.
Organization and administration
Name
Officially named the "University of California, Berkeley" it is often shortened to "Berkeley" in general reference or in an academic context (
Berkeley Law,
Berkeley Engineering,
Berkeley Haas,
Berkeley Public Health) and to "California" or "Cal" particularly when referring to its athletic teams (
California Golden Bears).
Governance
The University of California is governed by a twenty-six member
Board of Regents, eighteen of whom are appointed by the
Governor of California
The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The Governor (United States), governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard.
Established in the Constit ...
to 12-year terms. The board also has seven ''
ex officio
An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, or council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by r ...
'' members, a student regent, and a non-voting student regent-designate.
Prior to 1952, Berkeley was the University of California, so the university president was also Berkeley's chief executive. In 1952, the university reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus having its own chief executive, a chancellor, who would, in turn, report to the president of the university system. Twelve vice-chancellors report directly to Berkeley's chancellor, and the deans of the fifteen colleges and schools report to the executive vice chancellor and provost, Berkeley's chief academic officer. Twenty-three presidents and chancellors have led Berkeley since its founding.
Funding
With the exception of government contracts, public support is apportioned to Berkeley and the other campuses of the University of California system through the UC Office of the President and accounts for 12 percent of Berkeley's total revenues. Berkeley has benefited from private philanthropy and alumni and their foundations have given to the university for operations and capital expenditures with the more prominent being
J. Paul Getty,
Ann Getty,
Sanford Diller,
Donald Fisher,
Flora Lamson Hewlett, David Schwartz (
Bio-Rad) and members of the Haas (
Walter A. Haas,
Rhoda Haas Goldman,
Walter A. Haas Jr.,
Peter E. Haas,
Bob Haas) family.
Berkeley has also benefited from benefactors beyond its alumni ranks, notable among which are
Mark Zuckerberg and
Priscilla Chan;
Vitalik Buterin,
Patrick Collison,
John Collison, the
Ron Conway family,
Daniel Gross,
Dustin Moskovitz
Dustin Aaron Moskovitz (; born May 22, 1984) is an American billionaire internet entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, Inc. (now known as Meta Platforms) with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. In 2008, he left F ...
and
Cari Tuna, along with
Jane Street principals;
BP; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, billionaire
Sir Li Ka-Shing, Israeli-Russian billionaire
Yuri Milner,
Thomas and Stacey Siebel,
Sanford and Joan Weill, and professor
Gordon Rausser ($50 million gift in 2020).
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been given anonymously. The 2008–13 "Campaign for Berkeley" raised $3.13 billion from 281,855 donors, and the "Light the Way" campaign, which concluded at the end of 2023, has raised over $6.2 billion.
Academics
Faculty and departments
Berkeley is a large, primarily residential research university with a majority of its enrolment in undergraduate programs but also offering a comprehensive doctoral program.
The university has been
accredited by the
Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission since 1949.
The university operates on a
semester calendar and awarded 8,725 bachelor's, 3,286 master's or professional and 1,272 doctoral degrees in 2018–2019.
There are 1,789 full-time and 886 part-time faculty members among the university's academic enterprise which is organized into fifteen colleges and schools that comprise 180 departments and 80 interdisciplinary units offering over 350 degree programs. Colleges serve both undergraduate and graduate students, while schools are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors or minors:
*
College of Chemistry
*
College of Computing, Data Science, and Society
*
College of Engineering
*
College of Environmental Design
*
College of Letters and Science
*
Goldman School of Public Policy
*
Graduate School of Journalism
*
Haas School of Business
*
Rausser College of Natural Resources
*
School of Information
*
School of Education
*
School of Law
*
School of Public Health
*
School of Social Welfare
*
Wertheim School of Optometry
*
UC Berkeley Extension
Undergraduate programs

The four-year, full-time undergraduate program offers 107 bachelor's degrees across the Haas School of Business (1), College of Chemistry (5), College of Engineering (20), College of Environmental Design (4), College of Letters and Science (67), Rausser College of Natural Resources (10), and individual majors (2).
The most popular majors are
electrical engineering and computer sciences,
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
,
molecular and
cell biology
Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...
,
environmental science, and
economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
.
Requirements for undergraduate degrees include an entry-level writing requirement before enrollment (typically fulfilled by minimum scores on standardized admissions exams such as the SAT or ACT), completing coursework on "American History and Institutions" before or after enrollment by taking an introductory class, passing an "American Cultures Breadth" class at Berkeley, as well as requirements for reading and composition and specific requirements declared by the department and school.
Graduate and professional programs

Berkeley has a "comprehensive" graduate program, with high coexistence with the programs offered to undergraduates, and offers interdisciplinary graduate programs with the medical schools at the
University of California, San Francisco and
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
. The university offers
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
,
Master of Science
A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...
,
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.)
is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...
, and
PhD degrees in addition to professional degrees such as the
Juris Doctor
A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...
,
Master of Business Administration
A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...
,
Master of Public Health, and
Master of Design.
The university awarded 963 doctoral degrees and 3,531 master's degrees in 2017.
Admission to graduate programs is decentralized; applicants apply directly to the department or degree program. Most graduate students are supported by fellowships, teaching assistantships, or research assistantships.
Library system
Doe Library serves as the
Berkeley library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center, while most of the main collections reside in the subterranean Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The
Bancroft Library, which has over 400,000 printed volumes and 70 million manuscripts, pictures, and maps, maintains special collections that document the history of the western part of North America, with an emphasis on California, Mexico and Central America. The Bancroft Library also houses the Mark Twain Papers, the Oral History Center, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, and the University Archives.
Reputation and rankings
National
* In the 2024 ''
Center for World University Rankings
College and university rankings order higher education institutions based on various criteria, with factors differing depending on the specific ranking system. These rankings can be conducted at the national or international level, assessing inst ...
(CWUR)'' list, Berkeley was the top public university in the nation and ranked 10th overall based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, and citations.
* In the 2023 ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
''
America's Top Colleges list, Berkeley was the highest ranking public school and 5th overall.
* In the 2023–2024
''U.S. News & World Report'' Best Colleges Ranking, Berkeley was tied for both the top public school and for 15th overall.
* In the 2025 ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
''/College Pulse rankings, Berkeley was the highest ranking public school and 8th overall.
Global
* In 2017, the
Nature Index ranked the university the 9th largest contributor to papers published in 82 leading journals.
* For 2024, the ''Center for World University Rankings (CWUR)'' ranked the university 12th in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, and research performance.
Past rankings
In his memoirs,
Clark Kerr records Berkeley's rise in the rankings (according to the
National Academies) during the 20th century. The school's first ranking in 1906 placed it among the top six schools ("Big Six") in the nation. In 1934, it ranked second, tied with
Columbia and the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
, behind only
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
; in 1957, it was ranked as the only school second to Harvard. In 1964, Berkeley was named the "best balanced distinguished university", meaning the school had not only the most top departments but also the highest percentage of top ranking departments in its school. The school in 1993 was the only remaining member of the original 1906 "Big Six", along with Harvard; in that year Berkeley ranked first.
The
American Council on Education
The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,600 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher educati ...
, a private non-profit association, ranked Berkeley tenth in 1934. However, by 1942, private funding had helped Berkeley rise to second place, behind only Harvard, based on the number of distinguished departments.
In 1985,
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
admissions officer Richard Moll published ''Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities'' which named Berkeley a "
Public Ivy".
[Richard Moll in his book ''Public Ivys: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities'' (1985)] Since its inaugural 1990 reputational survey, ''
Times Higher Education
''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education.
Ownership
TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...
'' has considered Berkeley to be one of the world's "six super brands" along with the
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
and the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
,
MIT, and
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
.
The 2010
United States National Research Council Rankings identified Berkeley as having the highest number of top-ranked doctoral programs in the nation. Berkeley doctoral programs that received a #1 ranking included English, German, Political Science, Geography, Agricultural and Resource Economics, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Epidemiology, Plant Biology, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Admissions and enrollment
For Fall 2022, Berkeley's total enrollment was 45,745: 32,831 undergraduate and 12,914 graduate students, with women accounting for 56% of undergraduates and 49% of graduate and professional students. It had 128,226 freshman applicants and accepted 14,614 (11.4%). Among enrolled freshman, the average unweighted GPA was 3.90.
Berkeley's enrollment of
National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued. For 2019, Berkeley ranked fourth in enrollment of recipients of the
National Merit $2,500 Scholarship (132 scholars). 27% of admitted students receive federal
Pell grants.
Berkeley students are eligible for a variety of public and private financial aid. Inquiries are processed through the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office, although schools such as the Haas School of Business and
Berkeley Law, have their own financial aid offices.
Discoveries and innovation
Natural sciences
*
Atomic bomb – Physics professor
J. Robert Oppenheimer was wartime director of
Los Alamos National Laboratory and the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada.
From 1942 to 1946, the ...
.
*
Carbon 14 and
photosynthesis
Photosynthesis ( ) is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabo ...
–
Martin Kamen and
Sam Ruben first discovered carbon 14 in 1940, and Nobel laureate
Melvin Calvin and his colleagues used carbon 14 as a molecular tracer to reveal the carbon assimilation path in photosynthesis, known as
Calvin cycle.
*
Carcinogens – Identified chemicals that damage DNA. The
Ames test was described in a series of papers in 1973 by
Bruce Ames and his group at the university.
*
Chemical element
A chemical element is a chemical substance whose atoms all have the same number of protons. The number of protons is called the atomic number of that element. For example, oxygen has an atomic number of 8: each oxygen atom has 8 protons in its ...
s – Sixteen elements have been discovered at Berkeley (
technetium
Technetium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Tc and atomic number 43. It is the lightest element whose isotopes are all radioactive. Technetium and promethium are the only radioactive elements whose neighbours in the sense ...
,
astatine
Astatine is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the abundance of elements in Earth's crust, rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, occurring only as the Decay chain, decay product ...
,
neptunium,
plutonium,
americium
Americium is a synthetic element, synthetic chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Am and atomic number 95. It is radioactive and a transuranic member of the actinide series in the periodic table, located under the lanthanide element e ...
,
curium,
berkelium,
californium,
einsteinium,
fermium,
mendelevium
Mendelevium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Md ( formerly Mv) and atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranium element in the actinide series, it is the first element by atomic number that currently cannot be produced ...
,
nobelium
Nobelium is a synthetic element, synthetic chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol No and atomic number 102. It is named after Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and benefactor of science. A radioactive metal, it is the tenth transura ...
,
lawrencium,
rutherfordium,
dubnium, and
seaborgium).
*
Covalent bond
A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electrons to form electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atom ...
–
Gilbert N. Lewis in 1916 described the sharing of electron pairs between atoms, and invented the Lewis notation to describe the mechanisms.
*
CRISPR gene editing – Nobel laureate
Jennifer Doudna discovered a precise and inexpensive way for manipulating DNA in cells.
*
Cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Januar ...
–
Ernest O. Lawrence created a
particle accelerator
A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental ...
in 1934, and was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize in 1939.
*
Dark energy
In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is a proposed form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. Its primary effect is to drive the accelerating expansion of the universe. It also slows the rate of structure format ...
–
Saul Perlmutter and many others in the
Supernova Cosmology Project discover the universe is expanding because of dark energy 1998.
*
Flu vaccine –
Wendell M. Stanley and colleagues discovered the vaccine in the 1940s.
*
Hydrogen bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...
–
Edward Teller, the father of hydrogen bomb, was a professor at Berkeley and a researcher at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the
Los Alamos National Laboratory.
*
Immunotherapy of cancer –
James P. Allison discovers and develops
monoclonal antibody therapy that uses the immune system to combat cancer 1992–1995.
*
Molecular clock –
Allan Wilson discovery in 1967.
*
Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity or just plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through neurogenesis, growth and reorganization. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to reorganize and rewir ...
–
Marian Diamond discovers structural, biochemical, and synaptic changes in brain caused by environmental enrichment 1964
*
Oncogene –
Peter Duesberg discovers first cancer causing gene in a virus 1970s.
*
Telomerase –
Elizabeth H. Blackburn,
Carol Greider, and
Jack Szostak discover enzyme that promotes cell division and growth 1985.
*
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is a group of eight compounds related in molecular structure that includes four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. The tocopherols function as fat-soluble antioxidants which may help protect cell membranes from reactive oxygen speci ...
–
Gladys Anderson Emerson isolates Vitamin E in a pure form in 1952.
Computer and applied sciences
*
Berkeley RISC –
David Patterson leads
ARPA's
VLSI project of
microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...
design 1980–1984.
*
Berkeley UNIX/Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) – The
Computer Systems Research Group was a research group at Berkeley that was dedicated to enhancing
AT&T
AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...
Unix
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
operating system and funded by
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Bill Joy modified the code and released it in 1977 under the open source
BSD license, starting an open-source revolution.
*
Deep sea diving –
Joel Henry Hildebrand used
helium
Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...
with
oxygen
Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...
to mitigate
decompression sickness
Decompression sickness (DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from Solution (chemistry), solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during D ...
.
*
GIMP – In 1995,
Spencer Kimball and
Peter Mattis began developing GIMP as a semester-long project at Berkeley.
*
Polygraph – invented by
John Augustus Larson and a police officer from the
Berkeley Police Department in 1921.
*
Project Genie –
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...
funded project. It produced an early
time-sharing
In computing, time-sharing is the Concurrency (computer science), concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each Process (computing), task or User (computing), user a small slice of CPU time, processing time. ...
system including the
Berkeley Timesharing System, which was then commercialized as the
SDS 940. Concepts from Project Genie influenced the development of the
TENEX operating system for the
PDP-10
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, especi ...
, and
Unix
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
, which inherited the concept of
process forking from it.
Unix co-creator
Ken Thompson
Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B (programmi ...
worked on Project Genie while at Berkeley.
*
SPICE
In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...
–
Donald O. Pederson develops the Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) 1972.
*
Tcl programming language – developed by
John Ousterhout in 1988.
* Three-dimensional
Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...
–
Chenming Hu won the 2014
National Medal of Technology for developing the "first 3-dimensional transistors, which radically advanced semiconductor technology."
*
Vi text editor –
Bill Joy created the first Vi editor in 1976.
*
Wetsuit –
Hugh Bradner invents first wetsuit 1952.
Companies and entrepreneurship

*
Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes three operating units: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King (company), King.
Founded in July 2 ...
, 1979 (as
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
), co-founder
Alan Miller (BS) and
Larry Kaplan (BA)
*
AIG, 1919, founder
Cornelius Vander Starr (attended)
*
Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
, 1976, co-founder
Steve Wozniak (BS)
*
Berkeley Systems
Berkeley Systems was a San Francisco Bay Area software company co-founded in 1987 by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades. It made money early on by performing contract work for the National Institutes of Health, specifically in making modifications to th ...
, 1987, co-founder
Joan Blades (BA)
*
Bolt, Beranek and Newman, 1948, co-founder
Richard Bolt (BA, MA, PhD)
*
Chernin Entertainment, 2009, founder
Peter Chernin (BA)
*
Chez Panisse, 1971, founder
Alice Waters (BA)
*
Coursera, 2012, co-founder
Andrew Ng (PhD)
*
Databricks, 2013, founders
Ali Ghodsi (PhD),
Matei Zaharia (PhD),
Ion Stoica (Professor),
Reynold Xin (PhD), Andy Konwinski (PhD), Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji (PhD), and Patrick Wendell (PhD)
*
DHL
DHL (originally named after founders Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn) is a multinational Import-Export Expert Company, founded in the United States and headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It provides courier, package delivery, and express mail service, ...
, 1969, co-founder
Larry Hillblom (JD)
*
eBay, 1995, founder
Pierre Omidyar (attended)
*
Gap Inc., 1969, co-founder
Donald Fisher (BS)
*
Google Earth
Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
, 2001 (as KeyHole Inc.), co-founder John Hanke (MBA)
*
GrandCentral, 2009 (as
Google Voice), co-founder Craig Walker (BA 1988, JD 1995)
*
HTC Corporation, 1997, co-founder
Cher Wang (BA, MA)
*
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
, 1968, co-founders
Gordon Moore (BS) and
Andy Grove (PhD)
*
LSI Logic, 1980, co-founder Robert Walker (BS)
*
Marvell Technology Group, 1995, co-founders
Sehat Sutardja (MS, PhD) and
Weili Dai (BA)
*
Morgan Stanley, 1924 (as
Dean Witter & Co.), co-founder
Dean G. Witter (BA)
*
Mozilla Corporation, 2005, co-founder
Mitchell Baker (BA, JD)
*
Myspace, 2003, co-founder
Tom Anderson (BA)
*
OpenAI, 2015, co-founder John Schulman (PhD)
*
Opsware, 1997, co-founder Sik Rhee (BS)
*
PowerBar, 1986, co-founders
Brian Maxwell (BA) and Jennifer Maxwell (BS)
*
RedOctane, 1999, co-founders Charles Huang (BA) and Kai Huang (BA)
*
Renaissance Technologies, 1982, founder
James Simons (PhD)
*
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, 1998, founders Senh Duong (BA), Patrick Y. Lee (BA) and Stephen Wang (BA)
*
SanDisk, 1988, co-founder
Sanjay Mehrotra (BS, MS)
*
Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, 1996, co-founder John Scharffenberger (BA)
*
Softbank, 1981, founder
Masayoshi Son (BA)
*
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...
, 1982, co-founder
Bill Joy (MS)
*
Tesla, 2003, co-founder
Marc Tarpenning (BS)
*
The Learning Company, 1980, co-founder
Warren Robinett (MS)
*
VMware, 1998, co-founders
Diane Greene (MS) and
Mendel Rosenblum (PhD)
*
Zilog, 1974, co-founder Ralph Ungermannn (BSEE)
Campus
Much of the Berkeley campus is in the city limits of
Berkeley with portion of the property extending into
Oakland. It encompasses approximately 1,232-acres, though the "central campus" occupies only the low-lying western 178-acres of this area. Of the remaining acres, approximately 200-acres are occupied by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; other facilities above the main campus include the
Lawrence Hall of Science and several research units, notably the
Space Sciences Laboratory, the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, an ecological preserve, the
University of California Botanical Garden and a recreation center in Strawberry Canyon. Portions of the mostly undeveloped, eastern area of the campus are actually within the
City of Oakland; these portions extend from the
Claremont Resort north through the
Panoramic Hill neighborhood to
Tilden Park.
To the west of the central campus is the
downtown business district of Berkeley; to the northwest is the neighborhood of North Berkeley, including the so-called
Gourmet Ghetto, a commercial district known for high quality dining due to the presence of such world-renowned restaurants as
Chez Panisse. Immediately to the north is a quiet residential neighborhood known as
Northside with a large graduate student population;
situated north of that are the upscale residential neighborhoods of the
Berkeley Hills. Immediately southeast of campus lies fraternity row and beyond that the
Clark Kerr Campus and an upscale residential area named
Claremont. The
area south of the university includes student housing and
Telegraph Avenue, one of Berkeley's main shopping districts with stores, street vendors and restaurants catering to college students and tourists. In addition, the university also owns land to the northwest of the main campus, a married student housing complex in the nearby town of Albany ("Albany Village" and the "Gill Tract"), and a
field research station several miles to the north in
Richmond, California.
The campus is home to several museums including the
University of California Museum of Paleontology
The University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) is a paleontology museum located on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
The museum is within the Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB), designed by George W. Kelham ...
, the
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the
Lawrence Hall of Science. The Museum of Paleontology, found in the lobby of the Valley Life Sciences Building, showcases a variety of dinosaur fossils including a complete cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The campus also offers resources for innovation and entrepreneurship, such as the Big Ideas Competition, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, and the Berkeley Haas Innovation Lab. The campus is also home to the
University of California Botanical Garden, with more than 12,000 individual species.
Architecture

What is considered the historic campus today was the result of the 1898 "International Competition for the
Phoebe Hearst Architectural Plan for the University of California," funded by
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...
's mother and initially held in the Belgian city of
Antwerp
Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
; eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco in 1899. The winner was Frenchman
Émile Bénard, who refused to personally supervise the implementation of his plan and the task was subsequently given to architecture professor
John Galen Howard. Howard designed over twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and 1960s.
The structures forming the "classical core" of the campus were built in the
Beaux-Arts Classical style, and include
Hearst Greek Theatre,
Hearst Memorial Mining Building,
Doe Memorial Library, California Hall,
Wheeler Hall, Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall,
Sather Gate, and the
Sather Tower (nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration,
St Mark's Campanile
St Mark's Campanile (, ) is the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy. The campanile is a reconstruction completed in 1912, the previous tower having collapsed in 1902. At in height, it is the tallest structure in Venice and is collo ...
in Venice), the tallest university clock tower in the United States. Buildings he regarded as temporary and non-academic were designed in shingle or
Collegiate Gothic styles; examples of these are North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, and Stephens Hall. Many of Howard's designs are recognized
California Historical Landmarks and are listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
Built in 1873 in a
Victorian Second-Empire-style, South Hall, designed by David Farquharson, is the oldest university building in California. It, and the
Frederick Law Olmsted-designed
Piedmont Avenue east of the main campus, are two of the only surviving examples of the nineteenth-century campus. Other notable architects and firms whose work can be found in the campus and surrounding area are
Bernard Maybeck (Faculty Club);
Julia Morgan (Hearst Women's Gymnasium and
Julia Morgan Hall);
William Wurster (Stern Hall); Moore Ruble Yudell (Haas School of Business);
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (C.V. Starr East Asian Library), and
Diller Scofidio + Renfro (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
Natural features

Flowing into the main campus are two branches of
Strawberry Creek. The south fork enters a culvert upstream of the recreational complex at the mouth of Strawberry Canyon and passes beneath
California Memorial Stadium before appearing again in Faculty Glade. It then runs through the center of the campus before disappearing underground at the west end of campus. The north fork appears just east of
University House and runs through the glade north of the Valley Life Sciences Building, the original site of the Campus Arboretum.
Trees in the area date from the founding of the university. The campus features numerous wooded areas, including:
Founders' Rock, Faculty Glade, Grinnell Natural Area, and the
Eucalyptus
''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of more than 700 species of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. Most species of ''Eucalyptus'' are trees, often Mallee (habit), mallees, and a few are shrubs. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalyp ...
Grove, which is both the tallest stand of such trees in the world and the tallest stand of hardwood trees in North America. The campus sits on the
Hayward Fault, which runs directly through California Memorial Stadium.
Student life and traditions

The official university mascot is
Oski the Bear, who debuted in 1941. Previously, live bear cubs were used as mascots at Memorial Stadium until it was decided in 1940 that a costumed mascot would be a better alternative. Named after the
Oski-wow-wow yell, he is cared for by the Oski Committee, whose members have exclusive knowledge of the identity of the costume-wearer. The
University of California Marching Band, which has served the university since 1891, performs at every home football game and at select road games as well. A smaller subset of the Cal Band, the Straw Hat Band, performs at basketball games, volleyball games, and other campus and community events.
The UC Rally Committee, formed in 1901, is the official guardian of California's Spirit and Traditions. Wearing their traditional blue and gold rugbies, Rally Committee members can be seen at all major sporting and spirit events. Committee members are charged with the maintenance of the six Cal flags, the large California banner overhanging the Memorial Stadium Student Section and
Haas Pavilion, the California Victory Cannon, Card Stunts and
The Big "C" among other duties. The Rally Committee is also responsible for safekeeping of the
Stanford Axe when it is in Cal's possession.
Overlooking the main Berkeley campus from the foothills in the east, The Big "C" is an important symbol of California school spirit. The Big "C" has its roots in an early 20th-century campus event called "Rush", which pitted the freshman and sophomore classes against each other in a race up Charter Hill that often developed into a wrestling match. It was eventually decided to discontinue Rush and, in 1905, the freshman and sophomore classes banded together in a show of unity to build "the Big C."
Students invented the college football tradition of
card stunts. Then known as Bleacher Stunts, they were first performed during the 1910
Big Game and consisted of two stunts: a picture of the Stanford Axe and a large blue "C" on a white background. The tradition is continued today by the Rally Committee in the Cal
student section and incorporates complicated motions, for example tracing the Cal script logo on a blue background with an imaginary yellow pen.
The California Victory Cannon, placed on
Tightwad Hill overlooking the stadium, is fired before every football home game, after every score, and after every Cal victory. First used in the 1963 Big Game, it was originally placed on the sidelines before moving to Tightwad Hill in 1971. The only time the cannon ran out of ammunition was during a game against
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
in 1991, when Cal scored 12 touchdowns. The Cal Mic Men, a standard at home football games, has recently expanded to involve basketball and volleyball. The traditional role comes from students holding megaphones and yelling, but now includes microphones, a dedicated platform during games, and the direction of the entire student section.
Student housing
Berkeley students are offered a variety of housing options, including university-owned or affiliated residences, private residences, fraternities and sororities, and cooperative housing (co-ops). Berkeley students, and those of other local schools, have the option of living in one of the twenty cooperative houses participating in the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC), a
nonprofit
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
housing cooperative
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity which owns real estate consisting of one or more residential buildings. The entity is usually a cooperative or a corporation and constitutes a form of housing tenure. Typically hou ...
network consisting of 20 residences and 1250 member-owners.
Fraternities and sororities
About three percent of undergraduate men and nine percent of undergraduate women—or 3,400 of total undergraduates—are active in Berkeley's Greek system. University-sanctioned fraternities and sororities comprise over 60 houses affiliated with four Greek councils.
Student-run organizations
Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC)

The
Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) is the official
student association that controls funding for student groups and organizes on-campus student events. The two main political parties are "Student Action" and "CalSERVE". The organization was founded in 1887 and has an annual operating budget of $1.7 million (excluding the budget of the Graduate Assembly of the ASUC), in addition to various investment assets. Its alumni include multiple State Senators, Assemblymembers, and White House Administration officials.
Media and publications
Berkeley's student-run online television station,
CalTV, was formed in 2005 and broadcasts online. It is run by students with a variety of backgrounds and majors. Since the mid-2010s, it has been a program of the
ASUC. Berkeley's independent student-run newspaper is ''
The Daily Californian''. Founded in 1871, ''The Daily Cal'' became independent in 1971 after the campus administration fired three senior editors for encouraging readers to take back
People's Park. The Daily Californian has both a print and online edition. Berkeley's FM
student radio station,
KALX, broadcasts on 90.7 MHz. It is run largely by volunteers, including both students and community members. Berkeley also features an assortment of student-run publications:
* ''
California Law Review'',
law journal published by
Berkeley Law, est. 1912.
* ''
Berkeley Poetry Review'', national
poetry journal, est. 1974.
* ''
Berkeley Fiction Review'', American
literary magazine, est. 1981.
* ''
Heuristic Squelch'',
satirical newspaper, est. 1991.
* ''
California Patriot'',
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
political magazine, est. 2000.
* ''
Berkeley Political Review'',
nonpartisan political magazine, est. 2001.
* ''Caliber Magazine'', an "everything magazine", featuring articles and blogs on a wide range of topics, est. 2008.
* ''B-Side'', music magazine, est. 2013.
* ''Smart Ass'',
liberal magazine, est. 2015.
* ''Berkeley Economic Review'',
economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
journal, est. 2016.
* ''Business Berkeley'',
Haas undergraduate journal.
Student groups

There are ninety-four political student groups on campus, including MEChXA de UC Berkeley, Berkeley
ACLU, Berkeley Students for Life, Campus Greens, The Sustainability Team (STEAM), the
Berkeley Student Food Collective, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Cal Berkeley Democrats, and the Berkeley College Republicans. The Residence Hall Assembly (RHA) is the student-led umbrella organization that oversees event planning, legislation, sponsorships and other activities for over 7,200 on-campus undergraduate residents.
Berkeley students also run a number of consulting groups, including the Berkeley Group, founded in 2003 and affiliated with the Haas School. Students from various concentrations are recruited and trained to work on pro-bono consulting engagements with actual nonprofit clients. Berkeley Consulting, founded in 1996, has served over 140 companies across the high-tech, retail, banking, and non-profit sectors.
ImagiCal has been the college chapter of the
American Advertising Federation at Berkeley since the late 1980s. The team competes annually in the National Student Advertising Competition, with students from disparate majors working together on a marketing case underwritten by a corporate sponsor. The
Berkeley Forum is a nonpartisan student organization that hosts panels, debates, and speeches across a variety of fields. Past speakers include
Senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...
Rand Paul
Randal Howard Paul (born January 7, 1963) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States senator from Kentucky since 2011.
A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
, entrepreneur and venture capitalist
Peter Thiel, and
Khan Academy founder
Salman Khan.

Democratic Education at Cal, or DeCal, is a program that promotes the creation of professor-sponsored, student-facilitated classes. DeCal arose out of the 1960s
Free Speech movement and was officially established in 1981. The program offers around 150 courses on a vast range of subjects that appeal to the student community, including classes on the
Rubik's Cube,
blockchain,
web design
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...
, metamodernism,
cooking
Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or Food safety, safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from ...
, Jewish art,
3D animation, and
bioprinting.
The campus is home to several
a cappella
Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...
groups, including Drawn to Scale, Artists in Resonance, Berkeley Dil Se, the
UC Men's Octet, the
California Golden Overtones, DeCadence, and Noteworthy. The
University of California Men's Octet was founded in 1948. Since 1967, students and staff jazz musicians have had an opportunity to perform and study with the
University of California Jazz Ensembles. For several decades it hosted the Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival, part of the American Collegiate Jazz Festival, a competitive forum for student musicians. PCCJF brought jazz artists including
Hubert Laws,
Sonny Rollins,
Freddie Hubbard, and
Ed Shaughnessy to the Berkeley campus as performers. Berkeley also hosts other performing arts groups in comedy, dance, acting and instrumental music.
Engineering student teams
Given Berkeley's
STEM education, there are a variety of student-run engineering teams that focus on winning design and engineering competitions.
Berkeley has two prominent
amateur rocketry teams: Space Enterprise at Berkeley (SEB) and Space Technologies and Rocketry (STAR). Both have launched solid-fuel
sounding rockets and are currently developing
liquid propellant rockets. The university also has two
Formula SAE teams: Berkeley Formula Racing and Formula Electric Berkeley. Both of these teams participate in Formula SAE–run competitions, with the former focusing on internal combustion engines and the latter on electric motors. Berkeley has a number of other vehicle teams, including CalSol, CalSMV, and Human Powered Vehicle.
Athletics

The university's athletic teams are known as the
California Golden Bears, often shortened to "Cal Bears" or just "Cal," and were historically members of the NCAA Division I
Pac-12 Conference
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I level for all sports, and its Co ...
(Pac-12). Cal is also a member of the
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a college athletic conference with members located mostly in the Western United States, although it has added members as far east as Massachusetts. The conference participates at the NCAA Divisio ...
in several sports not sponsored by the Pac-12 and the
America East Conference
The America East Conference (AmEast) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I whose members are located in the Northeastern United States. The conference is headquartered in Boston, Massachu ...
in women's
field hockey
Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...
. In 2024, Cal joined the
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...
(ACC). The first school colors, established in 1873 by a committee of students, were
Yale Blue and gold.
Yale Blue was originally chosen because many of the university's inaugural faculty were Yale graduates, including Henry Durant, its first president. Blue and gold were specified and made the official colors of the university and the state colors of California in 1955.
In 2014, the athletic department specified a darker blue.
The
California Golden Bears have won national championships in baseball (2), men's basketball (2), men's crew (15), women's crew (3), football (5), men's golf (1), men's gymnastics (4), men's lacrosse (1), men's rugby (26), softball (1), men's swimming & diving (4), women's swimming & diving (3), men's tennis (1), men's track & field (1), and men's water polo (13). Students and alumni have also won
207 Olympic medals.
California finished in first place in the 2007–08 Fall U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings (now the
NACDA Directors' Cup), a competition measuring the best overall collegiate athletic programs in the country, with points awarded for national finishes in NCAA sports. It finished the 2007–08 competition in seventh place with 1119 points.
Most recently, California finished in third place in the 2010–11 NACDA Directors' Cup with 1219.50 points, finishing behind Stanford and Ohio State. This is California's highest ever finish in the Director's Cup. The Golden Bears' traditional arch-rival is the
Stanford Cardinal, and the most anticipated sporting event between the two universities is the annual football match dubbed the
Big Game, celebrated with spirit events on both campuses. Since 1933, the winner of the Big Game has been awarded custody of
the Stanford Axe. Other sporting games between these rivals have related names such as the Big Splash (water polo) or the Big Kick (soccer).
Notable alumni, faculty, and staff
Faculty and staff
*
Shiing-Shen Chern, a leading geometer of the 20th century, co-founded the
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and served as its founding Director until 1984.
* Physicist
J. Robert Oppenheimer was scientific director of the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada.
From 1942 to 1946, the ...
and was the founder of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics.
* Faculty member
Edward Teller was (together with
Stanislaw Ulam) the "father of the
hydrogen bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...
", who laid important foundations for the establishment of
Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley.
*
Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel laureate in physics who invented the
cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Januar ...
at Berkeley, founded the Radiation Laboratory on campus, which later became the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
*
Gilbert N. Lewis, former dean of the College of Chemistry, was nominated 41 times for
Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
He mentored and influenced numerous Berkeley Nobel laureates, including
Harold Urey (1934 Nobel Prize),
William F. Giauque (1949 Nobel Prize),
Glenn T. Seaborg (1951 Nobel Prize),
Willard Libby (1960 Nobel Prize), and
Melvin Calvin (1961 Nobel Prize).
*
Glenn T. Seaborg, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, discovered or co-discovered ten chemical elements at Berkeley and served as chancellor from 1958 to 1961.
*
Hans Albert Einstein, the first son of
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
and a world's leading scholar in
hydraulic engineering, was a long-time faculty member at Berkeley.
*
Steven Chu (PhD 1976), the 12th
United States Secretary of Energy
The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States and fifteenth in the United States presidential line of succession, presidential line of succession. The po ...
and Nobel laureate in physics, was director of
Berkeley Lab from 2004 to 2009.
*
Janet Yellen, 78th
United States Secretary of Treasury and the 15th
Chair of the Federal Reserve
The chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the head of the Federal Reserve, and is the active executive officer of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The chairman p ...
, is a professor emeritus at Berkeley
Haas School of Business and the Department of Economics.
Alumni
Alumni have included 260 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, 34 Pulitzer Prize winners, 25 List of universities by number of billionaire alumni, living billionaire alumni, 22 Cabinet (government), cabinet members, 68 recipients of the National Medal of Science, 190 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, 144 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, and 125 Sloan Fellows, and 75 members of the National Academy of Engineering.
Government

Berkeley alumni have served in a range of prominent government offices, both domestic and foreign, including Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (Earl Warren, BA, JD); United States Attorney General (Edwin Meese III, JD); United States Secretary of State (Dean Rusk, LLB); United States Secretary of the Treasury (W. Michael Blumenthal, BA, and G. William Miller, JD); United States Secretary of Defense (
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American businessman and government official who served as the eighth United States secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson ...
, BS); United States Secretary of the Interior (Franklin Knight Lane, 1887); United States Secretary of Transportation and United States Secretary of Commerce (Norman Mineta, BS); United States Secretary of Agriculture (Ann Veneman, MPP); National Security Advisor (United States), National Security Advisor (Robert C. O'Brien, JD); scores of federal judges and members of the United States Congress (List of current members of the United States House of Representatives, 10 currently serving) and United States Foreign Service; governors of California (George C. Pardee; Hiram W. Johnson; Earl Warren, BA and LLB; Jerry Brown, BA; and Pete Wilson, JD), Michigan (Jennifer Granholm, BA), and the United States Virgin Islands (Walter A. Gordon, BA); Lieutenant General of the United States Army (
Jimmy Doolittle, BA); Major General of the United States Marine Corps (Oliver Prince Smith); Brigadier General of the United States Marine Corps (Bertram A. Bone, BS); Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (John A. McCone, BS); chair and members of the Council of Economic Advisers (Michael Boskin, BA, PhD.; Sandra Black, BA; Jesse Rothstein, PhD; Robert Seamans, PhD; Jay Shambaugh, PhD; James Stock, MA, PhD); Governor of the Federal Reserve System (H. Robert Heller, PhD) and President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (William C. Dudley, PhD); Commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC (Troy A. Paredes, BA) and the Federal Communications Commission, FCC (Rachelle Chong, BA); and United States Surgeon General (Kenneth P. Moritsugu, MPH).
Foreign alumni include the President of Colombia 1922–1926, (Pedro Nel Ospina Vázquez, BA); the President of Mexico (Francisco I. Madero, attended 1892–93); the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan; the Premier of the Republic of China (Sun Fo, BA); the President of Costa Rica (Miguel Angel Rodriguez, MA, PhD); and members of parliament of the United Kingdom (House of Lords, Lydia Dunn, Baroness Dunn, BS), India (Rajya Sabha, the upper house, Prithviraj Chavan, MS); Iran (Mohammad Javad Larijani, PhD); Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology and first Executive Governor of Abia State (Ogbonnaya Onu, PhD); Barbados' Ambassador to Brazil (Tonika Sealy-Thompson, PhD). Alumni have also served in many supranational posts, notable among which are President of the World Bank Group, World Bank (
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American businessman and government official who served as the eighth United States secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson ...
, BS); Deputy Prime Minister of Spain and managing director of the International Monetary Fund (Rodrigo Rato, MBA); executive director of UNICEF (Ann Veneman, MPP); member of the European Parliament (Bruno Megret, MS); and judge of the International Court of Justice, World Court (Joan Donoghue, JD).
Science
Nobel Prize, Nobel laureate
William F. Giauque (BS 1920, PhD 1922) investigated chemical thermodynamics, Nobel laureate
Willard Libby (BS 1931, PhD 1933) pioneered radiocarbon dating, Nobel laureate Willis Lamb (BS 1934, PhD 1938) examined the hydrogen spectrum, Nobel laureate Hamilton O. Smith (BA 1952) applied restriction enzymes to molecular genetics, Nobel laureate Robert Laughlin (BA 1972) explored the fractional quantum Hall effect, and Nobel laureate Andrew Fire (BA 1978) helped to discover RNA interference-gene silencing by double-stranded RNA. Nobel laureate
Glenn T. Seaborg (PhD 1937) collaborated with Albert Ghiorso (BS 1913) to discover twelve chemical elements, such as ''
americium
Americium is a synthetic element, synthetic chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Am and atomic number 95. It is radioactive and a transuranic member of the actinide series in the periodic table, located under the lanthanide element e ...
'', ''
berkelium'', and ''
californium''. David Bohm (PhD 1943) discovered Bohm diffusion. Nobel laureate Yuan T. Lee (PhD 1965) developed the crossed molecular beam technique for studying chemical reactions.
Carol Greider (PhD 1987) was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells. Harvey Itano (BS 1942) conducted breakthrough work on sickle cell anemia that marked the first time a disease was linked to a molecular origin.
Narendra Karmarkar (PhD 1983) is known for the interior point method, a polynomial algorithm for linear programming known as Karmarkar's algorithm.
National Medal of Science laureate Chien-Shiung Wu (PhD 1940), often known as the "Chinese Madame Curie", disproved the Law of Conservation of Parity (physics), Parity for which she was awarded the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics. Kary Mullis (PhD 1973) was awarded the 1993
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in developing the polymerase chain reaction, a method for amplifying DNA sequences. Olga Hartman (MA 1933, PhD 1936) was a zoologist who described hundreds of species of polychaete worms. Edward P. Tryon (PhD 1967) is the physicist who first said our universe originated from a quantum fluctuation of the vacuum. John N. Bahcall (BS 1956) worked on the Standard Solar Model and the Hubble Space Telescope,
resulting in a National Medal of Science.
Peter Smith (physicist), Peter Smith (BS 1969) was the principal investigator and project leader for the NASA robotic explorer ''Phoenix (spacecraft), Phoenix'', which physically confirmed the presence of water on the planet Mars for the first time. Astronauts James van Hoften (BS 1966), Margaret Rhea Seddon (BA 1970), Leroy Chiao (BS 1983), and Rex Walheim (BS 1984) have orbited the Earth in NASA's fleet of Space Shuttles.
Computers
Berkeley alumni have developed a number of key technologies associated with the personal computer and the Internet.
Unix
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
was created by alumnus Ken Thompson (BS 1965, MS 1966) along with colleague Dennis Ritchie. Alumni such as L. Peter Deutsch (PhD 1973), Butler Lampson (PhD 1967), and Charles P. Thacker (BS 1967) worked with Ken Thompson on
Project Genie and then formed the ill-fated United States Department of Defense, US Department of Defense-funded Berkeley Computer Corporation (BCC), which was scattered throughout the Berkeley campus in non-descript offices to avoid anti-war protestors. After BCC failed, Deutsch, Lampson, and Thacker joined Xerox PARC, where they developed a number of pioneering computer technologies, culminating in the Xerox Alto that inspired the Apple Macintosh. In particular, the Alto used a computer mouse, which had been invented by Doug Engelbart (BEng 1952, PhD 1955). Thompson, Lampson, Engelbart, and Thacker all later received a Turing Award. Also at Xerox PARC was Ronald Schmidt (BS 1966, MS 1968, PhD 1971), who became known as "the man who brought Ethernet to the masses."
Another Xerox PARC researcher, Charles Simonyi (BS 1972), pioneered the first WYSIWIG word processor program and was recruited personally by Bill Gates to join the fledgling company known as Microsoft to create Microsoft Word. Simonyi later became the first repeat space tourist, blasting off on Russian Soyuz (rocket), Soyuz rockets to work at the International Space Station orbiting the Earth. In 1977, a graduate student in the computer science department named Bill Joy (MS 1982) assembled the original Berkeley Software Distribution, commonly known as BSD Unix. Joy, who went on to co-found Sun Microsystems, also developed the original version of the Computer display, terminal console editor Vi (text editor), vi, while Ken Arnold (BA 1985) created Curses (programming library), Curses, a terminal control Library (computer science), library for Unix-like systems that enables the construction of Text user interface, text user interface (TUI) applications. Working alongside Joy at Berkeley were undergraduates William Jolitz (BS 1997) and his future wife Lynne Jolitz (BA 1989), who together created 386BSD, a version of BSD Unix that runs on Intel CPUs and evolved into the Comparison of BSD operating systems, BSD family of free operating systems and the Darwin (operating system), Darwin operating system underlying Apple Mac OS X. Eric Allman (BS 1977, MS 1980) created SendMail, a Unix mail transfer agent that delivers about twelve percent of the email in the world.
The EXperimental Computing Facility, XCF, an undergraduate research group located in Soda Hall, has been responsible for a number of notable software projects, including GTK+ (
Peter Mattis, BS 1997), The GIMP (
Spencer Kimball, BS 1996), and the initial diagnosis of the Morris worm. In 1992, Pei-Yuan Wei (BS 1990) an undergraduate at the XCF, created ViolaWWW, one of the first graphical web browsers. ViolaWWW was the first browser to have embedded scriptable objects, stylesheets, and tables. He donated the code to Sun Microsystems, inspiring Java (programming language), Java applets. ViolaWWW also inspired researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create the Mosaic web browser, a pioneering web browser that became Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Billionaires
List of universities by number of billionaire alumni, Billionaire alumni include
Gordon Moore (Intel founder), James Harris Simons (
Renaissance Technologies),
Masayoshi Son (SoftBank), Jon Stryker (Stryker Medical Equipment), Eric Schmidt (former Google Chairman) and Wendy Schmidt, Michael Milken, Bassam Alghanim, Kutayba Alghanim, Charles Simonyi (Microsoft),
Cher Wang (HTC), Bob Haas, Robert Haas (Levi Strauss & Co.), Carlos Rodriguez-Pastor (Interbank, Peru), Fayez Sarofim, Daniel S. Loeb, Paul Merage, David Hindawi, Orion Hindawi,
Bill Joy (Sun Microsystems founder), Victor Koo, Tony Xu (DoorDash), Lowell Milken, Nathaniel Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons, Liong Tek Kwee and Liong Seen Kwee,
Elizabeth Simons and Mark Heising, Oleg Tinkov, and Alice Schwartz.
Pulitzer Prize winners
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Marguerite Higgins (BA 1941) was a pioneering female war correspondent who covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Novelist Robert Penn Warren (MA 1927) won three Pulitzer Prizes, including one for his novel ''All the King's Men'', which was later made into an Academy Award-winning All the King's Men (1949 film), movie. Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg (BS 1904) invented the comically complex—yet ultimately trivial—contraptions known as Rube Goldberg machines. Journalist Alexandra Berzon (MA 2006) won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, and journalist Matt Richtel (BA 1989), who also coauthors the comic strip ''Rudy Park'' under the pen name of "Theron Heir", won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Leon Litwack (BA 1951, PhD 1958) taught as a professor at UC Berkeley for 43 years; List of University of California, Berkeley faculty#Pulitzer Prize, three other UC Berkeley professors have also received the Pulitzer Prize. Alumna and professor Susan Rasky (BA 1974) won the George Polk Awards, Polk Award for journalism in 1991. USC Professor and Berkeley alumnus Viet Thanh Nguyen's (PhD 1997) first novel ''The Sympathizer'' won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Fiction and screenwriters
Irving Stone (BA 1923) wrote the novel ''Lust for Life (novel), Lust for Life'', which was later made into an Academy Award-winning Lust for Life (1956 film), film of the same name starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh. Stone also wrote ''The Agony and the Ecstasy (novel), The Agony and the Ecstasy'', which was later made into a The Agony and the Ecstasy (film), film of the same name starring Oscar winner Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. Mona Simpson (novelist), Mona Simpson (BA 1979) wrote the novel ''Anywhere But Here (film), Anywhere But Here'', which was later made into a film of the same name starring Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon. Terry McMillan (BA 1986) wrote ''How Stella Got Her Groove Back'', which was later made into a film of the same name starring Oscar-nominated actress Angela Bassett. Randi Mayem Singer (BA 1979) wrote the screenplay for ''Mrs. Doubtfire'', which starred Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams and Oscar-winning actress Sally Field. Audrey Wells (BA 1981) wrote the screenplay ''The Truth About Cats & Dogs'', which starred Oscar-nominated actress Uma Thurman. James Schamus (BA 1982, MA 1987, PhD 2003) collaborated on screenplays with Oscar-winning director Ang Lee on the Academy Award-winning movies ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' and ''Brokeback Mountain''.
Academy and Emmy Award winners

Berkeley alumni have won 20 Academy Awards and 25 Emmy Awards. Gregory Peck (BA 1939), nominated for four Oscars during his career, won an Oscar for acting in ''To Kill a Mockingbird (film), To Kill a Mockingbird''. Chris Innis (BA 1991) won the 2010 Oscar for film editing for her work on best picture winner, ''The Hurt Locker''. Walter Plunkett (BA 1923) won an Oscar for costume design (for ''An American in Paris''). Freida Lee Mock (BA 1961) and Charles H. Ferguson (BA 1978) have each won an Oscar for documentary filmmaking. Mark Berger (BA 1964) has won four Oscars for sound mixing and is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley. Edith Head (BA 1918), who was nominated for 34 Oscars during her career, won eight Oscars for costume design. Joe Letteri (BA 1981) has won four Oscars for Best Visual Effects in the James Cameron film ''Avatar (2009 film), Avatar'' and the Peter Jackson films ''King Kong (2005 film), King Kong'', ''The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Two Towers'', and ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Return of the King''. Emmy Awards, Emmy Award winners include Jon Else (BA 1968) for cinematography; Andrew Schneider (BA 1973) for screenwriting; Linda Schacht (BA 1966, MA 1981), two for broadcast journalism; Christine Chen (dual-BA's 1990), two for broadcast journalism; Kathy Baker (BA 1977), three for acting; Ken Milnes (BS 1977), four for broadcasting technology; and Leroy Sievers (BA 1977),
twelve for production. Elisabeth Leamy (BA 1989) is the recipient of thirteen Emmy Award, Emmy awards.
Music and entertainment
Former undergraduates have participated in the contemporary music industry, such as Grateful Dead bass guitarist Phil Lesh, the Police drummer Stewart Copeland, ''Rolling Stone Magazine'' founder Jann Wenner, the Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs (BA 1980), Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz, electronic music producer Giraffage, MTV correspondent Suchin Pak (BA 1997), AFI (band), AFI musicians Davey Havok and Jade Puget (BA 1996), and solo artist Marié Digby ("Say It Again (Digby song), Say It Again"). ''People Magazine'' included Third Eye Blind lead singer and songwriter Stephan Jenkins (BA 1987) in the magazine's list of ''50 Most Beautiful People''. Alumni have also acted in classic television series such as Karen Grassle (BA 1965) who played Caroline Ingalls in ''Little House on the Prairie (TV series), Little House on the Prairie'', Jerry Mathers (BA 1974) who starred in ''Leave it to Beaver'', and Roxann Dawson (BA 1980) who portrayed B'Elanna Torres on ''Star Trek: Voyager''.
Sports
Sport alumni include tennis athlete Helen Wills Moody (BA 1925) won 31 Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam titles, including eight singles titles at The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon. Tarik Glenn (BA 1999) is a Super Bowl XLI champion. Michele Tafoya (BA 1988) is a sports television reporter for ABC Sports and ESPN. Sports agent Leigh Steinberg (BA 1970, JD 1973) has represented professional athletes such as Steve Young (American football), Steve Young, Troy Aikman, and Oscar De La Hoya; Steinberg has been called the real-life inspiration for the title character in the Oscar-winning
[''Jerry Maguire'' was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, and won for Best Supporting Actor (Cuba Gooding, Jr.).] film ''Jerry Maguire'' (portrayed by Tom Cruise). Matt Biondi (BA 1988) won eight Olympic gold medals during his swimming career, in which he participated in three different Olympics. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing Olympics in 2008, Natalie Coughlin (BA 2005) became the first American female athlete in modern Olympic history to win six medals in one Olympics.
["The six medals she won are the most by an American woman in any sport, breaking the record she tied four years ago. Her career total matches the third-most by any U.S. athlete." ]
See also
* Blockeley
* Higher Education Recruitment Consortium
* Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute
* World Community Grid
Notes
References
Further reading
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External links
*
California Bears Athletics website*
*
{{Authority control
University of California, Berkeley,
1868 establishments in California
Education in Berkeley, California
Universities and colleges established in 1868, California, Berkeley
Flagship universities in the United States, California, Berkeley
Land-grant universities and colleges, California, Berkeley
Public universities and colleges in California
Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Universities and colleges in Alameda County, California
University of California campuses, Berkeley