Berkeley is known for many things.
The protests, the hippies, the arts, homeless people, the diversity and the acceptance of that diversity (you can literally see every type of people and every type of activity in this city, and anyone who has actually lived here would stop seeing them as different types of people, just as people).
Berkeley also has the best public university in America, and actually the only public university that ranks above the Ivy league schools in many disciplines. (Public universities usually suffer in rankings not because of the students’ quality or the teaching quality, but because of the professor-to-student ratio, which is lower than those of private schools. Why? Ask the government about funding for public schools.) UC Berkeley was the reason I came to Berkeley, and for a while I hardly thought of the city as anything but the school. For a while, the academic life was my only life, and what I had planned for was a straight path into academia (and never out of it). But things change, and on some days, I feel lost. This is when I find that the city of Berkeley is more than the university it contains. That it has people who want to make change, who actually do it, who are willing to teach others how to do it, and some that are all three. Perhaps even more importantly, it hosts the environments where I can meet those people.
The dinner event that HUB Bay Area organized last week is one of those environments. Originally, I was hesitant to go, the official name of the event is “Innovate Berkeley: Sustainable Economic Development – East Bay Social Innovation Dinner”, and its list of participants include CEOs and founders of companies, architects, scientists, people who have not only ideas but the experience of doing something pertaining to the economy, and what do I put in the register box? “Student”. I was hesitant because I didn’t have anything to bring to the table. In the end, I went.