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[ineptshieldmaid]

The internet is a wonderful thing. For example: if you want to know whether Berkeley has a queer society or a queer collective, instead of spending a month pondering terminology, you can look it up. D'OH. Whereupon you discover that they have a queer alliance, and then you get to find out about their events as well. And whether you can do a

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[ineptshieldmaid]

Fucked if I know.

[rymenhild]

The Internet also connects you to People Who Know Things. For example, if you wanted to know what the queer grad students do at UC Berkeley, you can contact me, and I can tell you that I'm on the Queer Grads mailing list!

I think the reason you can't find a general drama club is that the university's just too big and fragmented for that. I think the last number I saw was thirty thousand undergrads, ten thousand graduate students. We don't have a general anything club. I'm pretty (but not entirely) sure the Queer Alliance is an alliance because it's a lot of different subgroups banding together.

[ineptshieldmaid]

As it happens, I'm dealing with fictional undergrads. First-years, at that.

Although since I have you here, I might just confirm: undergrads *do* tend to live in dorms at Berkeley, yeah? I usually assume this is the case EVERYWHERE in the States, but it suddenly occurred to me that it might not be.

Hmm. Something I've always wondered: do undergrads move *out* of dorms at some point in their degrees, or is that highly unusual?

So the lack of a general drama club really doesn't mean a lack of people putting on... stuff?

[cursor_mundi]

If I may pop in here...large schools (particularly state-funded schools--that is, public schools, though I know the terminology is different in the UK; don't know about Australia) tend to kick undergrads out of dorms at some point because they simply don't have the space, and then try to justify this through various ideologies. Fraternity and sorority houses thrive because of this. Small schools--which tend to be privately funded, that is they don't get money from the state or the federal governments--are less inclined to do this, though it does happen. Smith College (private) keeps all undergrads in the dorms their entire time there and you have to enter a lottery to get out; the University of Rochester (private) has cheap housing in the surrounding area so many juniors and seniors move out of the dorms though I think they have the option to stay; and the University of Maryland at College Park (public) kicks people out as quickly as possible, actively denies most juniors and seniors housing, and will even permit freshmen to live

[ineptshieldmaid]

Awesome! That is information which one cannot learn from just watching movies... not that I watch many movies...

[cursor_mundi]

In another stunning example of how the internet helps you reach out and touch someone, I too have information for you about unicycles. My family's from the Berkeley area, and most of them went to UC Berkeley, and I can tell you that unicycles are oddly popular. My oldest cousin learned how to ride one while he was in high school and has kept it up (he's now in his late 30s); I thought he was incredibly cool and also incredibly insane for riding the unicycle around the San Francisco Bay Area when I was small. rymenhild can tell you what a bad idea this is.

[ineptshieldmaid]

I think the unicycles may have to make an appearance in my fic at some point... *beams*