student life

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...

So, this year was a bit of a challenge… but in a really good way. I wanted to give back to my community. When I was a first-year, I applied to be a Resident Assistant as a fun way to get involved in my community and to make a change in those around me. I got hired and was super excited to see what was ahead for me. But, transitioning from Resident to Resident *Assistant* was more challenging than I anticipated. Nonetheless, I preserved.

I started training in August and met the amazing staff of 20 fellow RAs. They are all super cool. I also met...