Getting Around in Berkeley

Editor's note: Camila Ali Abdalla is a Brazilian student at Insper in São Paulo, Brazil, and a graduate of the Berkeley Haas Global Access Program, which brings international students to Berkeley to study entrepreneurship. Her post originally appeared on her personal blog. It has been edited for clarity and length.

In California, especially in Berkeley, the public transportation is wonderful. All buses, subways and apps are well-structured and developed.

When you are a Berkeley Haas Global Access Program student you get a UC Berkeley card that provides unlimited use of the buses. If you have trouble understanding the bus schedule, you can download Moovit, an app that provides information on all public transportation systems, like buses and subways. Google does a similar thing with Google Maps.

When you are a Berkeley Haas Global Access Program student you get a UC Berkeley card that provides unlimited use of the buses.

The subway in the San Francisco Bay Area is called BART, which stand for Bay Area Rapid Transit. The fastest way to go to San Francisco is by BART, even faster than Uber or Lyft (other transportation apps that were started in the Bay area and that you can use around California and in most places in the U.S.). The only thing that is quite different from Brazil is that are homeless people in every station or on the bus. Unfortunately, this is common in California, especially in San Francisco, because the rules are more tolerant with them and there are a lot of tourists who provide money to them. However, these homeless people are not threatening.

Living in Berkeley gives you possibilities of small city life, but at the same time lets you have the experience of living in a bigger city like San Francisco because you are so close. It is the perfect spot.