academics

A Semester in Washington, D.C.

December 23, 2022
Sydney Hilbush

As I stood inside the Capitol Rotunda, offering a tour to a group of constituents, suddenly a huddle of U.S. Senators emerged from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and quickly breezed past me to make their way to the Senate floor. As they traveled past me, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to work inside our nation’s capitol and intern for the U.S. Congress. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would never have been possible without my involvement in the University of California, Washington D.C. (UCDC) program. ...

Dancing My (Blue & Gold) Heart Out

December 1, 2023
Ethan C.

Prior to coming to UC Berkeley, I danced throughout my childhood. Beginning when I was eight years old, I used to dance in an after-school program with the YMCA. I was a hip-hop dancer until I was 13 when I entered middle school. I took a break from dancing for two years, then came back to it when I was in high school. My school offered Mexican folklórico dance classes as electives and I took it for fun. I ended up sticking with it all through high school as it was a very significant part of my cultural identity. Now in college, I dance for group on campus and through our school’s...

Day in the Life of an English Major

November 17, 2023
Holly Q.

All throughout high school (...and middle school) I would watch countless amounts of “Day in the Life of a…” videos. Heading into my college years, I especially loved to see videos about college students and people who were studying what I wanted to study. Rather than film a video, I’m going to be sharing my day in the life as a Berkeley English major!

From a recent Friday (08/27/23) in the Fall 2023 Semester:

8:30-9:00 am – Waking up! Honestly, sometimes the hardest part of my day. But it is Friday!

9:30 am – Grabbing a...

How Trial & Error Helped Me Find My Passion

March 6, 2024
Madison K.

I’m an English major, but how did I get here?

When we are young, there are a plethora of things that we want to be, but as we get older, dreams change as we do. What I wanted to do when I was younger is vastly different from what I want to do now, but to get where I am, I went through what I like to call phases, until I found something I truly wanted to pursue.

You see, when I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a fashion designer. Although that idea died as quickly as it was formed. Not only was I a terrible artist, my ideas were...

Constructing Educational Resiliencies: My Education Capstone & Attending AERA's Conference

April 15, 2024
Ethan C.

This semester, I embarked on a journey to complete my Education Research Capstone Project, a requirement for the new Educational Sciences major on campus. You have to two take two classes to fulfill this requirement: a core field research class and an elective. This semester, I took EDUC 150: Advanced Seminar in Education – Teachers of Color in the United States. Initially, I took this class as a research elective. However, it has been approved as one of the core requirements for the capstone project. Taught by Dr. Travis J. Bristol, this course taught me more about all the modern...

What I Read: For School vs For Fun (as an English major)

April 8, 2024
Madison K.

I love to read.

I loved reading when I was growing up, but it all stopped when I got to high school. In high school, reading became more of a chore than anything else really and that just sucked all the fun and joy out of it. Although during the covid years when we were all stuck indoors, I started reading again to pass the time and it reignited my love for it.

When I started college, I was originally a psychology major, but after that first year, I changed my major to English, when I realized psychology wasn’t for me.

So...

Designing a Four Year Plan: How Triple-Majoring Helped Me Find My Academic Niche

April 5, 2024
Rohit J.

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...

The Value of a College Education: Contextualizing the World

March 18, 2024
Nichelle W.

“What do you like the most about college?”

Every college student who has faced this question from siblings, relatives, and friends from home may have frozen up momentarily, wondering what to say (or whether there’s anything to say at all). There are a plethora of answers: the independence from home, the people they’ve met, the professionals they’ve been able to network with. But over the past year, I’ve developed a new insight: the value of college is to expand your worldview and complicate your implicit assumptions.

A simple example is from...

[Re]Finding My Academic Passions

March 8, 2024
Ethan C.

Coming into Cal, you’re thrown into a university with much to offer. With six undergraduate colleges, there’s definitely a lot to choose from for your academic pursuits. In the College of Letters and Science alone, there are over 80 different majors to explore and 500 courses you can take alone. Constantly, new majors and minors are being unveiled, and students can engage in a wide variety of different academic departments and programs. When I started at Cal in 2021, I came in as a pre-law student interested in a whole bunch of majors. I switched around a lot (and I mean… A LOT)....

Asks from the Past: Answering Random Questions From My Freshman Year

March 4, 2024
Nichelle W.

Incoming college students are often told that the answer to any specific question is just to Google. But what if there’s no Reddit post or YouTube video with your specific query? In my freshman year, I compiled a list of my questions so my future self could respond. And here I am as a sophomore, providing answers to both arbitrary and serious asks from the past.

First up, we have the dorms: I lived on a single-gender floor in Unit 1 my first year.

1. Can we bring a hair dryer? Can we bring a kettle?

Yes, you can bring...