how I got here

Reflecting Upon my Junior Year at Cal

June 6, 2022
Josephine Lee

Along with the passing of May came and went the last month of my junior year at Cal, and the realization that I had only a year before graduation left me nostalgic with so many mixed emotions, and even more self-growth to reflect upon. As someone who spent my first two years of college figuring out who I was and struggling to differentiate that from the ideal college self that I thought I would be, there was a lot that I had to come to accept, the most challenging being that I had to pursue my own career goals to gain my own happiness, even if it diverged from the pre-med student my...

Dear Freshman Me: An Open-Letter to My Freshman Self

June 8, 2022
Ethan Collier

Dear my freshman self,

Well, this is going to be a wild ride! Your first year at Cal is full of things you didn’t expect. I know we came in with this idea about college and what it was going to be like. Let me tell you, as your now second-year self, nothing you thought about college is true… well not entirely. Here are the four things you should know coming into your first year here:

1. Going random with your roommates was a good idea. (I know right!)

You are the only one coming from your high school...

Keep Dancing Like the Class of 2022: My Years At Berkeley As Described By Taylor Swift Albums

June 10, 2022
Kara Gebhardt

Before I was a Cal fan, I was a Taylor Swift fan. While our graduation speaker wasn’t Taylor Swift (I almost flew to NYU just to see the queen get an honorary degree), I still have found many valuable lessons in her songs that relate to my time at Berkeley. Most of the time I was jamming to her songs on the way to class, or getting hyped on a Friday night to her catchy tunes. I can see my four years through the eyes and ears of her song lyrics. Every high and low could be remedied somewhat by listening to Taylor’s discography.

Freshman year was a blur of new...

Dear Freshman Year

May 5, 2020

Dear freshman year,

With the end of my freshman year approaching, I've been looking back on what made it so great, regardless of how it was unfortunately cut short.

A lot of those great memories have to be credited the UC Rally Committee. Rally Comm gave me my friends, my future housemates, my job, and a great deal of happiness. Looking back on how scared I was to join makes me laugh, I can't imagine my freshman experience without the UCRC. I've come so far and I'm excited to give back to the committee that gave me everything I wanted and more as the new Director of Security...

My Internship Search

March 2, 2021
Kaelyn Schlegel

I feel like my parents ask me at least twice a week what job I’ll be able to get with my major and what my career goals are. Both of my majors are incredibly broad and not something you see in a lot of fields. In a previous blog post I talked about my decision to become a geography major on top of my Society & Environment major. Truthfully, with a lot of things academic wise and career wise, I just don’t know what I want. I’m the type of person who gets excited about literally anything and everything but I also get bored easily. I chose my majors because I wanted something that would...

23 Essays: How To Write One Essay Every Week

March 23, 2021
Bridget Bernet

This semester, I as a rhetoric and philosophy double major have to write 23 essays. As of now, I’ve done 13 with 10 to go. At this point I feel like it’s a key aspect of my personality, “Hi my name is Bridget and I’m writing 23 essays this semester” which seems more daunting than it really is.

I have an essay that gets assigned on Wednesdays due every Sunday, which I appreciate being a constant in my life. So that’s a minimum of one essay a week which honestly is doable. However, where the challenge comes is my other classes where I’m assigned longer essays less frequently. Last...

Ready for the Real World

March 26, 2021
Katia Gibson

I distinctly remember the frenzy in February of my freshman year when it came time to find housing for the coming year. Most private apartments around Berkeley do a 1 year lease starting in June so that it matches with the school year. That means that come springtime, the early bird gets the worm to find a good housing deal for the next year.

It’s always a bit dramatic to sort out the roommates. Are you looking to room with 1, 2, 3, or 4 others? Are you okay to have a double occupancy room, or are you going for a single? What’s your budget, and are you willing to compromise? All...

From Past, Present, and Beyond: My Berkeley Story

March 31, 2021
Jimmy Nguyen

First-generation. Low-income. Student of color. I fit the common profile of an uncommon background of many Berkeley students. I grew up in a single-parent household with a mom that knew very little English. I knew nothing about college applications or financial aid. Statistically speaking, the odds should have been against my favor.

Thinking back to high school, I recall moments when I would hear friends and parents “look down” at my school. Why? My high school had often been regarded as “unsafe” due to the historic number of fights and police presence. My high...

Creating the Distance: Unexpected Benefits of Staying Close to Home

April 18, 2021
Beatrice Aronson

I never wanted to go to school close to home. I thought that the college I went to had to be physically far away in order for me to gain the independence I yearned for. My first year at Berkeley taught me that I was wrong. My parents didn’t contact me at all after dropping me off at my dorm — not even a single text. Eventually it got to the point at which I was concerned something had happened to them, and since then we’ve had a more regular flow of communication. But distancing myself from my old life at home served its advantages: I found myself feeling more and more integrated...

The Myth of “ONE” Best Fit University

April 21, 2021
Katia Gibson

Maybe you applied to 10 schools and got into all of them! Congratulations!

Perhaps you were waitlisted to Berkeley, accepted your offer elsewhere, and now you got in to Berkeley! Now what?

Maybe you didn’t get into the schools you hoped for and are now overwhelmed as you compare and contrast your options.

As a college senior reflecting on the college decisions process, I think the college decision was too overhyped for me. I remember my thoughts that kept me up at night, trying to search for a sign that would reveal the school that was the one. Committing to a...