Cal

This, for anybody who's unaware, is the term people who go to UC Berkeley (and the families thereof) frequently use to refer to UC Berkeley. It's on all our logos, all of our slogans, and generally in every place we can think of to put it.

Everything related to Berkeley is going to be four things: blue, gold, marked with a bear, and labeled "Cal" in cursive. It's not Berkeley Rotaract, it's Cal Rotaract. The big-ass fair of vendors and job scouts we have at the gym every year? Calapalooza. We all go downstairs to eat at places run by Cal Dining. Our newspaper is called the Daily Cal.

Which leads me, in a ridiculously smooth transition, to my point. What does "Cal" mean, anyway? It's short for Calorie (with a capital C), for one thing. No, that's not it. Calumny? No, I don't think we'd brand ourselves quite that openly. Calamity? Same problem. Calcification? That's just nasty. California?

Aha.

The "Cal" you see scripted everywhere (as in actually everywhere, on everything owned by everyone) is shorthand for "California" or, in the newspaper's case, "Californian." This is dating back to the early stages of the UC system's beginnings in 1868, at which point Berkeley was the only campus, and therefore the only University of California, and therefore simply called "California" or "Cal" for short. This is all well and good except for one little detail.

It isn't 1868 any longer. Berkeley is one of nine campuses open to undergraduates, and ten UC campuses in total. We were the first, it's true, but to say that makes us by default the best is a gross error of judgment. Keeping in mind how much I hate this type of statement: all the UC campuses are loaded with the mental heavy ordnance of our time. Yes, we're lazy, yes we avoid work like the plague, but when it comes down to it the UC campuses are all breathing rarefied air. Most of them have research of all descriptions going on. The UC system could have started anywhere, and our campus no longer occupies the vaunted position of "first and only."

The word "Cal" is a throwback to a time when our campus in Berkeley was unique and special, and it still is. However, all the other campuses are unique and special too, and we no longer hold the status of privileged primacy. Our campus might be the firstborn, but that does not mean we are recipients of the whole intellectual inheritance.

TL;DR Check ya pre-tenses, we're one of ten.