student life

This is a story about a girl who went from sporting a lifelong aversion to dance, to participating in UC Berkeley’s oldest student-run dance organization for over half of her undergraduate career.

One thing about me? I’ve always loved risk aversion. It makes life feel safe, somewhat predictable, and within my control. I’ve mostly lived my life by assessing my personal strengths and playing into them, minimizing the level of risk in every decision I make.

Dance had never been my strength. Choreography rarely stuck in my head. I felt awkward moving my long limbs around and...

As a freshman, my year has been filled with “firsts”; my first night in the dorms, my first college lecture, my first midterm, and so on. The year isn’t over yet, but so far my favorite first of all was my first Big Game, our big rivalry football game against Stanford, as a Cal student. I have included the addendum of “as a Cal student” because this was technically the third Big Game that I’ve watched. I attended the 2017 game as a scrawny seventh grader (which I deliberately will not include a photo of) to visit my older sister Alexa, who was a Berkeley sophomore at the time. I...

“How many times does your mom call you?” is a question that I was once asked at the end of my sophomore year. It took me a second to think, and I replied with, “Maybe twice.”

“Now, is this twice a week? Twice a day?”

“No, twice the entire time I have been at Berkeley.”

People are usually shocked when I tell them my mom rarely calls me, but we still do talk. We keep our Snapchat streak going, and I will send her some pictures of the sights I see, food I eat, or quickly tell her something funny that just happened. We will...

Editor's note: This article was published in 2021. Some changes have taken place at the libraries since the article was published.

I’m on a mission to visit every single one of Berkeley’s 24 libraries during my final year at Cal. As the first month of school comes to a close, I’ve decided to highlight some of these spots that aren’t as popular as, say, Doe or Moffitt. Let’s take a look!

Anthropology Library (Anthropology and Art Practice Building)

The Anthropology Library sits on the second floor of the Anthropology and Art...