If I could condense down why I love what I study here at Berkeley, the answer would be simple—fieldwork. For those who pursue Earth & Planetary Science, it’s not a recommendation but rather a requirement for graduation. And I was fortunate enough this past Spring to enroll in field classes that allowed me to spend two weeks of my semester outside. Undoubtedly, these have been some of my fondest memories of my time at Cal, and indeed some of the most fun I have had in my entire life.
I was overthrilled to enroll in EPS 115: Stratigraphy and Earth History this past semester. For those outside the realm of earth science, stratigraphy is the study of layers of rock and how those change throughout time. I know this may sound like a dry subject, but stratigraphy is crucial to our understanding of past environments on Earth. By examining how rock layers may change from a sandstone to a limestone to a shale… we can infer changes in sea level, depositional setting, climate, and more. It’s an important class for any earth scientist to take, and I was incredibly excited for the lecture, field, and labwork components of the course.
It was with my stratigraphy class that I got to spend eight days in Death Valley this past March. I would not have preferred to spend my Spring break any other way. The eighteen of us undergrads in the class, a few graduate students, and my professor camped together for a week in Amargosa Valley, Nevada. It was, truthfully, one of the most important experiences of my life. Each morning, I woke up before dawn and watched the sunrise over the Spring Mountains with my friends while we drank camp coffee and had cheerios with nutella. We crammed into rental cars and drove to our sites, sharing silly stories and singing along to the music we were all queueing in the Spotify Jam. We’d spend the day under the hot desert sun looking at incomprehensibly old earth and learning to interpret it. We survived on smushed sandwiches and gummy snacks, and tangerines and Gatorade powder and whatever else my professor had gotten on his grocery runs. At night, we cooked and cleaned in groups and tried our hand at stargazing before getting a good night’s sleep to do it all over again the next day.
It was an incredibly special and odd time in my life, being so disconnected as we were from the outside world. I really got to focus on the task at hand and paid more attention to my immediate surroundings than I ever had before.
Similarly, only a few weeks later, I was able to visit the Southwest with another class. This time, we explored various state and national parks in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona to reconstruct the region’s history. We looked for one hundred million year old ammonite fossils on the side of the road, hiked into the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon, and looked at the remnants of ancient dunes.
These experiences are so important for students, and I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to receive a field education during my time at Berkeley. It provides a much needed sense of perspective, and I always walk away from my experiences with a newfound appreciation for the world around me. For myself, perhaps the most influential part is the community found there. Teamwork and good morale are crucial to spending days straight with the same people, and I am always grateful to my peers and instructors for their humor, kindness, and guidance. Through my various field experiences, I have truly felt a place of belonging within my area of study and a renewed sense of purpose for what I do.