Month: October 2018

There are so many amazing things about Berkeley – the people, the campus, the city, the school spirit, and more – and if you’re a Campus Ambassador (also known as a tour guide) you get to talk about all of them on a weekly basis.

A lot of people look for campus jobs as soon as they get to Cal. While there are a ton of jobs around the city of Berkeley because there are so many restaurants and stores, there is no doubt that on-campus jobs are extremely convenient. Luckily, there is a plethora of on-campus jobs available. You can work in a library, as a tutor for the Student Learning Center, and so much more. However, I am here to argue that the best job of all is the job in which you get to meet people from all over the world and tell them why Cal is the best school in the universe. Plus, you get the title of “campus ambassador” and get to wear a pretty snazzy grey jacket. read more

Most students know it as that huge building with the dome at the top of the hill– with a dining hall that serves Kombucha, residents with accents and put-together outfits, even a lobby with its own fireplace. While some of these quirks, visible to outsiders, are what interested me in International House in the beginning, it’s only now that I’ve been a resident there for a few months that I have an inside look at what it’s truly like.

Going into my sophomore year, I was interested in finding a living arrangement where I could be around people different from me. I found that living in a dorm composed of 75% international students: International House. I-House is a unique dorm to UC Berkeley’s campus. It was established to foster an inter-cultural community and continues to shine as an inviting place for people of all backgrounds. read more

So You Finished Midterms… What Now?

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of walking out of your classroom after a difficult midterm, full of nerves and unsure whether to be celebrating or feeling blue from how it all went. You leave the room with mixed emotions, already stressed about the grade you’ll receive on the test weeks later, but ready to take some time away from studying and move out of the library you’ve been stationed in for days to head home. You plop on the couch, exhausted and not ready to dive back into other work for the rest of the day. You decide to take time to treat yourself, but can’t decide what to do. What do Berkeley students do to have fun around here anyway? read more

One of the most exciting aspects of going to college is living on your own for the first time.  You get to move away to a new city, live with your best friends, and have all sorts of amazing experiences.  For me, moving away from my small town was a big change. I was one of two students from my graduating class who chose Berkeley, so unlike many of the other freshmen I met in my first weeks who had high school friends, I didn’t have that sort of security net.  I had a hard time adjusting to college in those first few weeks because finding new friends, sitting in large lectures, and living in a city were all brand new experiences for me. I missed the comfort and safety of home a lot during those first few weeks, but I started to adjust to my new environment.  Now, as a junior, I feel like I’m finally starting to figure things out. read more

One of the most popular and rewarding programs at Cal is called Cal in the Capital, and I was lucky enough to be a part of the program this past year.

Once I was admitted into this program after applying and going through an interview process, I took the DeCal spring semester of 2018. The DeCal largely helped us prepare our applications and make our resumes, cover letters, and Linked Ins the best they could possibly be. The facilitators also helped us prepare for a summer in Washington D.C. with things to do, what to wear, and how to plan financially. The expectation of applying to over twenty possible internships definitely motivated me, and eventually led to me getting the opportunity to intern for the United States Senate with the Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein. read more

Hello UC Berkeley! I have the pleasure of writing this blog entry while sitting in my flat in London. I am a sophomore on exchange through the brand new Sophomore Semester program at our very own British version of Berkeley. This is an exciting year for the London ACCENT center, which hosts study abroad programs for a few US schools including Berkeley, USC, and Wash U (though classes are unique to each school). Traditionally, our university has offered a freshman study abroad program called “Global Edge” at the center, but for the first time there is two other programs also being offered, Sophomore Semester and the Global Management Program. In this blog entry, I would like to write a little bit about each program and the types of UC Berkeley students they serve. read more

“I want to be an orthopedic surgeon.” I had become so accustomed to saying these words every time someone asked me what I thought I would want to study in college. I said them so many times that I convinced myself they were true – that I actually wanted to go to medical school and follow the set path that had been laid out in front of me. I travelled across the country to attend conferences and watch surgeries, being interested in the ideas I was learning about, but not really knowing what it meant to fall in love with a path. I believed that since I was good at biology in high school, and since I found the human body interesting, medical school was all that made sense. “School isn’t supposed to be that fun anyway,” I thought. Doctors are smart, they get paid well, and they’re looked up to: this is what I should do, regardless of how tough it might be to get through school. read more