The release of enrollment time is one of the most dreaded moments in any Berkeley student’s semester. Walking out of Moffitt Library, I often overhear the same conversations every year: “Is April 24th Day 1 or Day 2?”, “Why aren’t they offering this class next semester?”, “Yo, what are you taking next fall? After many semesters of bad enrollment slots, I finally got the coveted early enrollment time I’d only heard fables of my freshmen year.
Putting the novelty of it all aside, it’s difficult to find classes that are currently offered, fit within your time/major preferences and can balance out well with the rest of your schedule. It becomes even more difficult when you are as indecisive as I am, especially regarding something as important as your college major. On that note, I wanted to take some time to talk about my course selection process and how I discovered my own academic vision through the process.
When I was deciding where I wanted to go to school, I took a look at UC Berkeley’s Computer Science program, which I was accepted into. Doing some extra research, I saw how famous the “61-series” was, and I knew I would be throwing away a golden opportunity if I didn’t choose Cal. Flash forward to the summer, and here I was, at my home in Connecticut, gearing up for my first-ever enrollment time. I looked through my major requirements and created a spreadsheet with a rough draft of what I potentially wanted to do over the course of four years.
Every Letter and Science student needs to supplement their major requirements with seven breadth classes, which is one of my favorite things about Berkeley. A highlight of my high school experience was taking classes in different subjects and spotting connections in content between all of them. The L&S breadth requirements cranked it up a notch, giving me a wider array of classes to choose from and find connections in. By utilizing the Berkeleytime platform and the course catalog, I was able to find over 30 classes I found interesting--and I had not even set foot on campus! Good thing I did because almost every class I put into that first-semester column on Sheets was completely booked (guess if I thought a class was cool, so did everyone else)! As a result of looking for some technical backups, I stumbled onto Data 8, the biggest course at UC Berkeley and possibly the best introductory class for Data Science in the entire country. Enrolling in this course may have been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I chose to study computer science because I enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of math combined with the real-life applications of coding. What I wasn’t sure of was how to take that passion and apply it to some sort of job. Data 8 made me realize that while I loved computer science, data science was specifically how I wanted to apply it.
Then, I needed to make a new major plan. After looking at the data science major, I was immediately hooked by the computational social science concentration, which allowed me to do exactly what I loved doing in high school- taking my favorite classes in the social sciences and mixing them with my favorite math and statistics classes. I had to rewrite my spreadsheet in preparation for the next semester, something which I did not realize at the time would end up becoming a recurring theme throughout my college career. The good news was that I did not need to change much since the two majors had so much overlap for the intro classes anyway.
I came into the second semester with a new academic passion in stone, only for me to question my decisions again. I loved my experience in CS61A and wanted to give the CS major another chance, something I only doubled down on after taking 61B the following semester. I tried to see how I could consider doing both a data science major and a computer science major, so I looked into CS upper-division classes. I saw that the CS department offered a wide breadth of subjects, including classes covering data science concepts like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data engineering in great depth.
Looking deeper into the data science major, I realized I could customize the individual major requirements beyond the concentration to intersect with my interest in the humanities. Just by being a data science major, I took classes in industrial engineering, sociology, city planning, history, economics, political science, and demography for my major. I realized I could use the CS major to gain project experience and a better understanding of data science theory while using the data science major to actually apply this in the context of different departments.
I mapped out a plan to finish both majors and take some cool classes in the process, but I still had room to do more. I knew how strong of a role my probability class played in helping me understand the math behind what I was doing, which made me grasp concepts better. I decided to check out more math-based data science classes and explored the statistics department while finding more classes that fit the computational social science niche. After (you guessed it) inputting them into the spreadsheet, I realized I was only a couple of classes away from doing a triple major in Statistics as well.
This was a game-changer and added a lot of depth to my academic progress. I could consider myself a student of the social sciences by sampling classes across different departments and seeing how my technical expertise could be used in all of them. This could be supplemented with a well-rounded understanding of the theory of computer science, the mathematical foundations of statistics, and the practical applications of the data science department. Berkeley gave me the opportunity to take advantage of three world-class departments while giving me a broader understanding of the social sciences, too!
To any incoming freshman who is reading this, I highly urge you to look at every program Berkeley has to offer and see how you can mix and max to your liking. On the surface, my academic background could look like the same three majors done over and over, but I was able to turn it into something unique as well. It’s completely feasible with a bit of organization (shoutout to my spreadsheet!), and taking advantage of the amazing advisors figure out how you can overlap your requirements more efficiently.
Organizing my schedule like this did not mean I was dying of my academic niche. It meant that even with three majors, I had the room to take some of those cool breadths I put aside before arriving at Berkeley. Some of the highlights included a class about the history of America told through Disney movies, a Nobel-Laureate-taught class about the ethics of the scientific process, and a rhetoric class about the different mediums people used to see things over time.
So, as I head into my senior year, I am once again adjusting the spreadsheet. It’s almost like a game- trying to optimize based on your time preferences, the course calendar, and academic interests- but one that becomes really fun when you’re passionate about the end goal in mind. Cheers to finding some cool classes in 24-25!