IMPORTANT LINKS

• To schedule a free and confidential consultation, contact Christine at christinez@uhs.berkeley.edu or (510) 643-7850.

LAURA: Hi and welcome to The Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. My name is Laura Vogt and I’m the Communications and Events Manager for Engineering Student Services in the College of Engineering. This week I’m happy to introduce Christine Zhou you and discuss self care for college students with her. Self care is a topic that I know is important for all of our students and sometimes everyone can use a little reminder of what it means to take care of yourself and even what the benefits could be. Christine can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what support you provide for the community of students.

CHRISTINE: Sure. So my name means Christine Zhou and actually have a Chinese name, originally from China – it’s Shuangmei. I’m a counselor from counseling psychological services in the Tang Center. About five years ago we established the satellite office located at 241 Bechtel specifically serving engineering and CS students. And so we have urgent walk-in hours from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and from 10 to 12 noon on Wednesdays. If this is an urgent situation I want to know that you can – you should – use the same day walk-in services and counseling psychological services in the Tang Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

LAURA: So we’re hearing the term health care a lot thrown around. What exactly does that mean.

CHRISTINE: So in simple terms I would say self care just means taking good care of yourself physically and emotionally.

LAURA: And what is the number one thing you want college students to do when thinking about taking care of themselves.

CHRISTINE: Well a lot of the times when students come to me to ask for help and they struggle – everybody understands self care is essential but then they often tell me, you know, Christine I have so much stuff to do and the last thing I can think of is that spending time self care. But I usually tell students the analogy of a car maintenance if you want your car to run smoothly and without any problem you will have to take it to the mechanics and also put fuel in it. Taking good care of the engine instead of abusing it. So it is a very interesting concept a lot of students will feel like, I would not have the luxury to focus on self care. But on the other hand if you don’t take good care for yourself and you for sure will get burned out and you will not be able to function physically, emotionally.

LAURA: So what is a good way to make sure that you’re taking enough breaks from studying.

CHRISTINE: Yes I mean that’s a very good question. What I would say is that when you started to notice that you were checking your phones e-mails or being distracted and apparently you’re not really being quite productive, that probably will be a good time to get up and take a little break. And when I say that take a break a lot of the time the students say well I’m taking a break by watching the videos or movies or checking on my phone. But I would say it probably will be more efficient actually or more helpful if you can get up take a walk and maybe even get a snack just move your body around and I think it will be a lot more sort of help you to refresh. And it’s very common to feel guilty. A lot of students say that they feel they cannot take breaks because again they have so many unfinished tasks. However if you’re not as efficient and you might as well you know do something to help you to refresh rather than sitting there and just doing nothing.

LAURA: I know one of the tricks that I had heard once for studying was leave something across the room that you might need just to force you to get up and walk and get something to come back.

CHRISTINE: Yeah you know just move your body around or, switching between subjects or you know kind of between like studying by yourself or having a discussion with other people, the group study. But just mix it up and if you sit there like five hours straight and you’re zoning out then apparently you’re not really making good use of your time.

LAURA: That totally makes sense. Emotional support has to be important for students so what would you think is a good way for them to get that emotional support.

CHRISTINE: Yeah there’s actually a lot of resources on campus. You know I actually have students come to me sometimes right before graduation and they say wow I did not even know these resources exist. And so I will say one thing is to to know what kind of resources support is available on campus for example if you check out the website of the Tang Center there – the counseling center – there is a huge section on self-help. And so we have tons of online resources, for example articles, handouts, assessments, videos, and you can watch and help you understand a little bit of for example what is the symptoms, what are some of the common struggles, and when you’re feeling anxious or depressed. And also we offer groups. These groups are free and they are on campus. And for example we offer a managing stress, anxiety, and depression group, building social skills group, and a lot of support groups for different populations – students of color, Queer students, grad students. In addition we offer short-term individual therapy and that’s part of what I offer for students here at Bechtel. So anybody will qualify for up to five sessions for free for the whole year. And I can work with you to sort of tailor to your needs and figure out individual lives to plan how to focus on self care. And also Tang Center offers a broader sort of services for physical health like nutritional health counseling, sexual health, substance use, and eating disorder body image programs. And so there’s quite a lot of resources. I mean just even talking about the Tang Center alone and you don’t have to know everything – I think all you need to do is actually reach out. It could be me, a counselor, but it also could be your academic adviser. And that’s another thing. I think the pitfall of when I talk to students they say you know I have been struggling for the whole semester and I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know what’s available. But I would say when you’re struggling, don’t just struggle, don’t just be alone, and then talk to somebody and I would say maybe your adviser would be the first person you can reach out to and they would be able to connect you to all the resources on campus.

LAURA: And the advisers you can get a hold of them through engineering.berkeley.edu/ess-advising to either make an appointment, or you can come in drop in we have drop in hours on Wednesday. And for the Tang Center email address, that’s uhs.berkeley.edu/counseling, and I’m going to have both of these links up on our website to make sure that you can find out about the resources and I know other resources that we should probably talk about that are available on campus for students that I’ll make sure that I list on the website that has to do with if you’re worried about getting food or if you want a place to be able to exercise and move your body around a little bit and have the safe space to do that in we’ve got information from RSF and the RSF is part of the students fees to come here. So if you’re a current student you get to go there for free.

CHRISTINE: And in terms of the food resources there is a UC Berkeley Food Pantry and it is a great resource for students who are low income or are struggling just to meet or buy a meal and it actually has quite a lot of variety of foods and I’ve had students come to me and actually say the food pantry saved their life. And again as Laura mentioned we’re going to list the information and how to access.

LAURA: The food pantry has fresh vegetables – you’re going and getting good food for you. And do you have any other creative ways that students can unplug and rewind make themselves a priority.

CHRISTINE: You know everybody’s different. I mean these are some of the things I’ve heard over the years from students. For example, it’s cold, it’s winter, it’s raining, and somebody told me that their favorite thing to do is to take a bubble bath and you take 45 minutes to an hour and put some scented oil on and just sort of pamper yourself instead of spending $200 to go to a spa. Light some candles and get a bubble bath and play some music. Another thing is when it comes to food, I understand students are very busy, but sometimes cooking can be really really relaxing. Plus you can make something that you really like, and sometimes you can get friends together and treat everybody and then it turns into not only just good food but also an opportunity to be social. Another thing I’ve heard students say is they really really have a hard time interacting with people but they really like animals. And so of course you know not everybody can have their own pets here on campus but you can maybe go to an animal shelter and volunteer there just to pet and to play with dogs and cats or you can even go to a pet store. I mean just to look around and see all the pets makes you happy. And also hiking obviously any kind of physical activities around, and even here on campus I’ve had students tell me that when they’re getting stressed, their favorite thing to do is go hike somewhere and to watch the sunset here on campus. Also another thing that’s interesting is art – any kind of art related creative sort of activity, for example playing musical instruments, painting, singing, and dancing and just using that different part of your brain. So that’s that’s really refreshing. I would say also go talk to somebody and don’t just suffer alone. Reach out to your friends and to your families. And I also understand some people will say I feel really lonely, I don’t really have somebody to talk to, but it’s just part of reason why we’re here for you. And so we get a chance to sort of help you to figure out how to build a social support system. The last thing I would say is that you know do something out of your routine. Try something new. Even something like going to check out a new restaurant or try a new hobby – something new and starting fresh sometimes will really help you to feel – it’s very unplugged and rewiring – and feeling like, “Oh maybe I’m doing something actually I enjoy doing rather than just fulfill all the obligations and responsibilities.” So the key is to know yourself everybody’s different. And so I would say experiment and try couple things and then at the back of your head you have a list – a couple of things – favorite spots, favorite food –  and so when you’re actually stressed you don’t have to sort of struggle to come up with something on the spot. You already know what makes you happy and what makes you refresh.

LAURA: Is there anything else that you wanted to add? That list was awesome – I think I need to incorporate that in my life on a regular basis.

CHRISTINE: That’s it. I mean if you really want to talk a little bit more like I said, then feel feel free to stop by the 241 Bechtel. The walk-ins are free and also they’re very informal – you don’t have to fill out some paperwork and go through the hurdles and you don’t even have to walk all the way across campus to the Tang Center – that takes about 20 minutes. That’s really long. So just stop by, pop in, and we can have a chat and sort of see what we can do to help you.

LAURA: Well Christine thank you so much for stopping by today. We’re going to make sure that we have all the links up on the website – welcomengineer.berkeley.edu – so that you can easily click on these links and get the help and support that we can offer you. Thank you so much for coming today Christine.

CHRISTINE: You’re very very welcome.

LAURA: And we’ll talk to everyone later. Thank you

Want to jump to the part of the podcast that is talking about your student status? Check out the times below:

• 0:57 – Newly Admitted Freshmen: admitted to College of Engineering
• 4:42 – Newly Admitted Freshmen – admitted to a different college at UC Berkeley
• 5:59 – Student in a college at UC Berkeley other than College of Engineering
• 7:49 – Current College of Engineering Students

IMPORTANT LINKS

• ESS Peer Adviser Hours: Monday – Thursday, 9am-5pm; Friday, 10am-5pm
• Change of College Website: engineering.berkeley.edu/changeofcollege
• Make an appointment with your ESS Adviser: engineering.berkeley.edu/ess-advising

LAURA VOGT: Hi my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the communications and events manager for engineering student services in the College of Engineering. Welcome back for another week of the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley engineer. This week I’m excited we have Sharon Mueller and she’s going to go over what to do when you’re in the wrong major. As you’re doing your studies, you figured out that it’s not quite what you want to do, and we’re going to look at it in four different student types.

SHARON MUELLER: Yes. Yeah I think that’s probably the best way to approach it because a students approach is going to be very different based upon their current status.

LV: Sharon, I know you’ve been on the podcast before so let’s remind everyone who you are and what you do for us.

SM: I am Sharon Mueller and I’m director of advising and policy in engineering student services in the College of Engineering.

LV: Let’s start with, who’s going to be our first group that we want to look at.

SM: I was thinking since most freshmen will be finding out their admission at the end of this month, that it might be good to start with newly admitted admitted freshmen. You know what to do if you have applied to a major, and have been admitted to a major, and now realize that’s not really the major you want to pursue, which is understandable students applied in November. And here we are a few months later, and perhaps their interests changed, so I would say for newly admitted freshmen… we actually tell students if your interests have changed pretty drastically, and you no longer want to pursue that major to which you were admitted, it might be better for you actually to go to a different school, quite frankly, because one big reason for that is that students do come into engineering declared, except for, we do have some students who were admitted to the college of engineering as engineering undeclared students. I’m not really referring to them, because they have the option of every major available to them as long as they get a 2.0 their first semester. So, this is really, I’m more talking about students who have been admitted to mechanical engineering, and now decide they want to do electrical engineering and computer sciences. So within the College of Engineering, there certainly is a mechanism for students to change major. But it can be challenging, and it’s not necessarily straightforward, and it’s certainly not guaranteed. So for every major there are requirements, there are minimum requirements for changing into that major. So it’s not something anybody could do their first semester. And for all majors that we need to see at least one semester’s grades, and for some majors, they have to be here for two semesters. So, and then for some majors, there are also course requirements, and that can be challenging because students have to maintain academic progress for their current major, but (they need to take) these other courses so that they’re eligible for the other major.

LV: You could be adding to a pretty heavy course load. I mean, we already require a lot in our courses anyway.

SM: True. Exactly. So yes you have to be continuing to make progress on the major you were admitted to, while also, if you want to switch, you know, trying to take classes that make you eligible to switch. And so students can find that very challenging, so much so that it might mean their GPA suffers, and then it becomes harder, because then there’s also a GPA requirement. So because when you try to be really transparent, we do tell students this that if they inquire about changing majors before they’ve committed to Berkeley, we generally say you might want to look at another school where that path is guaranteed and straightforward, because it’s not here, unfortunately. We admit to every major to capacity. And that’s why it can be challenging to change majors. And having said that, I should point out that transfer students are not allowed to change majors, so transfer students certainly shouldn’t commit to Berkeley engineering if they’ve decided that’s not the major they want to pursue.

LV: Just not an option at all.

SM: True. Yes that’s correct. Now students have been admitted to another college say Letters and Sciences, and decide they want to switch into the College of Engineering. There are some important things to know about that as well. Again we would say you might want to pursue a school where that’s a guaranteed path for you, because that is very competitive process to change into the College of Engineering, and we have a major that’s completely closed off, electrical engineering and computer sciences, students can’t change into it all. And once they if they’ve been admitted to L&S, and are able to successfully switch to the College of Engineering after a year, they can’t change majors once they’re here. So there’s certainly some pretty some pretty big roadblocks for those students as well. So for newly admitted students, we really do try to be transparent. If you’re absolutely sure, that’s not the major you want to pursue, that you’re no longer interested in the major you were admitted to maybe look at some other options for that.

LV: Okay. And so that was specifically for our admitted freshmen that are not here yet.

SM: Yeah. So now we can switch to talking about current Berkeley students who are outside of the College of Engineering, I already touched on this, but we have a really extensive Website that explains Change of College, when you want to change from, say, the College of Natural Resources to the College of Engineering. And there are some very strict deadlines. There are some requirements students need to fulfill their minimum GPA requirements, and it is a very competitive process. So students certainly want to check out that website.

LV: Yes definitely, engineering.berkeley.edu/changeofcollege I’ll put a link on our website as well.

SM: OK good. Yeah that’s pretty straightforward. It’s a lot of information, a lot of details. There’s also an email address on there that you can e-mail if there is confusion about some of the requirements, students seem to be really mindful that, twice a year we will review applications, and the absolute latest time students can apply to change into the College of Engineering is in March actually, March 1st of their sophomore year. So the deadline just passed for this year. And again, grades and academic progress are really important and students need to be able to finish within eight semesters at Berkeley.

LV: Semester you’ve already completed don’t count towards a total of eight?

SM: They do. Yes, they already count towards the eight. So right. If students have some courses to make up, they might be playing catch up for a little while. OK. So that’s for students who are in college outside of engineering. For current college of engineering students, I would say the very first thing they want to do, if they’re realizing that they’re not happy with their choice of major. And you know that happens, certainly, as a high school student. It may be difficult to know what is mechanical engineering? Or what is material science and engineering?

LV: Or as you’re going through the classes, you might realize you’re not doing what you thought you were going to do.

SM: Exactly yeah. And maybe you take a class in another department, you know, maybe you take a nuclear engineering class and think, oh this is what I want to do. So I would say the very first step, if that’s even part of your thought process, is to meet with your ESS adviser, and just to remind students that the way to do that is to go to our website engineering.berkeley.edu/ess-advising and just click on the blue box that says make an advising appointment, and that will give you all the available times for your ESS adviser. So I would say you want to do that as soon as you have that realization. Again, there are deadlines even for changing major within engineering, so students have to change major by the end of sophomore year. And so that’s why it’s important to get this process started as soon as possible so that you know what are the requirements for changing into mechanical or what are the requirements for changing into electrical engineering and computer sciences. So your ESS advisor can share all of that information with you, and can help you pave a path that will hopefully give you the option to change your major. So meet with your ESS adviser, as soon as you have an inkling. Now let’s say, you kind of don’t know what you want to do, but you’re like, well I know it’s not this, then I would say certainly your ESS advisor is a good place to start, but also I would start talking to our peer advisers. I would come in and chat with them. They’re here every day when the office is open, and just kind of talk to them about the different majors. There’s also, we do a little major fair. I think it’s in October. Usually in the fall semester, and that’s when we have all the majors represented with juniors and seniors from each major. And so they can certainly talk to you about the classes, and what do you do with a major in civil engineering. So that’s also a good resource. And certainly the faculty are a good resource. So if you’re just not sure, and you just are sure that you don’t want to continue in the major you’re in, then we have a lot of different people you can talk to help you clarify what major might align more with your goals. And then again your ESS advisers. Always a good place to start.

LV: Fantastic. And while you’re pursuing to try to change major and you’re still having to take the courses towards the one that you’re in right

SM: Exactly. And that can be challenging, because students who start in Berkeley Engineering also only have eight semesters. So if you’re sort of been on the path of one major for a year, you may have lost ground with another major, and you have to continue to make progress in your current major. Just in case you’re not able to switch to that other major. So that’s a college policy. So for those majors, for instance EECS has course requirements. It can be really challenging to continue to make progress with your current major, while also trying to fulfill the requirements to switch to that major. And that’s where your ESS advisor is going to be really important, because there might be certain courses you can take that could count for both. And so that you’re not loading yourself up with four technicals every semester just to get yourself to be eligible. So ESS adviser is always a good place to start because you can explore different options you can explore different majors, and you can kind of get a realistic trajectory of where you could be headed.

LV: Basically at the end of all this, there is ways to change majors, if you’re in the College of Engineering, we can work with you on that. If you’re not in the College of Engineering, it’s going to be a little more difficult.

SM: Yeah definitely. It’s a more competitive process for sure. And it’s a pretty extensive process which is why we have an entire website dedicated to it. And there are really specific timelines and deadlines.

LV: And I don’t know if we mentioned that the peer advisers are actually really trained in change of college for the campus, so you can always come in and talk to them a little bit more about it, if you wanted a one on one meeting with someone.

SM: That’s right because the ESS advisers do not meet with students outside of engineering. They all have a very full caseload of students within engineering. So the advisers are really well-trained in the change of college process, and they can help students kind of determine whether or not that might be a viable option for them.

LV: Fantastic is there anything else that we missed, that you might want to add.

SM: I don’t think so. I think we’ve covered it all. I would say certainly for newly admitted students, if they have any questions about this process, we’re all going to be here at Cal Day, and we’re going to have an engineering student services table, and all of the advisers will be there, the peer advisers will be there, will probably have some faculty there. So that might be a really good place to start talking about these kinds of questions. If you realize you may not want to pursue the major to which you were admitted

LV: And I know it seems a little tougher to say, go somewhere else, but we just really want to manage your expectations and be realistic about what is going to happen.

SM: That’s true. And certainly, it’s you know students don’t want to spend four years pursuing a major that they don’t really want, and we want students to be able to achieve their goals, and pursue what they want to pursue, and that might mean maybe Berkeley’s not the right place for that. And so we welcome the conversation, and we certainly welcome those questions at Cal Day, because like you said, we really want to manage expectations, and we don’t want students to be unhappy with their choice of majors, so it’s important to us that everybody who is here gets to pursue what they want to pursue, and gets to achieve what they want to achieve. And you know having said that, we also have some pretty strict guidelines for the process. So we just want to make sure students are really aware that before they commit.

LV: Thank you so much for coming and speaking to us today. Because I know we’re starting to get the questions, so we are going to make sure we get this podcast out there so folks can hear it.

SM: Yes. You’re welcome. My pleasure.

LV: And thank you everyone for tuning into the not so secret Guide to Being a Berkeley engineer. And we’ll talk to you again in a couple weeks. Thank you.

IMPORTANT LINKS

• Semester-at-a-glance calendar
• An Exercise: Spending Your Weekly Time Budget
• Chart Your Academic Progress
• SLC’s study strategies page: http://slc.berkeley.edu/study-and-success-strategies

LAURA VOGT: Hi and welcome to The Not So Secret Guide To Being A Berkeley Engineer. And we’re here this week for a time management podcast. I know it’s something that I struggle with regularly to do time management and I’m excited that we brought Jane Paris one of our Engineering Student Services advisers.

JANE PARIS: Hi I’m Jane. I’m the adviser for civil engineering majors and industrial engineering majors in ESS and I’m excited to talk about time management and share some specific tools I have with you.

LV: Why did we want to talk about time management at this time of the semester. So maybe some folks are starting to realize that they don’t quite have a grasp of it, what’s our goal?

JP: Yeah well so we’re in week 5. So midterms are coming up, if not (already) happening maybe this week and the way time management ties into that which might be obvious to some of you but especially when I talk to seniors and I ask them to look back on their time here and say you know what really helped. And that’s just a common thread is getting my time management under control specifically for things like at this point in the semester when you’re thinking about midterms. So you’re not having to prepare in two days for the midterm you know really the kind of studying as you go along which is easy to say but sometimes harder to implement. So yeah I think just the alleviating one aspect of your stress is the way I feel time management is super useful.

LV: And you have three awesome documents here for us to start off with for the basics. Let’s start with your first one.

JP: Totally fired up about my documents. So if you’ve come into ESS you’ve probably seen these and specifically if you’ve come into my office. So the first one I got from the Student Learning Center which is in the Chavez Center and it’s called a semester at a glance calendar, and you might be thinking like I have plenty of calendars I know my calendaring system etc. But This one is different because the point of it is just to give you as it says in one glance to look at your whole semester and know when are the busiest times which you might kind of you know other calendaring systems it’s kind of like maybe you’re seeing the month. You know maybe you’re seeing just the week the day whatever. But what this is and you can go to our website and download it if you want. You could also just make your own on an eight and a half by 11. You know one one sheet of paper. It’s the whole semester starting with the first day which was January 16th and then going all the way through finals week. And then there’s just enough space for you to just mark when things are due. So my suggestion is always take this calendar. Mark all homework assignments all you know when problem sets are due for every class when any other type class you know, when papers or essays are due when your midterms are obviously, and then essentially the finals week is really important too. And also, though, think about any big activity outside the classroom that you need to plan for. So it might be like going home one weekend if you know you’re going to do that for your friend’s birthday or something, like that or maybe if you’re on one of the competition teams and you know that there’s a big event that weekend. Obviously sometimes that takes students by surprise. The time away from campus, and how that’s going to impact their usual study schedule so. So that’s kind of my biggest piece of advice is when you’re thinking about time management you have to think about the big picture which is your whole semester. I mean you could go bigger and think about your whole life. But let’s just keep it to the semester right now and its really knowing like oh OK after you put all that stuff in then you kind of see like a whole week eight is going to be super intense because I just see that there are like a ton of things marked off in week eight and that means you really have to start preparing for week eight. You know not in Week 7 but several weeks before that, and the payoff is like you’re just not as stressed when it comes around because I mean I do remember as a student, which I wasn’t very good at time management as a student, but I’m a grown up now and I’ve learned a lot. So anyway I remember that horrible feeling when you’re in that week like, let’s say you’re in the week 8 that I just described and you realize that you’re in that week. All the things that are due and then you start going oh my god. And then I have to I have to go home on Friday because I have to do this. And it just. Oh it’s horrible. So I don’t want you guys to feel that I want you to be a little more relaxed.

LV: So I like that you have it on just one page. One quick thing to look at. So maybe after the first week of school, at the beginning of semester you can get your syllabus that you did at the beginning. Yes. And sit down and plug it all in. And if you haven’t done it yet it’s still something very easy to pull out and fill it out.

JP: Exactly. Yeah that is what I hope that people do it at the very beginning this semester. It just as you said it’s not too late. Let’s just make sure the rest of your semester is visible to you. Your different stress points

LV: and just let everyone know we are going to have all this available for download. Welcomengineer.berkeley.edu under our episode 130 podcast And so let’s move to the second one that you’ve got for us. It’s a weekly time budget so we’re getting a little bit more gritty.

JP: Yes. OK. And what I call this so again so this is your week when you look at this you see that it’s like every day of your week from an all 24 hours so it’s a 24/7 count. Again you might say like I use school calendar, I map out my days I’m good. So this is not a calendar.

This is a time budgeting exercise. So you know there’s just like a few simple things to do. And then the goal is you get you like quantify your and visualize the hours that you have available to you in a week. And once you’ve put in the other things. So like for example the first step is now you’re going to go through and mark off the hours that you sleep, and I laugh because it’s like do I mean you really sleep or your goal I think kind of somewhere in between. What is your goal and what’s realistic like. Obviously people usually hopefully sleep in a little bit on the weekends. You know maybe go to bed later on weekend nights too.

So anyway you’re kind of marking that off and you’re also marking off eating, very important, and takes time, and it’s important to like kind of just give yourself that time, and then all class meetings, lectures, labs, discussions, seminars, you know ,basically any time that is set already in a schedule, and if you work, if you have a work study job, or whatever mark that off too, and then you’re going to add up all the hours that aren’t marked off, and you’re going to get this number, and then you’re going to subtract like seven hours, maybe, for commuting getting to and from your classes, if you think about how big this campus is, you’re probably spending more than an hour and a day getting to or from places.

And then when you have that number like that’s how much, I call it your weekly time budget, meaning how much time you have to spend on other things. This is important because you know how you know how involved our students are. Right. So all of the things that you have to fit in to this budget are as I’m sure you all know but just you know obviously studying and then any activities any of the student or any family obligations you might have any fitness goals you know personal goal. I mean there’s just a lot of things you want to do. And so I want you to do all those things and not be stressed out. So you need to know how much time does it take.

So that’s what it is it just kind of quantifying like how much time do I really have. And the other part of it that is super helpful is because for me for someone like me, like my personality type, when I look at this I’m like, that’s stressing me out but I’ve as I’ve worked with engineering students, I find that they really like having this kind of structure, and to just figure out like how much time do I have.

And the thing that’s very helpful is because then you see oh I do have time for just free time. Yeah I do have that time where I can just call it unstructured time. I know that’s really weird I’m structuring my unstructured time or whatever works you know. So yeah I think it can again alleviate some of your stress because it’s not this big mystery of like will I have time to do everything.

LV: And also gives you that idea that if there is something that somebody wants you to do one more thing on top of what you’re doing or if you had one more club that maybe you wanted to join. You can look at this and be like that’s really going to work. Do I have the time to put into that.

JP: Exactly. And in fact sometimes that’s when students come and talk to me and advising appointment, and I’m trying to figure out if I should do this join this club, or take this research opportunity, this kind of exercise is what I advise them to do. Well like let’s see what does your week already look like. And then could you add something and just as you said, the other piece that’s funny about this figuring out your weekly time budget is the part about how much time to devote to studying. Because you know we have this rule, rule is not the right word but guideline I guess where we say you know for every unit of coursework you have, You would spend three hours studying so if you’re in a four unit class you would spend 12 hours per week studying. And obviously this is going to vary from person to person, and from class to class but some classes actually need more than that you know. So that’s why I kind of think once you put in your work and sleep and eat, and class times, then that’s the thing you should think about next is like how much time do I want to spend on studying ,and then think about the clubs and the other things.

LV: I like this idea because it’s giving you time to also do self care. I put in the idea of OK I need to go to the gym and or go for a walk or have that moment. I love that idea that you did put that in there.

JP: Thank you. Yeah whatever self care means for you.

LV: Exactly. So and finally, this is our third one that we’re hearing. It’s called chart your academic practices.

JP: So what this is is you know we talked about, kind of, look at the semester overall and then figure out how many hours you have in a week and then what I was just saying was this piece about studying how much time you’re going to give per week to studying.

So what this tool that’s called chart your academic practices does is kind of give you a way to think about all the different ways you’re going to study in a week because it is a way for you to just like if you’ve ever had a fitness school of like you’re trying to get up to a certain amount of running whatever or any other kind of thing like that.

You note down how much am I doing per day and that helps you kind of reach a goal. That is that’s what this is about it’s saying for each of your classes and so it lists you know class 1 and you would write and you know math 53 or whatever class 2 physics 7A.

And then it goes week by week and encourages you to check off the different activities you’ve done that are associated with studying.

And the idea there is sometimes the whole like we’re like now we’re in week 5 and maybe this semester you were like I really want that, because I did talk to a lot of students like this, like I’m ready for this semester.. I want a higher GPA you know. And so obviously you have to do things differently than you did last semester or whatever that was for you. And so I’ll say okay well are you what are you going to do. Maybe it’s go to faculty office hours. Maybe that’s something you hadn’t done. Have you done that yet.

Like now here it is in week five and I haven’t actually started doing that. So this is kind of a way to monitor that. So you’ll see every week on this chart and then all these different activities that again, I call all of them are really, kind of, studying now, because studying is as it says on here everything that’s kind of a way you’re going to learn about the material, you know because the classroom is really just introducing you to the material, and then how you learn it is up to you.

So faculty offices, GSI office hours, study groups, tutoring, other things that students invent. You know so this is just kind of a way to keep track of that for each of your classes.

LV: I actually I really like this because it also keeps you honest with yourself. What did I do. What have I not done. Yes. You can’t fake where you’re at.

JP: Oh yeah. And it’s been fun. As I said I do use these on appointments sometimes. Let’s see I think during week three when I was meeting with students and they were talking about you know yeah I’m trying to do this differently this semester.

And we would go over this sheet and it was really fun for me.

I mean we’re kind of doing it like a little bit you know I’m laughing at myself because you guys are all adults right. So I’m not trying to keep track of you but it felt funny like that where I was like OK tell me, did you go to lecture three times this week. Check check check. You know did you go to a discussion check. And have you gone off or checked. But you know we were having the time of it, so I hope you know the students you guys listening will have a good time with it as well.

LV: I really like all three of these. I’m excited that we’re going to have them on the website so they’re available to everyone not just the students that we’re coming to see us, expanding what we’re doing.

JP: Oh yeah I want to do I want to just note I think I said already this semester at a glance was from the Student Learning Center. So they have some really good tools there. And in fact if you go on their website, and I think you’ll put on ours too, it’s just kind of a general overview of resources to use for studying, managing your studying. I love the Student Learning Center. They have a lot of good things. And then the 24/7 time budget is another thing I kind of modified from them.

So I think we use these in our center here at the CAEE.

LV: And we also have peer advisers and then those students, and they see really good and helping with time management so you’re not going to see an advisor right away. You can always stop by and talk to one of our peer advisers here from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday.

JP: Yeah I do hear about the coolest tools from other students and I imagine if you go into our center or peer advisers just asking, especially the seniors like they’ve learned some really awesome stuff along the way. What was that one I gave you the other day?

LV: Oh Trello.

JP: Yeah that was the kind of system I had never seen. Another student told me about that. But yes I just I love to hear from the more experienced students the things they’ve found and make them successful so yeah I think that would be helpful for younger students to do as well.

LV: Is there anything else that we missed out there that we skipped that we wanted to talk about

JP: Well just I always feel like I should say when I’m talking about time management, all these superstructures things it kind of just stresses me out talking about it, because as I said that’s my personality type is a little different, but so just still kind of along those lines like part of Time management is just checking in with yourself and how you’re feeling about things and you know, and just noticing like yeah if you’re stressed about something, I kind of stop for a minute and think about OK what can I do to to relax right now or just noticing it is helpful. So you can kind of go from there. So I just always feel like I want to acknowledge how much stress our students have in their lives and how how we really want to support them in any way we can with that.

LV: And that’s actually a really good segue. So thank you Jane so much for coming this week and spending our podcast time with us. Next week we’re going to have Christine Zhou from the tang center

JP: I love Christine.

LV: I agree. So she’s coming in and giving us a little bit more some tips and strategies of how to make sure that you’re working that self-care into your schedule. So again thank you for tuning into the The Not So Secret Guide To Being A Berkeley Engineer. And Jane thank you for coming today.

JP: Thank you. Yes thank you students. And I look forward to seeing you often. And well.

LV: Talk to everyone later next week about self-care. Thank you.

IMPORTANT LINKS

• Make an appointment with your ESS Adviser: engineering.berkeley.edu/ess-advising
• Contact your department adviser

LAURA VOGT: It’s Monday, so that means another episode of the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. My name is Laura Vogt and I’m the communications and events manager for Engineering Student Services in the College of Engineering. Today I have three fantastic guests to discuss the College of Engineering Advising Structure: Phil Kaminsky, the Executive Associate Dean in the College of Engineering and professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research; Ariana Castro, Student Services Adviser for Materials Science and Engineering; and Sharon Mueller, Director of Advising and Policy for Engineering Student Services.

IMPORTANT LINKS

• ESS event information and registration links: engineering.berkeley.edu/essevents
• Contact Tiffany Reardon
• Contact Luis Castillo

LAURA VOGT: Welcome back to the spring semester and this is our first episode of 2018. We’ve come back for another year to the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. My name is Laura Vogt and I’m the communications manager for engineering student services in the College of Engineering and today joining us are Tiffany Reardon and Luis Castillo from the Center for access to engineering excellence. Welcome and thank you for being here and for being my first guest of 2018.

LC & TR: Thank you for having us.

LV: Tiffany why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself.

TR: Ok so my name is Tiffany Reardon and I am the assistant director of attention programs in the CAEE.

LC: And Luis Luis Castillo the development manager at the Center for Access to Engineering Excellence.

LV: So Luis can you tell me a little bit more about what the Center for access to engineering excellence is.

LC: Well the Center for access to engineering excellence is a physical space in which students can come build community, get all sorts of help with tutoring and just pretty much a quiet space for them to study in. And then you know our location is an Bechtel and the room so we currently use is Room 240 and 227 and the students when they come in they have an access to 30 tutors were open from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. from Monday to Thursdays and on Fridays we’re open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. And we also have a line in the library in which we have clickers calculators and safety cameras and all sorts of different stuff the students can request.

LV: What type of courses are you covering?

LC we’re covering most of the core courses and some of the division courses as well.

LV: When you say that you were covering core courses, what type of courses are those?

LC: Well we have a wide range. It can be any from the basic requirements MATH 1A/1B Chem 1A/1B.. So it’s a wide range. CS/ME/EE Basic requirement courses. It’s a lot of the core courses we host here. If you see a core course if you know if you don’t see your core course that you’re taking and you need help with it make sure to let me know and I’ll be more than happy to make sure that we expanded those courses

LV: and you have a tutoring calendar so what’s available when, available online.

LC: Exactly. So you’re able to see when we’re having tutors for a specific course. That way you can you know schedule out your time that you’re willing to come in and look for help and that’s engineering.berkeley.edu/CAEE.

LV: Tiffany let’s talk a little bit about the professional development services that we have.

TR: Well sure as you know we are in mid recruitment season and so in response to that just as ESS has a drop in career counselor on Wednesdays, the center we also have professional development events so some upcoming events that I’d like to tell you about. We have the cupcakes and headshots event. Basically what is cupcakes and head shots. That is an event where you come in and you get a cupcake and you’ll get a portrait taken of professional quality portrayed that you can use for your LinkedIn and profiles for bios for other things. Nowadays students need to have a professional you know whether it be a website or a LinkedIn account. And so those can be quite costly. Students can get that for free. And that’s going to be on February 8th at 2 o’clock at 2pm and just prior to that event, we will be having a LinkedIn workshop. So if you have a LinkedIn account come, you know, we’ll we’ll give you some tips on how to make it the best. If you don’t have one. No worries. Bring your laptop and we will get you started on making it great. Aside from the cupcakes and head shots we also have a professional etiquette dinner. I know a lot of companies will do interviews in meal settings and you know it’s nerve wracking enough as it is to do an interview. Now imagine you know at a four star restaurant where you have a lot of silverware and you’re like oh my gosh I don’t know, You know what do I do with all this silverware. In addition to that the professional etiquette dinner and I would just mention it does fill up. It always fills up so you want to make sure that you register as soon as possible for that event.

LV: And also on February 13th

TR: Yes. And you want to make sure that you sign up for that because it also has a networking event as well. A lot of students say you know I don’t feel comfortable you know introducing myself for networking. Many students say that they’re shy. I guarantee you after this event you will go through any setting meal setting and it will be a breeze.

LV: You know I’ve been to this etiquette dinner a couple times and one of the things that I really like about it is that networking part because they actually have you stand in groups and practice walking into a group that you’re not necessarily part of. And introducing yourself into a conversation and being comfortable with that.

TR: Absolutely. This is a great opportunity for students to practice that in a safe environment. The presenter is phenomenal. She’s worked a lot with engineering students and I’ve never had students tell me that they regret doing it. In fact I’ve had students that have want to do it multiple times because they really do enjoy it. And that when there is a small fee for it there is a very very small fee but you know it’s worth the fee and mainly the fees just to you know kind of secure the headcount. you do get a meal you get a full course. three course meal I believe. Yeah. So you get a three course meal for a very small amount and drinks.

TR: something I’d also like to mention as well that really goes into alignment with the cupcakes headshots, and the etiquette dinner. We also have a success closet now. Success closet is something that we just launched last spring. And this is if you have an interview and you don’t know what to wear. We do have a whole closet we have sizes from size zero to size 14. This is a success closet where you can borrow free of charge a shirt you know a suit to wear. Because sometimes students will go to a career fair and then they’ll get an interview the next day. Right. And with our students Berkeley schedules. Who has time to go shopping. So come on over to Bechtel 227 and check out our success closet

LV: Are they geared towards any particular age of students like do you need to be a freshman/senior. Anything in between.

TR: Oh no no no not at all. You know freshmen actually freshmen might be thinking oh I don’t need a LinkedIn or I don’t need to go the career fair. No you do, believe me, a lot of companies are recruiting freshmen, and I was talking, I was actually meeting with the student this morning, and we were talking about the whole interviewing process. The more interviews that you get under your belt the better. So go to all of these things even if you’re planning on taking classes this summer, go to these things I guarantee. Companies are eager to get you know freshmen, sophomores, and then of course students that are graduating. I’m assuming a lot of you are looking for full time enrollment or maybe you’re looking at grad school. I will tell you if you’re looking at grad school you still need to have LinkedIn. It’s very important that you have that.

LV: So Luis going back to the center and the tutoring that you have.Who do you have working there like who are the tutors

LC: All of our tutors are Berkeley students and we’re always looking for new students that can tutor. So if you have any specialty which you focus on any course you’re very proud of your achievement and make sure to let me know that you’re interested in tutoring and then I’ll follow up with you either in person or via e-mail and ask you to submit a cover letter, resume, and an unofficial transcript. And then from then on we can schedule a phone interview and see where that can take us.

LV: But outside of what the center does for events, and the tutoring, are there any other things that you do to work with students or student groups.

LC: Oh yeah we work close with student groups. certain things like the funding of any particular way that their org might want to go or if they want to collaborate with any org or any industry partner.

LV: So at the end of this year we’re going to have an Emerging Leaders Brunch

LC:  yes and we will be bringing on all returning students that are coming back as leaders in their student orgs, and we put on an event where we welcome them and give them a few tips and strategies as to how to come about (being a leader) and hone all the skills they have to be great leaders for the student orgs.

LV: It’s also a good way to start with networking early. Tiffany what about you.

TR: So I worked really closely with our PREP, T-PREP engineering scholars program. But aside from that. I work with students on finding research opportunities specifically our use and finding research on campus. Any student that’s interested in grad school I would love to talk to you approaching faculty, utilizing office hours, scholarships, and internships. You know my official title is assistant director and retention programs and part of that is to make sure that you maximize your experience here at Berkeley and how ever we can help you. We’re always eager to meet with students and make sure that they are on track.

LV: And so let’s recap for just really quick the event specifics that we need students to know about or going to have to register for at some point that we have coming up that we have dates for.

LC: So just remember that there’s always tutoring other than that we’re having a LinkedIn workshop in February 8 from 1 to 2 p.m., cupcakes and head shots on February 8 from two to four. The etiquette dinner on February 13, 6 to 8 p.m. and then paws for finals on May 2nd 12-2 p.m. So make sure that not only are you taking care of your academics your professional development but also of your self care. That’s why we have events like Pause for Paws before finals and so on.

LV: Any of them and all of these events you can find out the rest of the information for them on engineering.berkeley.edu/ess and from there to lead you to either the registration page or if you want to know a little bit more information. And is there anything else you want to add that we skipped now.

TR: I would just say Come say hi Luis and I, we’ll be at all of these events, and we’d love to meet with you

LC: and make sure they come to cupcakes and headshots where Laura will be taking your pictures. And how do you know so much about the website.

LV: I am the well communications and marketing so it’s a little bit of all I do. I take pictures.

TR: So I actually use my headshot as my professional headshot. It’s very very good quality. You’ll be very happy with the portrait that Laura does, such a fantastic job

LV: Thank you I really enjoyed it’s one of my favorite events that we get to do because who doesn’t like getting a free cupcake and you get a nice picture with it.

LC: How many pictures do you usually take Laura

LV: Usually about 150. Wow. And it goes pretty fast so we end up with a line down the hallway but we try to move people through pretty fast and now because we have the success closet. Last time  were able to put on nicer shirts with ties or a collared shirt.

Some of the women were able to put on jackets.

LC: what if I don’t know how to comb my hair. Does anyone help me with that

LV: Oh this last time we actually had Jane Paris who’s one of our advisors came in and she helped fix people’s hair make sure that you weren’t too shiny. It made it so it was a little bit more professional. Which is what we wanted. It was quite fantastic. Thank you for asking. And I’m pretty sure Jane going to be doing it again this time. So if not, Jane will definitely get somebody else to come in and help with the little things make her necklaces or straight kind of stuff. So thank you. Thank you very much for coming in and talking to us today. I’m excited about our spring semester and I’m excited that we’re still doing these podcasts and make sure you tune in for our next episode this semester.

We’re going to have episodes about time management. What to do if you think you’re in the wrong major. How do you connect more with your faculty adviser, which adviser do you see when, so should you see your ESS advisor or department adviser or faculty advisor. I know you have so many people here that you can work with, and support you so we’re going to help you find the right path to get the most information. So we’ve got some great topics this year and I’m excited for it. So thank you very much and thank you for tuning into the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. Thank you!

IMPORTANT LINKS

• Make an appointment with your ESS Adviser: engineering.berkeley.edu/ess-advising
• Campus Night safety: nightsafety.berkeley.edu/

LAURA VOGT: Hello my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the Communications and Event Manager for Engineering Student Services. And welcome back to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. We have a new voice on the podcast this week, Monica Bernal, one of our ESS advisers.  Monica, please tell us about yourself.

MONICA BERNAL: Hey Berkeley Engineers. So I’m excited to be here today on the podcast just to talk a little bit about triple R week with you all. I’ve been on campus now for six years. Prior to this, I worked in FPF and before in College of Letters and Science, but I’ve been doing advising for over 10 years so I love working with Berkeley students. You all are so amazing. My current caseload includes EECS students and MSE students so shout out to my MSE students and EECS students. Just K-O students, because you’re a really large group. So I do not advise you all. But the other EECS advisors are great. So Brian and Olivia, shout out to them. And we’re so just excited to chat with you today and kind of go over some tips for how we can make the most out of the time remaining in the semester.

LV: Thank you so much for joining us. And so we really want to talk about reading recitation and review week which a lot of you probably know is either RRR weak or dead weak. So Monica what exactly is our week and when does it take place.

MB: So triple R week takes place December 4th through the 8th. So this is considered the very last week of instruction and although there aren’t any course or any classes being held per se, but we do consider this the last week of instruction. And really what triple R week is is exactly in the title. It’s for reading, it’s for reviewing, it’s for recitation. So for some of your classes, that might be more helpful, for others, not. And so basically, the university has said, hey this is a time where our students shouldn’t be processing any new material. It’s just a time for us to review and reflect and get ready for and prepare ourselves for the upcoming final examinations.

LV: And so what kind of things should you be doing during our week? Are there places that you could go? Or do faculty usually have classes or study groups or things like that that they do?

MB: So depending on your courses there could be a lot of things going on for triple R week or a faculty could just be having you use this time for your own. So typically we do recommend if a faculty member is holding a review session or extended office hours that we use anything that your professor is willing to do for you during triple R week, we highly encourage you to attend. So that’s first and foremost. If you’re in a larger course, where there’s a graduate student instructor, or a lab course there might be something where they’re going to be giving you the opportunity to bring your questions or kind of listen to another student’s questions, so kind of a more standard review session, in that fashion, we would definitely encourage you to participate in that, otherwise, it might be a chance for you just to meet with your study group on a regular basis, or to kind of review problem sets together, or review previous final examinations, if that’s available to you. So that would definitely be one of my big tips, as if you were taking a math course or any kind of course, where the department has previous final examinations available to you, even if they’re from a decade ago. Go ahead and print those, and take the time to kind of review them but also do some some of those problems or write out those questions yourself or with a group ideally, maybe separately, and a meeting with a group to kind of collaborate. But that would be the best way to use triple R week. Students use it in a variety of ways.

LV: And I know one of our peer advisors in the office said that they really suggest you taking triple R, or taking dead week to review the final exam schedule and make sure you know when and where what time your exams are.

MB: Definitely, I think that should really be one of the key ways for how you structure your triple R week, is to go ahead and look at every single one of your classes and see when your final exam is, which one is first, which one is last, look at the gaps. Do you happen to have like a final exam on Monday one on Wednesday, one on Friday. Is one very late in the evening? Is one really early in the morning? Are they stacked upon? Or do you have two final exams on the same day? Ideally when you were picking your classes you would have taken note of this to make sure there were no conflicts. However that is not always the case.

So we do encourage you to kind of work your way backwards so like… So you should map out your finals week first and foremost. That’s going to give you a great idea, then that’s going to give you a chance to kind of structure your triple R week since there aren’t any classes. The first thing you might want to structure in your triple R week when you’re doing time management is any review sessions led by the faculty member, so go ahead and block out those times you can get to those. Any review sessions or office hours by your GSIs you’d want to put, and then what you’re left with is the time you’d want to coordinate with your study group or yourself to study for the finals the next week. But if your finals week is very well spaced out you might already know that hey I have an extra day and here to study so I can help you when you’re structuring your time management.

LV: And so I know for studying here in Bechtel that we’ve got a couple different places that you can study, because we’ve got Garbarini Lounge, we have our Center for Access Engineering Excellence, and then they have an expansion where the 240 is going to be open at least in the afternoon most of the week. So do you know of any other places where students could go and study?

MB: I definitely want to highlight the CAEE.  I think that’s a great place to go because I think there’s really good energy in there, and I think if you’re feeling tired at home, or your roommate situation is a hot mess. I just want to give it a plug because everybody is going through what you are, and sometimes you need to be in a community just to kind of feel that energy of studying. So definitely check that out. But also just the regular places, so free speech cafe, the library. I think a big part is knowing how and when you study best, and the types of environments that are going to permit you to succeed. So maybe think about the semester, if you’re a brand new freshman, to be like OK, what exams did I really rock, and like how did I study for that, and what was that like. And know that everybody is different so you could have your roommate who does all their studying and study groups and that just really rocks their world, and maybe for you being in the study group isn’t that helpful, if it’s not, by all means, it’s totally ok to minimize the amount of time you spend with your study group.

But I do think in general knowing what other people in your class are thinking can be a helpful tool. So you probably want to get at least a little bit of that. And also, in engineering in particular, with our students there’s so many things that are project based so that’s just kind of the name of the game. So I think taking this time to think about throughout the semester what exams have you really done well for, and what permitted you to do well is so critical. And also know it’s a journey, if this is your first round of finals at Berkeley, be patient and gracious with yourself. You’re going to try some things that we might all work and it’s not going to be the end of the world if they don’t.

LV: And the library I think has extended hours during our week and finals week.

MB: Yes. Most of the libraries on campus will have extended hours but just because they have extended hours doesn’t mean that you should live in the library. I think you want to go home and sleep in your bed and still get seven hours of rest. Sleeping is really important. Please don’t stay up for 40 hours because that’s how you end up at the tang center. Like no joke, I know it’s like, oh crazy all-nighters, this is college, but you know your health, your mental health, your physical health are so important to us, it’s important to your faculty your GSIs, and really part of doing well during finals is like staying hydrated, getting enough sleep. I mean I totally get it you want to get as much studying in, but like try to get at least get six hours of sleep. I mean I know you’re used to maybe five and a half but don’t go under that, I think, you know, getting rest is so important for you to feel awake. And also just taking note that some of you might have seven to 10 p.m. finals this year and that’s going to be a big change. I was thinking well, maybe, I’m going to sleep in a little bit later, and kind of, if you’re not like an evening person, or if you have an 8:00 a.m. final, like be sure to like plug in your cell phone. Have it charged into the wall, have it far away from your body, because you cannot sleep through a final, there are no exceptions, you will get a big fat F that way. So I think you know be sure to set your alarm properly like have your mom call you if you need to or your dad or or a loved one. I think it’s a great time to put things in place because you know I’ve been on campus for six years so I have heard of every single thing that can go wrong during a final. Well not to scare anyone. But I think putting things in places are just like having the agreement with your roommate to be like hey I have a final this time. Can you just make sure I’m up. Those things can’t hurt.

LV: No I think that’s a fantastic idea. Make sure you get a back up wherever you can get the backup .

MB: Yeah if you need to plug in like old school alarm. I mean I know you all probably don’t remember what life was like without cell phones, but there there’s this thing at Walgreens that’s called an alarm clock. Its sole purpose is to tell you the time to wake you up. You can like set it to the radio station, a jam, or whatnot. But if you need to get an alarm clock, maybe even do that. So you just feel like OK I’m up and ready. If you show up late, they’ll let you sit but they’re not giving you any extra time. And if you just miss it, you miss it.

LV: And one of the things I really wanted to focus on was if you, for some reason, are staying on campus late, there are a lot of options for you to get home safely and get to your car safely or be at the bus stop safely.

MB: Definitely, I think Campus Safety is something that’s a hot topic right now, we’re talking a lot about it on campus. And so I think utilizing bear walk. I definitely think if you’re going to the library late at night or CAEE late at night. Ideally if you can go with a friend or even if your friends, let’s say, you live in two different residence halls, you walk to the closest person resident hall and then they call BearWalk for your colleague or friend so they can get back to where they’re at.

I definitely think one of the patterns we’re noticing lately, unfortunately, in campus crime, is it’s happening adjacent to campus, and it’s happening to students who are traveling alone. And so I would say, about the other thing, I would say if somebody asked for a backpack, and I know that has your laptop and all your hard work in it, please just give it to them. Please give them your backpack, please give them your wallet. And just like let them smoothly get away, because you are so much more important than your laptop or the project on your laptop or your cell phone. So I think just we don’t want any harm to come to you, if you do get caught up in one of these situations, and then, you know, immediately make it back to campus or the library or someplace where you can like call and get help. But that being said, you know given the fact that burglary in an urban setting, like many universities. Campus crime does happen, and it’s not unusual but we want you to be safe. Also if something does happen because finals week is always crazy. If something happens to you like a night before your final like somebody takes your backpack, or something happens like that. You can write an e-mail to your adviser and to your faculty member. And obviously if you’re shaking like that we will help you, to try to negotiate the scenario of something severe happens, enough that you don’t feel that you can take your final and the condition you’re in. Don’t feel like you have to go into a final exam very shaken up. We’ll work with your faculty member to get you support. There’s definitely a way.

LV: Yes definitely. So if you go to nightsafety.berkeley.edu if you have a question about any of the services that are offered, it’s all listed there. There’s BearWalk. There’s a night safety shuttle, there’s even door to door service if it’s really late at night. So please check out nightsafety.berkeley.edu

MB: And I definitely think that if you’re listening right now like pause or pull out your phone, and go to that website and just automatically save those numbers into your cell phone. Even if you don’t need them, you might have a friend who needs them, and then you’re like hey it’s on my phone, let me just call them for you. The other really great thing is like Uber, if you are a second, third, or fourth year student who lives off campus, Uber or Lyft. I mean, I know it’s a little bit of extra money but like they also now have Uber and Lyft pool, but I don’t think it hurts to have a little bit of your budget if you want to stay on campus, to be able to, you know, take one of those… I think it’s just your safety is definitely worth like the $7.

LV: We want to talk about the SLC and the tutoring services they offer.

MB: Definitely. I think the student learning center is a great resource, as I know we have so much great tutoring that happens. And yes, as you all already know, the student learning center will be continuing their tutoring schedules so especially for those of you who are in a humanities or social science classes or if you just are looking for some last minute math tutoring. The other place to check is for freshmen who are living in the resident halls or if you’re a transfer student, check your academic study centers. They may still have tutoring during triple R week and so you can check in with them to see if anybody is coming in or continue their regular tutoring schedule as well.

So I think although the offerings kind of start to be packed because the expectation is kind of, you’re ready on your own. We still have some resources around campus for you to check out. So definitely another great thing about the SLC is also if you’re just looking for an environment that’s a little bit louder than the library where there are people around. If you’re someone who thrives in that type of studying energy just even if it’s being with your laptop and your headphones in but having people around for you, SLC is a great place to be.

LV: And so is there anything else that we missed or didn’t talk about for our week.

MB: I do. It’s a little bit of a downer, but there are a couple of things I just want to highlight that also happened during RRR week that direct or are a little bit more directly related to engineering advising that we haven’t met. So December 8th is a deadline that you should mark in your calendar and the first is for exceptional change which is our blue petition. So for our engineering students, anyone who has an exceptional request, so whether it be a late add, although I hope, fingers crossed, you are not trying to add anything because that will be… We can chat about it if you want to add something you need to, like right now, log on and make yourself an appointment. But if you have a drop request, all of those need to be submitted by December 8th by 3:00 p.m.. So this is our more traditional blue form. There’s also our green petition, which is a one time kind of petition that you can use at ESS, with some criteria that you may or may not fit. So if you feel like you have a green petition or a blue petition request, those need to be submitted. So not just talking to your advisor, but you need to actually submit this petitions by December 8th at 3 p.m. And I just want to say that like we understand that you are students, but you’re also a person first, you have family, you have friends, you have jobs. Many of you have so many things going on. I’m continually impressed and surprised, and so we know life is happening, so if anything out of the ordinary is happening in your life, you have become sick, changed medication. Maybe you have some personal issues that have been impacting you inside the classroom that are happening outside of the classroom, or family members. You lost a job. Any kind of those things where you kind of are just feeling on the fence about, please make an appointment. And if your adviser is busy like you can’t get an appointment online, send them an email to come in and talk about it, because I think sometimes what happens is you may not realize, that you have a good case for a late drop. Given all what’s going on, and I think just the earlier you come in, the better it is for us to help you. And the other deadline that does happen as on December 8th is that’s also the last day to withdraw from the fall semester. So if there’s something that’s so severely impacting you that you won’t be able to pass your courses or you feel you need a little bit of time off from the university. December 8th will be the last day to do that. There are some things that you would potentially have to set out for the spring semester, but I say this not to defer you, not to further deter you from coming in and chat with us.

I just say it’s you, kind of, know but I think this is like a really great time to have a dialogue, and especially since people are getting to go away for a break. And this is a great time to come in, and touch base with your advisor, and be like hey this is going on, and I don’t know how I feel about it, or you know I’m wondering if I have a case for this potentially. And I mean, really we’re here just to support you in any way, we can and help you best understand your options and the best support you. So I think those are big things that like something is just going on, that you kind of haven’t been able to get your mind around, or something really out of the ordinary happens within the next two weeks, which you know I’m keeping my fingers crossed, I’m lighting my candles that doesn’t happen for any of you. But you know life happens, so if it does, please please come in. That’s what we’re here for just to like talk to you about it.

LV: Thank you so much for coming in today and talking to us about reading, recitation, and review week. I really appreciate your time and I really have fun with you on the podcast today.

MB: I know, you too. I do have one last pro tip is just, don’t take triple R week to you know mess around, like please don’t go to Tahoe and ski all week, because like that is not going to do you any favors. I know it’s like a cush time. And maybe you really want to go home and study with your family, I mean that’s like, you’re just, you know, one on one studying works that way, but I really strongly encourage you all to like take advantage of triple R week and be here and go see your professors and immerse yourself. We give it to you for a reason just to kind of wrap your mind around all the amazing concepts and teaching you are exposed to this year so triple R week, it’s no joke.

LV: Thank you so much. And I look forward to the next time you’re on with us. Definitely.

MB: You’re going to all do so well on your finals. So just be confident. Like we support you, you’re amazing. Don’t doubt yourself. Don’t believe the hype. The person next to you. So yea go Berkeley engineers!

LV: And thank you for tuning in and we’ll talk to you next semester. Thank you.

IMPORTANT LINKS

• Make an appointment with your ESS Adviser: engineering.berkeley.edu/ess-advising

LAURA VOGT: Hello my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the Communications and Events Manager for Engineering Student Services. Welcome back to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. This week I’m excited to have one of our ESS advisers on the show, Olivia Chan. Olivia, please tell us a little more about yourself.

OLIVIA CHAN: Hi Laura! I’m excited to be here! So again, my name is Olivia Chan and I have been one of the Engineering Student Services advisors for 5 years now.  Actually, I just reached my 15th year of service with the UC system! Currently I advise EECS last name P-Z, Engineering Math Stat, and Environmental Engineering Science students.

LAURA: Today we want to discuss a new petition that the College introduced recently, which we call the Green Petition – for no other reason than the cover sheet is green. what is it, why would a student use it and what is the process. Why would a student use a green petition?

OLIVIA: Students would use the green petition if they want a late change to their schedule after the deadline but do not have an extenuating circumstance that would warrant using a different petition. The green petition allows for one late change to their schedule during their whole undergraduate career.  With this petition, they can request a late add or drop of a course or request to change their grading option after the deadline, if appropriate.

LAURA: What is a non-extenuating circumstance?

OLIVIA: A non-extenuating circumstance is basically something within one’s control. Forgetting to change a grading option before the deadline. Forgetting to drop a class before the deadline. The green petition was, in part, created to help alleviate stress when students enrolled in too many courses and didn’t take into account or realize the time commitment and workload of the courses on top of their non-academic interests. So…an example of why a student would use the green petition. Let’s say a student is taking 3 technical courses and a Humanities/Social Science course. The student discovers after Week 10 that the workload is not conducive to retaining information from all of the courses in order to do as well as the student had hoped.  As long as the student is still in 12 units which is the minimum units to be full-time for the College of Engineering and 2 technical courses, they can use the green petition to drop one of the technical courses or the H/SS course. Students who have been approved for a reduced course load by DSP or are in their final semester and on the degree list may take less than the 12 unit minimum.

LAURA: What do students do in emergencies or if they have an extenuating circumstance (death in the family, serious illness, etc)?

OLIVIA: They should first meet with their ESS Adviser to inform us of the situation.  Your ESS Adviser will walk you through your options.  For extenuating circumstances (basically circumstances outside of your control), you would have the ability to utilize the blue petition which is not a one-time petition.  Your ESS Adviser will let you know what you need to submit in addition to the blue petition before it will be brought to the Dean’s Committee for review.

LAURA: What is the first thing a student should do to see if they qualify to use the green petition?

OLIVIA: Make an appointment with your ESS Adviser or come by drop-in advising on Wednesdays from 9-11:30 am and 1-3:30 pm.  In your meeting, your ESS Adviser will help you determine whether you qualify for the green petition or if there are other options so you won’t have to use it.

LAURA: Once a student turns in a green petition what is the process?

OLIVIA: Once the student turns in the green petition, it is reviewed and a student will receive an answer normally within 3-5 business days by email.  Once approved, the change will be immediately entered into CalCentral and the student should verify that the change has been made. If the student has a simultaneous degree with another college, both colleges must be in agreement that the student is eligible for the change before it can be approved. The deadline for this petition is 4:45 pm on the last day of instruction.

LAURA: Is there any way for students to revoke the action of their petition and use it later?

OLIVIA: No. Not at all. This is your one time. Once students have decided to use the green petition and it has been approved, they cannot rescind the petition and ask to submit a new one. If the green petition is not approved for some reason, they may submit a new one.

LAURA: So a quick recap: The petition can only be used once during your undergraduate career, you have to meet ESS adviser to get the petition and make sure it will work for your and that there are no other special circumstances that need to be considered for your degree. Olivia, thank you for stopping by today and thank you everyone for tuning in. We’ll be back next week for the how to make the most of Dead Week.

IMPORTANT LINKS

• Office of Undergraduate Admissions, UC Berkeley
• Admissions University of California
• Assist.org
• Prospective Junior Transfer FAQs

LAURA VOGT: Hi, my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the Communications and Events Manager for Engineering Student Services. Welcome to another episode of the (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. Today, I’m excited to welcome Sharon Mueller and Joey Wong because they’re here to discuss applying as a transfer student to UC Berkeley in the College of Engineering. Joey, please tell us about yourself.

JOEY WONG: Hi, I’m Joey. I’m one of the college advisors here in the College of Engineering and I help coordinate the transfer admission process.

LAURA: And Sharon?

SHARON MUELLER: I’m Sharon Mueller and I’m Director of Advising and Policy in Engineering Student Services.

LAURA: We were excited that we had the folks from Admissions in earlier today and we talked about freshmen admissions. So this time we’re going to change it up just a little bit. Some of the questions are the same but we’re completely focusing on our transfer admission process. So first question: When is the application due?

SHARON: The application is open now and can actually be submitted as of today. But the deadline is November 30th. I should point out that the UC Office of the President is allowing an extension for students who might have been affected by recent fires or hurricanes or earthquakes. And that is on a case by case basis and there is a process to request that extension and the extension is till December 15th. So if students are in those affected areas and are having difficulty submitting by November 30th then they should go to admission.universityofcalifornia.edu. And in the news feed is more information about how to request that extension but for everybody else or for those who are not requesting the extension, it is November 30th at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

LAURA: Is there any preference given to students who apply earlier than November 30th?

SHARON: No. No preference, It doesn’t really matter when students submit as long as they submit by the deadline. They’re all going to be reviewed at the same time.

LAURA: When will students know if they were accepted?

JOEY: Admission decisions usually come out in April.

LAURA: They’ve got a couple of months that they’re going to be waiting to hear back?

SHARON: Yeah. Usually it’s towards the end of April, right Joey?

JOEY: Yeah.

SHARON: I don’t think we have an exact date yet but it’s usually around the end of April.

LAURA: As you answer the admission questions, I know there’s quite a few questions in there that you get to choose from where you don’t answer every single one. Are there certain questions that are better to answer than others?

SHARON: For the personal insight questions? No not really. I think all transfer students have to answer one question, which is sort of tell us why you’re interested in this major. And then they have a choice to choose among I think maybe seven other insight questions. I think they choose three of those. So no not really we just want students to pick the ones that resonate most with them. Certainly pick the ones where you feel like you’re going to give us more insight into who you are. We don’t really have a preference for which ones they pick.

LAURA: Is there anything that they should avoid talking about or any ideas that have become too cliched?

SHARON: This is the part of the application where we really get to learn more about who you are as an applicant and who you would be as a UC student. So I think you know don’t spend too much time talking about other people. I know sometimes students are motivated to get into a certain major because of a family member or because of a mentor. So you can certainly mention that but we want to hear your story. We don’t want to hear about that other person. You know maybe don’t put in too many quotes about other people we really want to hear your words not the words of other people. And certainly if you’ve done some research or an internship or maybe you created a phone app. That’s great. We kind of want to hear what was your motivation for doing that. How did you go about doing that. We don’t necessarily want to hear all the technical details about the app. We kind of want to understand what was your reasoning behind doing that and what how does that display your interest in what you want to major in.

LAURA: We’ve had students that have had different tragedies or different life experiences or they’ve been away from school for a while and are coming back. Is there a place on the application where they get to explain that better and say maybe why they didn’t have the best GPA to begin with and then they went and changed their lives, made different decisions, came back with a different focus.

JOEY: Yeah definitely. The personal questions are definitely there for you to express some of your stories and some of your hardships or obstacles that you’ve had to overcome. Things like that.

SHARON: And there’s also that I think it’s called additional information section on the application, where students can put in – let’s say they have kind of an errant C-grade in math and they want to explain what happened that semester in that class. That would be a good place to put that. So maybe something like that maybe doesn’t fit perfectly within a personal insight question but we do read those additional comments that students can put in. And I actually would really encourage students if they have more than one “W” they have a “C” in a technical course. I would say we’re looking for information about that especially if it doesn’t seem in line with the rest of your grades. We kind of want to understand what happened that quarter, that semester, or what happened in that class. So for additional information, you can put that kind of information.

LAURA: Are there letters of references that our students are going to need in order to apply?

JOEY: No, letters of reference aren’t involved in the junior transfer admission process.

LAURA: How likely is it that students applying for the College of Engineering will get accepted?

JOEY: So the rough percentage is about 9.2 percent or about 10 percent each year and that fluctuates from year to year but it’s pretty close to that number.

SHARON: And I think that number could sound discouraging. But that’s the number that we’ve based upon the number of applications we’ve received for transfer students to the College of Engineering. But keep in mind that some of those students haven’t fulfilled all of the required courses for admission. And so those students are not eligible. So that percentage includes when we’re looking at all the applications. When you cut out the students who aren’t eligible it’s actually a much higher percentage for admission.

JOEY: Right. So your chances of getting in are definitely a lot higher than that if you have 100 percent of your required core courses completed.

LAURA: As a student, if I was applying to be a transfer student, if I hadn’t taken both of my R&C courses, is that just a complete no-go. You need to make sure that you’ve gotten everything?

JOEY: Yes, that would be a completely no-go.

SHARON: Yeah that would make you ineligible.

LAURA: Where can students find out the best way to be eligible?

JOEY: The course articulations on assist.org is a great place to look at what minimum prerequisites you need to apply.

SHARON: Yes. So they just choose their community college and then UC Berkeley and then choose that Major that they’re applying to and at the at the top it’ll just say required courses for admission. So they just need to make sure they do all of those.

LAURA: So if it’s required…

SHARON: It that has to be done. Yeah. By the end of the spring term I should point out. If they’re planning for next fall by the end of spring 18.

LAURA: So they can’t plan to take things over the summer?

SHARON: Right. Because those won’t count.

JOEY: If you’re applying from a four year or another UC, assist.org is still a good source of information for what are the minimum prerequisites for each major. However, keep in mind that priority of transfer admission goes to California community college students.

LAURA: How important are extracurricular activities?

JOEY: They are very important. Ideally we want to see what you’ve been doing outside of the classroom as well during your time at your community college or other college. We don’t like to see too much of the activity you’ve done in high school. Although if it’s relevant to your major interests it’s OK to put on. But we don’t need to know that. You know you were part of a chess club in your high school or anything like that.

LAURA: Do the extracurricular activities need to be engineering focused or engineering major focused?

JOEY: It doesn’t all have to be engineering focused. I mean we like to see engineering and your major focused extracurricular activities but if you’re you know volunteering elsewhere and if you’re doing tutoring on the side, things like that, you could definitely put that down as well.

SHARON: Yeah I think certainly anything that shows leadership or even outreach then I think certainly include those even if they’re not necessarily engineering related.

LAURA: Is it a problem if students went to multiple community colleges in order to get the required courses?

JOEY: It does get trickier during the reading process, but as long as you’re taking the courses that are articulated on assist.org it doesn’t matter if you complete different requirements at different community colleges. We understand that you know students may be traveling or students may have priorities and they can’t necessarily just attend one school the whole time and sometimes going to different schools in different colleges in the same network is more convenient. And we understand that.

LAURA: Do you take into consideration if a student took longer than say two years to go through a community college?

JOEY: We do take that into consideration in that we do look at the number of technical courses each student is taking each semester. So you know, we want to see a good number of technical courses each semester because coming to Berkeley the academic workload here will be rigorous. And if you’re only taking one or two type of goals each semester that’s not necessarily going to show or reflect whether you will be able to succeed here or not.

LAURA: And that’s something that if you had to do that maybe you could address it in the additional information?

SHARON: Yeah if there were a few semesters where you did need to take fewer technical courses or fewer units overall that would be important to explain to us the need to do that. Like Joey said, when students come here they are expected to take a full time load and transfer students often need to take three to four technical courses each semester in order to graduate on time. So we want to make sure that they’re properly prepared to do so. And it’s hard to judge that if they’ve only done one or two technical courses each semester at community college.

LAURA: Now if a student applies to UC Berkeley and is accepted and applies for say Letters & Science or College of Chemistry and they want to transfer into the College of Engineering is that something that is an option for them?

SHARON: No, we do not accept transfer students from other colleges, from say College of Letters and Science. So the only way for a transfer student to get into the College of Engineering is to put the College of Engineering major on their UC application for UC Berkeley. They also cannot change majors within the College of Engineering. So it’s critical that transfer students choose their major wisely when they fill out the UC application for Berkeley, because it’s not possible to change majors within the College of Engineering. And it’s also not possible to change into the College of Engineering from another college if you are admitted to Berkeley as a transfer student.

LAURA: Is there any other question or any other aspect of the transfer admissions process that we’ve missed or you wanted to highlight again?

SHARON: Well, I just want to point out that in January transfer students will receive an email that will instruct them to update two different online forms that they need called supplemental forms. And one of them I think they call it the transfer admissions update and that actually updates your UC application for all UC’s you apply to. On that students will need to report their grades for fall and also their intended courses for spring or winter and spring if they’re on the quarter system. So that must be filled out and then the other part is specific to the engineering major to which they applied. And we call that the prerequisite form and that’s where students indicate how they have fulfilled each of those required courses for admission and those two pieces must be done by January 31st, otherwise the student in eligible for admission. So it’s really important when they fill out the application that they put an e-mail address that they’re going to be checking regularly and really critical that as soon as they get that e-mail they go in and put in those updates. Otherwise the application will not be read.

JOEY: You know my tip is that if you have any questions we have a transfer mission specific e-mail address that you can send questions to. It is esstransferadmissions@berkeley.edu. And you know questions will get answered if you send them there.

LAURA: Well thank you both so much for stopping by the day and talking about those I know our transfer students all our potential transfer students will really appreciate it.

SHARON: Thank you.

JOEY: You’re welcome.

LAURA: And we’ll talk to you again later. Thank you.

IMPORTANT LINKS

• Office of Undergraduate Admissions, UC Berkeley
• Admissions University of California
• Prospective Freshmen FAQs

LAURA VOGT: Hi my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the Communications and Events Manager for Engineering Student Services. Welcome to this week’s episode of The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. And this week I’m really excited to welcome Stephanie Eto and Henry Tsai from the UC Berkeley Undergraduate Admissions. And so today what we’re talking about isn’t necessarily going to be for our students that are here on campus but it’s going to be for our prospective students, the freshmen that want to apply to be a Berkeley Engineer. Stephanie, why don’t you tell us about yourself.

STEPHANIE ETO: Sure. Hi everyone. I’m excited to join you. My name is Stephanie Eto. I work in the office of Undergraduate Admissions here at UC Berkeley.

LAURA: And Henry?

HENRY TSAI: Hello everybody. I’m Henry Tsai and I’m an Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at UC Berkeley.

LAURA: So let’s start with one of the basics. When is the application due?

STEPHANIE: The application filing period is actually in the month of November. So you can file it now. But it is due 11:59 Pacific Time on November 30th.

LAURA: And does it do any good if you turned it in early compared to turning in and later?

HENRY: No, no it’s all the same. And there’s no preference for any time early or late.

LAURA: Once you turn in your admission, when dO the students know if they were accepted or not?

STEPHANIE: Sure, decisions for first years will typically go out at the end of March. We don’t have a solid date yet but sometime at the very end of March.

LAURA: And are there certain questions on the admissions application that are better to answer than others?

HENRY: For the personal insight questions I believe, those ones we do not have a preference at all on which one you choose so whichever one speaks to you that you feel like, “oh you know what I have a lot to say about that” That’s the one that you should write about. We would rather not see all the same questions being answered.

LAURA: So you actually like that people do different questions as they’re going through that Not every person chose the same one.

STEPHANIE AND HENRY: Yes, definitely yes.

STEPHANIE: We encourage students to pick the ones that really will tell us the most about themselves or what they most want to highlight about themselves.

LAURA: And is there any topic that has become too cliched or that you suggest people stay away from?

HENRY: No, I think that’s sort of a mental trap that you could get yourself into because at the end of the day this is your story, this is your narrative, this is your truth. So whatever that means, that’s what’s going to make you unique versus you thinking of a possible, “Oh everybody talks about that so then I shouldn’t,” then that kind of limits you in a way that is artificial. So I think just say what you want to say in the way that is truthful for you and authentic to you makes the best statement that responds to these questions.

LAURA: What additional information should students have ready or should they have researched before they start their application process?

STEPHANIE: Sure. So we actually share one application amongst the entire UC system and so UC Berkeley is a checkbox that you can check. But every U.S. campus is organized in a different way in terms of the colleges and the majors that are offered within that. And we also have different policies and procedures depending on what it is, where you want to apply, and what you want to study there. So it’s a good idea to study what the different policies and procedures are at every U.S. campus and also even within one U.S. campus the different policy procedures. For example, if you’re interested in the College of Engineering here at UC Berkeley versus being interested in the College of Letters and Science or any of the other colleges.

HENRY: I would just add also instead of maybe doing research, keeping something on hand, like the hours that you’ve done something, like the extracurricular activities. Just having that on hand so you can easily put that on paper or in the program or in the application versus you trying to guess how many hours did I do that one time.

LAURA: So when you’re applying for the university for UC Berkeley you can only apply for one specific program correct? You can’t apply for multiple programs?

STEPHANIE: Correct. We ask students to pick a college, maybe a major depending on what the college within UC Berkeley. And we also don’t offer anything called second choice sometimes it’s called alternate choice majors which some of the other UCs do. If you’re interested in UC Berkeley you do have to choose a college and and potentially a major.

LAURA: Is there any downfall to applying for multiple universities within the UC system?

HENRY: Not at all. So we hope that you applied to as many places as you would like and we hope that you get into as many places as you can. And then you have your choice.

STEPHANIE: We actually don’t know what other UCs you’ve applied to unless you state somewhere in your application explicitly which universities or which you’ve selected.

LAURA: Are there any letters or references that students need to have?

HENRY: Only if we request it from you then you have the opportunity to submit two. One from an academic person like a teacher, and then the other from someone who you know fairly well. So it’s only if we request it and it’s not required even if we request it from you. So if you can’t or don’t have time or you just don’t submit one if it is requested from you, it’s not a negative or a ding against your application. It’s just something that’s optional that could help your application.

STEPHANIE: And it’s something that we request after a student has submitted their application so it’s not something that at the time of application, they’re not going to have to have. it’s after they’ve submitted it we would reach out to the student to offer that option.

LAURA: And for engineering students, one of the questions that we often get in our front office is questions about the standardized tests and what they should take if there’s a better one that they should do, what subject tests really matter to have insight into that?

STEPHANIE: Sure. So within the standardized tests the UC system we do require the ACT with Writing or the S.A.T. reasoning with essay. So those optional writing portions are not optional for the UC system. We actually don’t have a preference between the two. So we encourage students to find which test works for them the best. We also don’t do something called super scoring which is taking if you take it multiple times take the highest scoring in each section and add them all together. We will take the highest score of any exam that a student has taken in one sitting, the overall score. And then in terms of SAT subject test we don’t require them for any applicant. If you have them they’re always going to be added value on your application. We don’t require them. For the college of engineering specifically, given the pool of students that we see we do strongly encourage students to submit two SAT subject tests. One in Math Level II and the other one in a lab science like biology, chemistry, or physics.

LAURA: So once a student applied, how likely is it that they’ll actually get accepted?

HENRY: Our overall admission rate is about 19 percent. So that’s as much as we can give really. Otherwise I think the break down, I mean that’s all available on the UCOP website, but off top of my head I can’t remember per college per major.

LAURA:  The College of Engineering is pretty difficult to get into.

HENRY: Yeah probably yes. So 10 percent.

STEPHANIE: And it depends, it depends on the applicant pool, it depends on how many applications we receive period.

LAURA: So it’s not necessarily the same year to year.

STEPHANIE: Right. Absolutely.

LAURA: So what do you think an engineering student needs to do to make their application the strongest for the College of Engineering?

HENRY: I would say we do kind of look a little bit more heavily or pay closer attention to the math and sciences. I mean that makes sense right. So again with the subjective exams if you’re able to take those. But also just you know, taking the highest level math and science courses that you have at your school would help. That can kind of show your affinity and you’re prepared to succeed here. Now we often get questions or you know students will say, “Well I don’t have calculus available in my school so does that mean I’m automatically out?” And that’s not the case, if it’s not available to you, it’s something that you can take. We’re not going to hold that against you. Hopefully you’re going to be able to do something about it. Study on your own or show some other affinity towards math and sciences. But it’s not an automatic. You know you’re out.

LAURA: Is there a way on the application that gives them a chance to say these courses weren’t available?

STEPHANIE: Sure. So it’s something that most schools will have is something called a school profile and we often have access to them. But if we don’t, it’s always a good idea for a student to include the information. Typically it will be a link an online link to the PDF of their school profile in the additional comments section. Students also can write in their own words the circumstances of what’s offered or what’s not offered, anything like schedule conflicts. So maybe two of the science courses were offered at the same time or some sort of contextual information that could help us to understand. But additional comments section, totally optional but available for students to explain and

LAURA: How important are the extracurricular activities?

HENRY: Definitely very important. We want to see students utilizing all sorts of opportunities available to them, not just academically. So the GPA and test scores will only show one side of a student. Really. So there are other aspects to students. Students are more than just a number. So that part is very important. I like to think of Berkeley as a small to medium-sized city, right, with those resources, so we want to know that students can utilize those resources outside of the classroom, outside of the library. And that’s the kind of student we would like to choose.

STEPHANIE: Some of the more intangible qualities that we tend to look for. You know we look for leadership skills, originality, creativity, that innovative spirit, sort of that collaborative learning, that teamwork aspect. We also like to see students who kind of are very passionate you know. Whether that’s a demonstrated interest in their major or they’re just passionate about something. And it is all about the resources that are available at UC Berkeley after you’re a student and we want to see students take advantage of that once they’re students here. So we look for what they have done up to now to see that that might give us a little bit of a clue.

HENRY: Also for engineering a lot of times we get students who ask, “Well then do I have to do robotics or programming or something?” And that’s not necessarily the case. If you do that’s great. But again the there are multiple facets of your personality and we hope that you can show that on the application. So anything that you are passionate about that you want to highlight, that you want to show is perfectly fine from artistic to writing to building to whatever. That’s all legitimate. And it’s showing your personality. That’s more important than necessarily checking off a box saying, “Ok, I can program. Ok, I can do science whatever.”

LAURA: So one more question. Is it possible once a student is here at UC Berkeley to switch majors say if they want to go from L&S into the College of Engineering? Is that something that they can do?

STEPHANIE: So switching. I think there’s a distinction also between switching majors and switching colleges. Switching majors is within one college. But we get this question a lot. “Can I come into UC Berkeley into a different college not engineering. And then once I’m there decide I do want to pursue engineering and switch colleges?” That’s something that we say you cannot do that that’s not possible to switch colleges. So if you are interested in pursuing engineering at UC Berkeley you do have to select College of Engineering at the time of application. You don’t necessarily have to select a major. The College of Engineering does offer an undeclared option but you do have to select at least the College of Engineering.

HENRY: I’d like to add to that if engineering isn’t something you’re just you know waking and sleeping all about engineering. Then there is a computer science major in the College of Letters and Science. So you could go that route. And that’s something that you can declare at the end of your sophomore year and you don’t have to, you know, be confined, I guess into a decision right away. So the computer science and the College of Letters and Science is a very viable option.

LAURA: So as students get ready to apply and they’re writing their essays, are we worried about the language that they’re using?

HENRY: Yes. You know something we see fairly common in engineering applicants is that students tend to feel that they have to teach us about engineering or teach us about the technical aspects of what they were doing what they were building the schematics and whatever and honestly we’re not engineers we wouldn’t know anything about that. We wouldn’t know how difficult that was or how easy that was. And so that is kind of a wasted effort I guess. It’s more about what did you learn. What did you gain from it? The leadership, the creativity, the problem solving. That kind of stuff versus you know, I have to use the source of engineering language in order to read your application. So that’s kind of where we see some pitfalls.

LAURA: Perfect. Is there anything else that you wanted to add or that we skipped over?

STEPHANIE: Sure. Something that we see a lot. We read a lot of personal insight questions and sometimes we’ll see many students do this where we don’t feel like they utilize that space to their most advantage or to the best to fully express themselves. You know we often see people who write about other people other than themselves. So we learn a lot about you know the applicant’s grandfather or the applicant’s mother but we don’t necessarily learn as much about the applicant. We also see you know the UC application and the personal insight questions are very different from other essays that you might be writing for other colleges and other college applications, namely the common application. So the essay and the personal insight questions are very different. You know, we’re not looking for a story or a narrative in terms of, you know, we don’t need the wind rustling the leaves outside. It’s really more about get straight to the point tell us about you. Treat them like an interview. If somebody sat across from you and asked you those personal insight questions to your face how would you answer them? And that’s how you should really approach writing the personal insight questions for our application.

HENRY: Yeah, a couple other things, like using quotes. A lot of times we get quotes from Gandhi, Martin Luther King, you know they’re all great people. Probably will be admitted to Berkeley but at the end of the day they’re not the ones applying. Right, you are. So we’re looking for your voice. We’re looking for your narrative. These people are are taking away our attention from you. And so we want you to use your words and kind of make sure our focus is always on you.

STEPHANIE: And I think especially with engineering applicants they’re so passionate about engineering and their projects, or their competitions, or whatever it is that they might be working on that they often use the space to tell us about that instead of telling us about themselves. So it is absolutely you know talk about your passions and talk about the things that you’ve been working on but also really make sure that it’s giving us insight into you and not just explaining about the competition or explaining about what you’ve built or the app that you designed. It’s really more about your personal insight.

LAURA: So your experience of building up.

STEPHANIE: Exactly.

HENRY: What did you learn? What went wrong? What did you fix? You know that kind of stuff. Like I did this, I fixed this. I ran into this. That kind of thing. And sometimes students also talk about some sort of social issue that they want to fix or whatever and they talk about that issue the whole time and it’s not a place for that really. We’re not here to fix issues. We’re here to hopefully, be able to admit you. So the idea is that it should be about you it should be as big and small as that. And that’s it not about some big social American worldwide, you know state wide issue, should be like maybe two sentences and the rest should all be about you.

LAURA: So it’s important to have their students voice.

STEPHANIE: Absolutely right.

LAURA: Well thank you both so much for coming today. I really appreciate your time.

STEPHANIE: Thank you very much for having us.

HENRY: Yeah thanks a lot.

LAURA: And I will talk to everyone later. Thank you.

This week’s podcast we have our two On-Site Coordinators, Tanisha Randhawa & Emmanuel Bonsu, telling us about their experiences as participants and why they think Berkeley Engineers should participate.

The LeaderShape Institute is open to any second, third or fourth-year undergraduate student who is either in the College of Engineering, chemical engineering major or an active member of an engineering student organization is welcome to apply by Wednesday, November 1. If you are interested in applying or need more information visit the webpage.

IMPORTANT LINKS

• More information available online
• Learn more about LeaderShape
• Ask Tanisha and Emmanuel questions via email

LAURA VOGT: Hi my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the Communications and Events Manager for Engineering Student Services.  This week we are talking about one of my favorite programs that Engineering Student Services offers students: The LeaderShape Institute.  Offered once a year in January it is a 6-day retreat. I’m excited to introduce our two On-Site coordinators for this year: Tanisha Randhawa and Emmanuel Bonsu. Tanisha why don’t you tell us about yourself.

TANISHA RANDHAWA: Cool. Hi everyone. It’s Tanisha. I’m a fourth year at mechanical engineering major here at Cal and I’m really passionate about solving the world’s water problems.

LAURA: Emmanuel, How about you.

EMMANUEL BONSU: Hello, my name is Emmanuel Bonsu and I am a fourth year mechanical engineering student. And I would say my vision is to create a world where technology advancement is very interesting and easy to solve.

LAURA: Can I have both of you give me a short overview of what it was like when you participated in leadership. Emmanuel let’s start with you.

EMMANUEL: LeaderShape was one of the few things that I really didn’t know when going in what it was going to be a whatsoever. I remember going through the orientation and the OSC (On-Site Coordinator) would tell us not to expect anything. And that’s why it turned out to be. I actually formed very good friends through LeaderShape. And I felt like I learned how to manage my leadership skills more better through the activities that went on. So I actually learned how to cooperate with other people to build a vision for myself.

LAURA: And Tanisha?

TANISHA: Overall, it was definitely a fun week. We did outdoor team building which ended in a massive dodgeball fight. Did personal leadership development activities and got to meet other Cal students who were really passionate about making a difference in the world. There’s a lot of time for bonding with your family cluster which is kind of like your family unit, as well as other students over meals, hikes, ping pong, foosball and even pool.

LAURA: And Tanisha, what did you like best about your experience?

TANISHA: My favorite part was for sure learning about the kind of leader I am and my strengths those were all the things I need to work on. No one is perfect and I really enjoy learning how to utilize everyone’s different styles and potential to achieve a common goal.

LAURA: And Emmanuel?

EMMANUEL: My favorite part was the friends that I made through that program because I didn’t have many engineering friends to take classes within the first place. And I feel like through that I learned many things about engineering students and what they do on campus. And that’s one that I really enjoy. Also, I learned to craft a better vision for myself because I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to use my engineering degree or my engineer experience I was getting at Cal for and I feel like LeaderShape did a good job by making me form that vision for myself.

LAURA: Oh that’s fantastic. And why do you think other students should participate?

EMMANUEL: One thing is it is really fun. If anything it was one of the funnest experiences but I feel most students around here are more about school work and doesn’t really get time to as for the leadership skills, which is one that I like LeaderShape does better. It takes you out of school. And for one thing it is in the woods, so it takes you out of school, helps you build leadership skills and that is one thing that is very integral to any engineering student. So I say people should do LeaderShape because you get to develop more soft skills that you wouldn’t get in classes.

LAURA: Fantastic. Tanisha, do you have anything you want to add to that?

TANISHA: Yeah, I would say, five kind of main reasons. One because it’s totally free. So why would you not take advantage of this awesome opportunity. I mean you’ve got lodging, transportation, food all provided for you’re basically taken care of for a whole week. The second one, is you got to meet a lot of new people and you come away with a lot of great bonds and friendships. You meet people who you wouldn’t typically meet in your classes because they’re outside of your major and even the College of Engineering sometimes. You also get to develop a lot of personal leadership skills. Like I said that’s one of my favorite parts to really understand your strengths and weaknesses and how you can improve upon yourself. And four, to develop your goals and vision. So my vision was really about changing the world and water. And you really get to know more about how you’re going to do this once you graduate and actually put a plan into action. And five, like Emmanuel said, you know have fun. This is a week that’s intense and you learn a lot. But at the same time you get so much opportunity to have fun. And I mean what other time does the College of Engineering pay for you to have this much fun for like a week. I think it’s a great opportunity.

LAURA: So you mention that the entire experience is paid for. What should students plan on bringing with them then?

TANISHA: I would say don’t bring work. Definitely leave your homework behind. It’s the last week of winter break. Please take the week to relax, enjoy. You know get refreshed for the new semester. Don’t bring your laptop. Bring your phone, you’re not going to have cell reception there but if you need it to feel comfortable go ahead and bring it along with you. And then of course bring some idea of a vision, you know some goal that you want to work on, You know after you graduate or while you’re here at Cal. In addition, bring an open mind, enthusiasm, it is going to be a great week. And the more enthusiasm and open mindedness you have about it the better experience you’re going to have. And of course we’ll go over this a little bit later. But logistically you know umbrella, some layers, shoes that you don’t mind getting dirty, all that good stuff.

LAURA: Anything you want to add Emmanuel?

EMMANUEL: I would touch on the open minded aspect of this thing. I feel most people tend to be vulnerable during these programs. And that’s where the like is an outlet for them. So definitely come with an open mind, where you are able to tolerate everyone’s ideas, without being judgmental. And that’s what I think most people should make sure they have the ability before coming to this program.

LAURA: Is there one memorable experience that stands out the most to you? Either one of you.

EMMANUEL: I remember it was the fourth day of the program and it was after a very long time. Long day. And I was also getting to the end of LeaderShape where people were tired and we had a dance off. So that was one of the very memorable moments I got to lead a dance off, it was really interesting. And that to me was at the time I only saw a lot of engineers having fun like that. That’s very memorable for me.

LAURA: Now that sounds like a really fun.

EMMANUEL: It was interesting.

TANISHA: That last night was also really memorable for me. Just like all these engineers coming together and following Just Dance on a screen and dancing together and I mean even though I like don’t dance and I think I’m pretty bad at it. I still participated because you’re with people who you’re comfortable with even though you just met them a few days ago and it’s a really great environment where you don’t have to feel embarrassed or judged ever. You can totally be yourself and be whoever you want to be, and I really enjoyed that.

LAURA: Was there anything else that you want students to know about LeaderShape?

TANISHA: I would say, you know, don’t be afraid to really get out there or do something that’s different. I mean even if leadership isn’t a thing for you right now, it’s definitely something that you can get into. I believe that everyone has leadership potential and has the potential to be a great leader. So definitely take advantage of this. Like I said you know you get to have fun sponsored by the College of Engineering.

EMMANUEL: I would say that students should take time to say hi to other people because that’s one of the few times you see many engineers localized in one place. So definitely take the time, say hi to someone you don’t know, that’s the way to make friends. It is beginning this semester. You don’t have any midterms, you don’t have any homework, that is the time to make friends.

LAURA: Our application for this year is due on November 1st, the day after Halloween. So hopefully lots of people turn in information. We’ve got information online on our Web site. It’s engineering.berkeley.edu/leadershape. And I would be really excited to have just all kinds of students apply. We take 60 students every year and it’s just a fantastic experience. Every time I’ve gone on and worked on it I’ve just had a blast. Thank you so much Tanisha and Emmanuel for coming. I really appreciate you taking the time and being here with us.

TANISHA: Of course. It was a pleasure.

EMMANUEL: Thank you.

LAURA: And if ever any students have more questions can we give them your contact information like maybe an e-mail address if they want to know more?

TANISHA: Yeah for sure.

EMMANUEL: Absolutely. I’ll be happy to answer any question that comes up.

LAURA: On our podcast site, welcomengineer.berkeley.edu, we’ll have links to Tanisha’s and Emmanuel’s email addresses, so that you can ask more questions if you’ve got more questions of them. They are both past participants and now this year they’re coming up as we never talk about it really what the onsite coordinator. They’re the ones that make the program run smoothly the entire six days. So we’re excited to have them there and to help us make the program go better. And thank you everyone for tuning in and we will talk to you again next week.

LAURA VOGT: Welcome to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m Laura Vogt, the communications and events manager for Engineering Student Services, and this week we’re really excited to have our director of programs for Engineering Student Services, Marvin Lopez. Marvin, why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background.

MARVIN LOPEZ: Good morning everyone. So my name is Marvin Lopez and I am director of student programs at engineering student services and I am delighted First of all to be part of the podcast and part of the not so secret guide and be able to share my story and a little bit about my background and what I’ve gone through to get here. So going back to my college days, I started in the corporate world, so I have an engineering background from UCLA, I’ve got a CSC background, the equivalent of our EECS degree here, and started as an engineer and as a programmer. Actually at one time some people laugh at some of the languages that I’ve used but I was a programmer at one time. But along the way I realized that I had a passion for discovering and developing talent and in particular university talent. I found this passion as I was managing different systems and recruiting for the different systems and different divisions. And so I got deeper and deeper into the recruiting world and further away from true technology world and so I migrated out of software development into management and ultimately into recruiting and at the same time diversity programs. I got involved in both internal diversity programs and in the companies or companies that have been in things like employee resource groups, diversity council, and external efforts, like sponsoring MESA and some of the programs that I now run here. So over the years I realized that I had this passion and went into the recruiting world and got very involved out on campus working closely with actually here at UC Berkeley/UCLA/San Jose State. And after a while of doing the corporate thing I realized that then I did a stint at a startup. I realized that you know I’ve kind of been there done that and this role opened up and people reach out to me that said, hey there’s something right up your alley you might be interested, threw my name in the hat, and here I am. So very excited because I never thought I would actually be on campus as much as I thought. It sounded interesting but I love it. I enjoyed it and it’s a great the greatest job I’ve ever had.

LAURA: Fantastic and we’re so glad that we have you here.  This week our theme is we’re talking about resilience so we actually have the momentum speaker series that we did last week. And we’re excited that we had five students come and present with us. And so we wanted to delve a little bit further into it and tell another experience of resilience that I think students can relate to and understand and I understand that you have one of those kind of stories.

MARVIN: So I have an interesting story and I think fundamentally, my story is one that is not linear, and I think the path to “Success” or the path to being happy in what you do is never necessarily linear. It can be. Some people do go to the linear path and that’s OK. But a lot of us and most of us don’t. And my path is one of those that is not very linear. Two there’s two key moments that stand out in my life that really speak to adversity that had me to deal with adversity. One is when the Dean of Student Affairs, sort of, I forget what it’s called at UCLA but the equivalent of the Dean of Student Affairs had me in his office and told me, Marvin tell me why we shouldn’t dismiss you. And I thought OK. It’s funny because you know 30 years later it’s stuck in my head. So clearly I could you know that takes me back immediately sitting there like a five year old in front of the Dean, having to explain why you shouldn’t dismiss me. So I you know I explain why and what had happened and what I would do forward and so forth, and you know he didn’t dismiss me and you know I finished my career and I’ll tell you more about that in a minute.

But the other is, so going forward, I guess 20 years from then, you know, I did graduate I went on to a professional career and my company or the company that I’d been with for 19 years where I thought I would retire after a while you think 19 years, you know another 19 I’m good to go, and same kind of thing my boss brought me in and said unfortunately Marvin, we have we decided to eliminate your job along with the whole team. You know so please notify your team first and then we’ll deal with your position.

So not only do I have to lay them off, but I had I had to get myself laid off as well. So you know two jolting completely different times and places but two very jolting events in my life. So thinking back to the two situations and what happened and actually when and how I dealt with it. I think that three things that I did that got me through that and and got me to this day, one is attribution. So one thing I didn’t do and I think that that’s critical when it when it comes to dealing with adversity is blaming anyone it doesn’t help any. Right. I didn’t blame anybody even myself because blaming and in and of itself doesn’t help you move forward. it’s an act that feels productive but isn’t. In the end it doesn’t get you anything, even if it’s yourself. And there were things that I did from my college days that, you know, perhaps I shouldn’t have done, bad decisions I made, social opportunities that I took to too much advantage of, shall we say that, in the end blaming didn’t help me and it didn’t help me go forward. And certainly the layoff, blaming the company, blaming my boss, blaming anybody, didn’t help me. You know the point was, where do I go from here. So I was glad that I had the wisdom. However I got that not to blame. And I think attribution was not going to help me any. The other thing I did is not look back and not look back in the sense of what you know what was different what happened. But in the sense of you know, should have, and could have. Right. To me those are the two of the most useless words in the English language, because they’re contractions but whatever. And that you know what I should have been could have done at that point.

It serves no purpose. Right. And I think usually they serve no purpose because it’s too late. And then the other thing I did is reach out, reach out to not only people and resources you know official resources, and and organizations, and programs, but people you know, the network, the proverbial network, that would you know, guide me support me, and in particular you know, open doors to other possibilities. To look at what things are not, how things work, how things could be, and ultimately hold me accountable. So you know, in the end you know, I had to take steps going forward, and tried reaching out to others. They held me accountable to the plan that I laid out whether it was to graduate and complete my degree, or find the next opportunity in the industry. And I think those three things helped me get through it, to this day.

LAURA: what you take with you when you go forward, how do you try to share this information with students.

MARVIN: You know I often see students that struggle… all adversity comes in many shapes right, many shapes many forms and also doesn’t just come once. That’s the other thing, it doesn’t just happen once. You’ve done it and you take a box and you’re done. It’s a process and a journey that you know. For many students for many of us it’s never done. Sometimes it is. sometimes it isn’t. And I notice that a lot of students you know that have faced adversity, for whatever reason, whether it’s systemic adversity, just from where they come from, the background, the resources, the advantages that they have or haven’t had, or adversity here in terms of the classes they take, their peers, the climate, they get caught up in this cycle of of of blaming of Who’s fault is it. And do I have the confidence to get through it. And so I think when I hear that, I let them know that I share my story that you know if I got through this, and they did that, and I know for a fact that these students are far smarter than I am, I know for a fact that I would never get into engineering today, that if I got through it, they can get through it. And it’s all about moving forward, they need to, you know, look within, not just within themselves, within their environment, within the programs. We have here, their peers, advisors, that there’s an entire family of support that they can reach out to to move forward, and overcome whatever it is that they have to face, because ultimately it’s, you know, it takes a village. It does take a village the proverbial village to raise a child. It does take a village to get through the challenges that we all face. And if they reach out and take advantage of the resources, they can get through it too. And so I share that story, you know, as much as I can with individuals. And I know that, you know, it’s had, you know, a resonance with a lot of students.

LAURA: One of the things that we talk about often is what resources do we have for the students to help them, so maybe not even that they have to deal with the resilience. Maybe we can get them (help) before they get to a point.

MARVIN: Exactly. And I think it is being prepared, and accept that they will face adversity, that their journey here, and most journeys here, are not linear. I think fortunately it happens on our campus and many campuses (especially) top schools. There’s a lot of bluffing, to some extent,, to students that want to portray their story in a very linear, you know, stepwise successful path that isn’t really true. You know we know for a fact that is not true very often. And so there’s a lot of bluffing with, you know, with each other that that fact isn’t there. I think to prepare them that they will face adversity and that perhaps their peers who think they have it all together, may not necessarily have it together. If they’re ready for that. I think that then we can preclude all of these issues. But you know sometimes you can’t avoid it. And so having the wherewithal to know where to reach out how to reach out and in particular the comfort level of reaching out is what will get them through the whatever challenges they may face.

LAURA: And one of the great places for our students to start with if they’re looking for information is to go to our website which is engineering.berkeley.edu/ess and you’ll find information there about programs that we have, the advisers. We’ve got Christine from the tang center that actually comes up here a couple of days a week. We have plenty of resources and we want to take advantage of them that’s why we have them.

MARVIN: And I think we want to remind them that the greatest resource they have is, besides themselves, ultimately is their peers. No one can get them through better than, through whatever they’re facing, than their peers, because more likely their peers are facing the same adversity, have faced the same adversity, or at least can relate the most to what they’re facing, and reaching out to their peers, and being honest and open and vulnerable is enormously powerful. You know, when when I faced my challenges in college and in the professional world it was my peers that got me through. So, you know, we had the same programs at UCLA that we have here now. In fact, I run similar programs to what they got me through school. But ultimately the people who got me through my peers, one of whom is works here on campus. And that’s what got me through is reaching out, and having the guidance, and listening to their guidance, and having them hold me accountable to whatever plan that I created to go forward. And on

the industry side, after my layoff, same thing, I’m reaching out to my friends in various organizations, or just friends in general, that had gone through similar situations, and can hold me accountable and support me. That’s what got me through. And I think without that I’d I just I literally would not be here today.

LAURA: So now as we get ready to wrap up, is there anything else that you wanted to add that you didn’t get a chance or any other final thoughts?

MARVIN: You know, the only thing I would say in terms of adversity, and being resilient is believe that that you can make it, you know confidence is the one thing that I see that falls apart. You know, that’s the first thing that goes when you face resilience, the belief that you belong in wherever is that you’re in. You know, that was my first thought when I got laid off that, oh my god after 19 years I guess I don’t belong here anymore. I guess they don’t want me anymore. I’m not good enough. And it’s not the case, that things happen completely outside the controls, and most of the time. Other times it is within your control. But ultimately if you’re confident and believe that you belong wherever it is that you belong that you want to be, you can make it happen. And it’s all about moving forward. You cannot look back. You can’t look down. You can only look up and forward. Reach out, connect, and you can do it. I did it, it worked out. And and I have no doubt that our students can do it as well.

LAURA: Well thank you so much for taking the time to come, and talk to us today and sharing your story and I know other people are going to appreciate it.

MARVIN: It’s my pleasure. That’s why I came here to, you know, to do what other people did for me many years ago ago. Thank you for the opportunity.

LAURA:  And thank you everyone for tuning in to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer.

Important Links

• Handshake
• Upcoming career fairs
• Career Center events & workshops

LAURA VOGT: Hi my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the communications and events manager for Engineering Student Services and this week on the (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer, we have Katie Crawford from the Career Center. Katie can you introduce yourself again since it’s been a few weeks since you’ve been with us.

KATIE CRAWFORD: Sure. It’s great to be back. I’m Katie Crawford. I am one of three engineering career counselors over in the Career Center and I’m our team lead. So I do all of our drop in hours over here in Engineering Student Services and I provide a majority of the career counseling services for our College of Engineering students.

LAURA: Now that we’ve gotten into the semester we’ve had some career fairs, I know you’ve had some resume workshops – What do we need to worry about now? Are there more career fairs that they need to do, are there more things that they have to worry about on their resumes?

KATIE: Yeah I’m so glad you asked. So one of our biggest career fairs of the year is coming up on October 11th which is our internship fair. So it’s one of two internship-specific fairs for students and much like many of our other fairs, this one has a large majority of companies that are looking for engineering and tech students. So that’s a great opportunity for students to look for internships. There are a couple companies that will be looking for full time entry level students as well. And we also have a number of programs coming up that are not necessarily career fairs but career connections events. So we have a career connections for students interested in data science, which is an opportunity for students to network with individuals – mostly alumni – who are working in that industry. We also have a couple more coming up that they may be interested in including finance. We have non-tech roles in tech and all of those can be found in Handshake in the events category.

LAURA: So going back to the internship fair is it different to prepare for an internship period then to prepare for one where you’re looking for a job, or what do you need to do to make sure that you’re going to present yourself in the best way?

KATIE: Good question. So much like the internship search process really does mirror the job search process, internship fairs mirror regular job fairs. So if you went to the Career Fair it’s going to be very very similar. So we suggest that all students look up the internship fair in Handshake if they haven’t already to see what companies are going to be there, and you can actually drill down into that list and see what those companies are recruiting for. So once you’ve done that you can do your research and really impress those companies by being able to talk about them and why you want to intern for them. So obviously students want to have copies of their resume, have their minute long elevator pitch or as I like to call it their one-minute TED talk ready for those employers, and just be ready to really show off their skills, their resume, and market themselves the exact same way that they would at a career fair.

LAURA: And for your career connections, is that the same thing where they should bring resumes to those?

KATIE: Good question. So they definitely can bring resumes. The way that these career connections events work is we have about 15 to 20 alumni who come in 6-8 p.m. it’s free for all networking. We set up cocktail tables and students are able to go from table to table and talk to alumni who are working in the positions that they may want to go into someday. So it’s not a recruiting event. So these aren’t necessarily individuals who are looking to hire. However, they are definitely people who have great connections and if they’re willing to take your resume, we definitely encourage students to bring it but not expect to give it out as if they would at a career fair. So it’s great for students who are just exploring careers. It’s also great for students who want to make connections in the industry that they’re going to be going into very soon.

LAURA: And is there a way for students to work on their resumes still.

KATIE: Yes absolutely. So we have a couple of different resources that are available for students if they’d like to work on a resume.Whether you’re a student who’s never created a resume and you’re working on your first one for the first time or you’re a senior and you just want to have yours polished and ready to go for your next recruiting event or interview, et cetera, et cetera. So first of all we have drop in hours at the Career Center between 12 and 4. Those are with our awesome peer advisors over at the Career Center on Bancroft. And those are great for resume critiques, cover letter critiques. Two of our peer advisors are actually College of Engineering students which is pretty cool. So they’re very well-versed in the engineering resume. They can also make 30 minute appointments in Handshake and that would be with me, Angie Lowe, or Santina Pitcher. We’re the engineering trio over in the Career Center. So those are the actual appointments. However those are not their only options. We also have a job search essentials series in which we help students build their toolkit, and one of those tools is obviously resumes and cover letters. So those are hour long workshops that we do at the Career Center, and we actually have one coming up on resumes and cover letters on October 9th. So note that that is two days before the internship fair. So that’s October 9th at 2:00 p.m. And that’s a great opportunity for students to learn a lot in one hour. And then we also have lots of resources online as well including resume samples.

LAURA: Fantastic. So are some of our students have done the career fair and might possibly be getting their job offers. What happens if you get more than one job offer, and how do you make the decision? What do you look at and what should you base it on?

KATIE: Yeah that’s a great question. So in the College of Engineering, every year, we have more and more students who are getting multiple offers. Obviously we have amazing programs. Employers know it and they’re fighting for our students. So if you find yourself in a position in which you have multiple offers on the table, first of all, good problem. Second of all, you definitely want to evaluate what is most important to you. So there are a lot of things that go into an offer. There’s a salary, there’s benefits, location, the actual work that you’ll be doing, how well you fit with the culture of the company, and for each student those things vary in priority. So it’s really important for each student to know what’s most important to you, and what do you need out of a job, and then really weigh them out pros and cons – and don’t be afraid to negotiate. So the great thing about having multiple offers is that you now have some pretty great terms for negotiation. And students shouldn’t be afraid to do that. Employers expect you to negotiate, so by negotiate, I mean salary, you can negotiate remote time, flex time, vacation time. You can actually negotiate start time as well, so that’s a whole other idea there, and you can also negotiate your decision time, so how long you have to make a decision if you are weighing out different options or even waiting for another company to get back to you. So there are lots of things to weigh. We work with students all the time if you want to come into the Career Center because you have some questions. We are more than happy to sit down with you in a 30 minute appointment that you can make in Handshake and really just talk it out with you, lay everything on the table, and help you see things from different angles and make the best decision. So we’re not ever encouraging students to think that there’s only one right decision. There’s a best decision for you, and we can help you sort of sort through that.

LAURA: We’ve had some problems that we’ve heard of people that have backed out of job offers once they’ve accepted it. What is the, I guess, the line of what we want people to do and it sounds terrible when you hear it, so I can’t imagine that it goes over very well either.

KATIE: Yes. So we have had issues in the past with companies who come back to us because we are the Career Center. We’re the face of the students who are job searching. So when we have issues that companies come to us. So when a student accepts a job offer and then comes back later and says, “Oh hey, by the way, I was actually still recruiting for other jobs and I took another position,” what that does is it really does damage your personal reputation. The recruiting world is a tight knit community, so there’s a good chance that when one recruiter finds out that you’ve reneged on a position, they’ll let everybody else know. So that’s kind kind of personal repercussions, but that’s not the only repercussions. Unfortunately we have companies who have had multiple students renege their offers and they’ve come back to us and told us that they’re really hesitant to keep recruiting at Berkeley because it’s reflecting on the entire student body. So we’ve had some pretty large companies who hire a lot of our students let us know that they’re really concerned about Berkeley students accepting offers but still recruiting. And what that does is it costs them thousands and thousands of dollars that they’ve spent recruiting you and you’ve taken away all that time to the point in which they’re probably not going to be able to replace you. So they can’t go back to the drawing board. They have other things that they have to take care of, so that’s a huge investment that they put in you. So overall it is an ethical issue and we really encourage students to take the time to evaluate an offer. And once you’ve taken it, pull back on all your other all the irons you have in the fire, all the other applications you have out there, and you know you can still respectfully keep in touch with other recruiters that you’ve been in contact with, other offers that you’ve gotten, but we absolutely, 100 percent, do not suggest students renege for multiple reasons both personal and for their fellow Berkeley peers.

LAURA: We had an interview earlier this summer with Professor Terry Johnson, and in it he said that he’s got students always coming to him worried that they’re making the right decision, worried about what the regret is going to be if they made the wrong choice. And he specifically said you can never make the wrong choice. It’s just a choice, and where does it do with it and where you decide to go after that, it’s never going to be the wrong thing.

KATIE: Right! So it’s interesting that you say that because it can feel like taking a job from an employer is a marriage. You’re not marrying that employer because marriage comes with the assumption of forever. We all know that in 2017 we’re not staying in jobs forever anymore and I say we because I’m a part of this generation as well, right? So your first offer that you take whether it’s an internship or a full time position is a stepping stone and you may stay there for 50 years, or you may stay there for two, but they’re all growth opportunities and there are very few bad choices, like you said. And it can feel like there’s a lot of pressure on you to make the perfect decision, but the thing is you’re going to grow and learn in any position that you take. So it’s about knowing what’s most important to you and making a very calculated decision and then sticking to it and really sticking to your values. Our students are really good people. And if you truly do value the ethics of a commitment then it’s important to do that in your job search as well.

LAURA: And is there anything else that you wanted to talk about today that we haven’t had a chance to go over?

KATIE: Yeah. One thing that I didn’t mention was on October 25th we have a Civil and Environmental Engineering career fair as well. So that is specific to our civil and environmental students which is exciting. And you can also check out the companies that are going to be there. You don’t necessarily have to be a CEE student in order to go to these companies. They’ll be everything from construction management to structural engineering and everything in between. So that’s a great opportunity as well. And other than that I become a broken record sometimes, but Handshake truly is students’ number one resource for finding out about all of the opportunities that are available through the Career Center. And again we exist solely to make sure that these students get to where they’re wanting to go. We want you to be successful. It’s our only job.

LAURA: And you have a newsletter that you send out as well – is that through Handshake or –

KATIE: Yes. So if students would like to sign up for Career Mail, which is a career specific curated newsletter that I send out each week to students, you can sign up through Handshake by going into your name on the upper right hand side of Handshake, drilling down into what’s called career interests, and then finding the list of career mails that you would like to receive so many of my engineering students will get business and engineering, because they a lot of our students are interested in both, right. So that’s an opportunity, and also Handshake has a brand new app. It’s specific to students. So they’ve had an app for a while, [but] this is a new app that they just released in August that’s specifically for students who are job searching. It’s a much more user friendly version of the app. So if they go in and download it just make sure you’re downloading Handshake for Job Searching. Actually just make sure you download the Handshake app in your app store that’s yellow. So the old one was blue, this one is yellow and that makes it so incredibly easy to apply for jobs on your mobile phone, on your tablet, and that’s something big that’s come out in the last couple months.

LAURA: Oh that’s great. We’ll make sure that we’ll try to put some links up on the welcomengineer.berkeley.edu website as well. Thank you so much for coming today.

KATIE: Yeah thank you for having me. And as always this podcast has been incredibly beneficial for our students and I can’t wait to be back.

LAURA: Thank you so much. And we will talk to everyone else next week.

Important Links

• Berkeley Study Abroad
• Study Abroad Programs for engineering majors

LAURA VOGT: Hi my name is Laura Vogt and I’m the Communications and Events Manager for Engineering Student Services. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer, and this week, we’re discussing a subject that I think is one of the most awesome parts of going to college and that’s study abroad. So joining me today is Kathy Barrett. She’s our ESS adviser. And you heard from her the last couple of weeks and we have someone new Louise Hon, she is a study abroad adviser. Louise would you like to tell us about it yourself.

LOUISE HON: Hi! Thank you so much for having me. My name is Louise Hon, and I am one of the study abroad advisors at the Berkeley Study Abroad Office. We’re located in Stephens Hall directly south of the campanile. And we are there to really support students who have any questions about the process for study abroad.

LAURA: Thank you and thank you both so much for stopping by today. And Louise, let’s start with a simple explanation of what is study abroad.

LOUISE: Yeah. So study abroad really is an opportunity for students to engage in academic activities while living in another country. So, for example, if students participate on an EAP program, or a summer abroad, or global internships they can get UC academic credit. And I want to say that, while we often times refer to it as study abroad, there are really other opportunities including academic internships, or research opportunities, that students can do. And I mentioned earlier that there are three main programs that we work with called UCEAP, the Berkeley summer abroad program, and the global internships. So I’m going to take a little bit of time just to talk about what those differences are. UCEAP is the University of California Education Abroad Program. It’s open to all registered UC students, regardless of the campus, and there are summer options, semester options, and year-long options available to students. And when students go abroad they’re usually taught by local faculty members there. We also have a set of programs called the Berkeley Summer Abroad Programs, and these are UC Berkeley faculty led programs. So these are courses that are taught by Berkeley faculty members in various places, and they teach a course usually for a six to eight week duration. And then lastly we have the global internships option, where students have a unique opportunity to gain work experience while abroad. They’re usually six to eight weeks long. And it’s really unique because students get the opportunity to have these work experiences where it’s based on what their interests are, and that internship program really places them based on those experiences, and what their backgrounds are along with what their interests are, and what the program can offer. So, of course there are places that might be better fit for engineering students, such as Toronto, Hong Kong, or Singapore, or even Thailand than some other places. But there are many different places that students can go to.

LAURA: Fantastic. I didn’t realize there was three separate aspects to studying abroad that you can do.

LOUISE: Yeah those are three main areas that most of our students participate in. But there are really additional programs that are also available that’s sort of smaller, and a little bit more nuanced, and beyond that there are also independent study abroad that students can do, too.

LAURA: And so why would the student considered studying abroad? What is the benefits of that?

LOUISE: I think this is a really hard question to answer in a succinct manner, just because the reasons and the benefits themselves can be so wide ranging and personal. Academically speaking, I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to study a subject that you’ve been studying but from a very different perspective altogether. So for example for a civil engineering student who’s been studying California, and the structures in California can be really interesting for them to compare another earthquake prone areas such as Mexico or Chile or Japan and New Zealand for example.

LOUISE: Study Abroad is also another opportunity to really focus on something that you may not be studying here and you have an interest in. So altogether those academic interests can be really satisfied during a study abroad program, but I think really the largest area of growth can be in the personal growth area. A study abroad can be uncomfortable, it can be challenging, but it’s a way for students to, kind of, know what your strengths are, and really overcome some of the obstacles that you have when you’re living in a very different context and environment. But, also, professionally you really get to meet people, and make connections with people that you may not meet on a day to day basis when you’re here in California, and I think, really, like in this context right now, I think it’s more important than ever to have that sort of study abroad experience.

LAURA: And so how does this pertain to our engineering students? I know you talked about for civil engineering, you can study in another space to see what they’re doing. Kathy, how does it work for engineering students? Like how would they even be able to work it into their schedules or their program plans.

KATHY BARRETT: Yeah I think for a lot of students their major usually has some sort of electives. So a lot of times, that’s a great place to when you go abroad. You can get some of those elective credits done, and technical electives, so they don’t necessarily have to be a specific course, but you need to be doing some upper division, mechanical engineering, technical electives. So that’s one way. Students go and, actually, get course to course equivalencies. So that’s another way they may go in, you know, I want to satisfy this course while I’m abroad. And engineering students can also decide. I’ve certainly had conversations with students who plan to save a lot of their humanities social science requirements and do something that’s very non engineering related, and they go and get humanities and social science satisfied. So that’s another option for students. And, of course, because we give students an extra semester when they go abroad we don’t count that as part of their eight semesters, or they’re four or five semesters, that they get as a transfer student 4 or 5, or freshmen eight semesters. It’s an extra semester. So even if they went and got nothing done, and they want to do something completely outside the realm and take language intensive program, that’s OK, too, because if they don’t make a lot of progress, they haven’t lost any of their time they get here at Cal. So there’s lots of ways they can use study abroad to both satisfy a requirement, and/or just learn something new. So yeah, it definitely can work.

LAURA: So when they’re going on this study abroad, is it just in the fall or spring semesters, or is it only for one semester? Is there a time limit to it?

LOUISE:

Yeah. So students can study abroad for the summer, which is the shortest length of program, and summer programs can be really as short as three weeks, or as long as almost eight or 10 weeks. And then students can also do semester length or year long options. So really when it comes to the length of the program, it’s really about, how does that program fit into your academic plan here, what are you hoping to accomplish and what does that program help to accomplish some of those goals and priorities

KATHY: For engineering students, when I talked about that semester, if you go on a semester long program than that when I think about getting an extra semester summer programs don’t get you extra time in that sense. And if a student chooses to go on a year long program we don’t give them a year extra time, we give them a semester extra time. So usually students who are I’ve had a few students go on year long programs, and they’re definitely in engineering programs getting some coursework done while they’re there. So it’s harder going for a year and you’re not really getting a lot of engineering coursework done, then that’s harder. But, if you do go either semester or year long program, you’re going to get an extra semester here at Cal.

LAURA: And so how long is the planning process when you decide that you want to study abroad? When should you start?

LOUISE: So that’s one of the things that, I think, most students are not aware of, is that study abroad does take careful and sort of a long term plan. Most of our applications are due anywhere from four to nine months prior to departure. So some of those deadlines can catch students by surprise. So what I would say is if this is something that you’re interested in, definitely start thinking about it. Definitely start talking to your major advisor or your college advisor, minor advisor, about how it fits into your academic plan. Especially, like Kathy was saying, if you want to use some of those courses for elective requirements for very major specific requirements, or even humanities, you want to have that discussion so that it folds in well with the rest of your academic plan.

LAURA: And what is available out there for students to figure out? What programs they would want to do, or is there people that they could talk to or what should they do to it?

LOUISE: Definitely. So we have advisors that are available to drop in basis that students can come and speak with at 160 Stephens hall, at the Berkeley study abroad office. But in addition to that, we have some great resources online, and so Berkeley Study Abroad just launched a new Website that we’re pretty excited about over the past summer. And there’s an explore option where students can choose: when to go abroad, (like) for the summer, (it’ll) give me a list of programs (for the summer), or if I want to go to this region, (it) lets me know where I can go. So those things can help students kind of narrow down their choices depending on the length of time that region or that type of program that they wanted to, as we talked about earlier, with UCEAP or summer broad or global internships. But really I think sometimes the hard part really is not deciding to go, but deciding where to go, and how long to go for it. In addition to the resources that are available online, and through our advising office, I really encourage students to talk to other students who have done the program, to understand the student’s’ reason of why are they going? What are some of the things that they felt that they got out of the program? What were some of those challenges? Because there are challenges when it comes to living in a different country. So really you’re talking to fellow students, whether or not they are student ambassadors who are volunteers from study abroad returnees, who come back and help us with our events, or our peer advisers, who are work-study students who work in our office. I think that aspect, that human to human aspect, is so important in helping other students to really decide what is a good option for them.

LAURA: And we have, in engineering specifically, for our engineering students, is Study Abroad for Engineers Night which is going to be on October 19th in Sibley auditorium, and you can find out more information about that in our newsletter, we put it on every Monday. Plus I will have information on our Webpage, engineering.berkeley.edu. And what I like about our study abroad for engineers is we bring in four or five engineers that have studied abroad, some of them have done it for varying lengths of time, they’ve gone in different semesters, they’ve gone to places all around the world, and can tell you what their experience was, and you even get a chance afterwards to talk to them one on one if you want to.

KATHY: The thing to remember, too, financially, for study abroad, your financial aid goes with you when you go to study abroad. So that’s really nice to know, that even though it sounds like an expensive proposition, in general, it’s not. You do have, I think, plane fare you have to cover. But I think there are some interesting scholarships, and that’s where the EAP advisors can really help you figure out how to manage a budget. And some places are less expensive to live than it is to live in the very expensive Bay Area. So you might go somewhere where it’s less expensive to live which is great. And so there are opportunities and I think you, also, even have financially counselors in your office sometimes doing advising.

LOUISE: We do! and that’s really one of the best resources that we can offer students is that there are two financial aid counselors dedicated to working with students who are thinking of studying abroad to really plan the finances aspect of it, because oftentimes it’s either that academics or the finance areas where students are really concerned about where that might be the hesitation of why they’re not thinking of studying abroad or why they’re not applying. But we have two financial aid counselors dedicated to working with students and they can sit down with you to plan. Once you choose a program, identify that program, they’ll look at your FAFSA, expected family contribution, they’ll look at the program budget, and they’ll sit down and do a worksheet, so that you know what your financial aid package will likely look like during the term that you go abroad. So I think that piece of it is so helpful for students to really understand what are the finances that are involved. And when we look at a student’s budget for the term for study abroad, it is all encompassing for all of the things that they need including the round trip airfare, including the local transportation costs, including housing, as well as tuition, and things like that. So when a student looks at a study abroad budget, it could be bigger because it isn’t encompassing all of these other aspects that you need for your program that you may not necessarily need when you are here on campus.

LAURA: And I know you have an event coming up that’s all about study abroad, right?

LOUISE: Yes. So next Friday on September 29th from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. We will be hosting our biggest event of the year. It is the Berkeley Study Abroad Fair, and what the fair is, is including our office as well as the system wide UCEAP office. There will be, either, close to sixty five different exhibitors, who will be coming in. These exhibitors can be either our partner universities from abroad or independent program providers who are there to speak with students about the different, not just study abroad opportunity, but also intern opportunities, research opportunities, work opportunities, that students can do, so with things like the JET program, which is the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, where students, after they graduate… a person can spend a year or more teaching in Japan. So those opportunities, very internationally related, living and working, and studying opportunities, are all represented during the fair.

LAURA: Fantastic. And is there anything else that we want to add today, to let our engineering students know about studying abroad.

KATHY: I would say come and talk to your advisor. And the study abroad office has put together a really nice sheet that lists the countries that offer specifically engineering programs, or global internships, or research opportunities that are affiliated with UCEAP or the Berkeley study abroad, specific programs, Berkeley programs. And I think for students, you know, they want to do something in engineering. It’s a really great sheet and I don’t know if we’ll be able to put it up on our website. Yeah, definitely, so students could really say, well, here’s all my options if I want to get something engineering specific done, they can really look at that sheet to help kind of focus their study, because there are lots of opportunities. But this kind of narrows it down. So I’ll start with my students, when I’m talking to them, kind of start there, if they specifically are looking for engineering opportunities, because I think it’s a really helpful place to start.

LAURA: Fantastic.

LOUISE: I think to add to that sometimes when students are looking at the list of 40 plus countries, one of the questions oftentimes come up is, do I have to do the foreign language in order to go abroad? And I would say, not necessarily, because almost every one of those 40 plus countries, we have an opportunity for a student to study in English in select areas, or they can study the language of that host country. So really there are a lot of options for students to choose from, so engineering of specific specific programs, for example, at Carlos Soto University in Madrid, we have more than 200 plus engineering courses offered in English. If students go there for a semester, and then there are, you know, we mentioned earlier, the internships opportunity. There’s a specific one in Thailand where students can do more of a chemical engineering or materials science type of internship. There was lab research programs that students can do in English so there’s really a lot. But to add to that, I always encourage students, if you do have a foreign language background or school, it’s really, either hone some of those skills, or take on that challenge of trying to get a class in that host country language because it adds to the depth of experience that students can have abroad.

LAURA: Next up in our podcast, we’re going to be discussing with a couple of our students who have gone out and done a study abroad (program). So I’m excited! We’ll also have the student perspective on all of this as well.

KATHY: That’s wonderful.

LAURA: So thank you both so much for coming today. I really appreciate your time.

Hi! And welcome back for the second half of our podcast this week about study abroad. And this afternoon, we’re excited because I’ve invited Joy Gu, one of our peer advisers, here who actually studied abroad. So Joy can you tell us a little bit about yourself.

JOY GU: Sure! Hi everyone. My name is Joy, and I’m a fourth year engineering student. I study engineering mathematics and statistics with a minor in EECS.

LAURA: And how did you decide to study abroad? Why was it something you wanted to do?

JOY: Well to start off with, I have an older sister, and she’s kind of my mentor. And, she actually studied abroad in England, and when I was younger I was like wow! Studying abroad in a different country sounds so amazing! And so when I was looking at colleges, I really wanted to find a college that had a strong study abroad program, because it was definitely something, when I was applying to colleges, that I wanted to do. And so I noticed that Berkeley had a really strong study abroad program in many different countries, so if I were to decide to go to England, or if I were to decide to another country, it definitely would have provided me the great opportunities that it has.

LAURA: When you were looking for a program to do study abroad, what were you looking for, and what did you want to get out of (the program)?

JOY: So I really wanted to kind of get out of my comfort space or comfort zone because at college you’re experiencing a lot of different things. But I feel like having the opportunity to go to a different country, and experiencing the culture of the different people, really getting to know other diverse perspectives, was really important to me to gain out of my college experience. And so I really wanted a study abroad program that could allow me to experience a different country for a while and also offer me unique classes that I wouldn’t be able to take here at Berkeley.

LAURA: How did you choose? Where did you end up going?

JOY: I decided to go to the Pembroke-Kings program in Cambridge, England, and it’s a summer program. It’s eight weeks long, and I had the opportunity to go, because I went to a study abroad fair, and kind of talk to the different study abroad advisors that were there, and they handed me this giant book of opportunities, and I knew that I wanted to prioritize England to study. So I was looking through the different programs, and that one stood out to me the most because of the unique courses that they had. I had the opportunity to take a Lego robotics class, and we were able to basically create a Lego robot project, and I had never seen any class like that at Berkeley, and I thought wow this is the one opportunity that I had to take a class like this. And, additionally, the class sizes were very small. Here, at Berkeley, sometimes your freshman and sophomore classes can be really huge, and it’s really nice to experience a different type of learning style where all of our classes really have less than 20 students, and it was a really good opportunity to get to know other professors, as well. So,  the student faculty ratio at the program was something that I was interested in, as well as the interesting classes that they had offered.

LAURA: Is there a reason why you chose to go in the summer rather than during fall or spring?

JOY: So, when I was originally planning on study abroad, I had kind of taken a look at my approximate four year plan on making sure that I would meet the degree requirements. I realized that a lot of my classes, especially in the mathematics department, are really hard to find equivalent classes. And when you’re taking them abroad in other universities, there’s a really long process to make sure that they are equivalent. And so, because the program that I went to was a UCEAP program, through the education abroad program, the classes were easy transferable, it was very simple to get them to count towards degree requirements. And, so, in order to not delay my graduation, I really wanted to do a summer program, because it allowed me to experience all my four years at Berkeley, but also have that unique study abroad experience in this honor.

LAURA: How long did it take you to prepare to do study abroad? And did you have to worry about like (getting) a passport or visa or anything along those lines?

JOY: Sure. So whenever you do study abroad, there are like application checklist points. So there’s a checklist for you applying, and then, once you are accepted into a program, that program usually will provide you a checklist of things that you need to complete before you depart. So, for example, they had deadlines on forms to submit, when to get a visa if you needed one. For me, since I did only study abroad for eight weeks, we didn’t have a requirement to submit a separate visa. You got that visa when you’re at the airport. So different programs will have different requirements, and they’re pretty good about giving the students the time and the information that they need in order to complete them on time.

LAURA: Your tip would be just to make sure you follow the due dates and stuff.

JOY: Yeah. I would recommend writing down all of the deadlines on your calendar.

I know I almost missed a deadline, because I didn’t write it down one time, and I had to like ship this paper overnight to make sure it arrived at the office on time. So I do recommend really grilling down those deadlines, because of slipping off on one day could mean not being able to go to that country.

LAURA: If someone was to ask you, how they should go about trying to choose a program, do you have any advice for what you were doing? JOY: Yeah. I would recommend really isolating the country and region first, because there are so many different study abroad programs. It can get a little overwhelming if you were to just look at the list of programs we offer. So I would narrow down what you value most, whether it’s like the culture, or if you want to experience a certain culture that maybe you haven’t experienced before. If you’ve taken a class like Spanish, and you want to go to Spain. So, really narrowing down your personal values, and what you’d like to gain out of that experience. So, for me I heard my sister tell all these stories about England, and I really wanted to experience that for myself, so I knew that England was a priority for me in looking at programs, but different people have, you know, all sorts of experiences, and why they want to stay right. So I would say narrow down the region in the country, and then start looking at the programs in that country, and determine whether those semester programs versus your long programs or even summer programs are better fit for your schedule.

LAURA: And what was the best part of your summer abroad?

JOY: I think the best part of my study abroad experience was really meeting other students. For me, the program that I went to was an international program, so the students there were from all over the country. There was definitely a lot of U.S. students, but there are also people from Hong Kong, and France, and Germany, and Vienna, and it was really amazing just to have all of us come together in these small classes, and really get to know each other. There were a lot of students who like formed different travel groups. So whether it’s a weekend trip to Scotland, or to Paris, or Italy, a lot of students were able to kind of connect together. And I think one of my regrets was not going to one of those giant trips with other people. I definitely wanted to gain the most out of England itself, so I did stay in the country, so I would recommend if you are going to a different country, really make the most of the opportunity, especially if it’s in Europe. All the countries are so close together, and you can really gain a lot out of that experience outside the classroom.

LAURA: Is there anything else you would want to add about studying abroad?

JOY: My best advice is to really push your boundaries. When I started off at college, I was, you know, a little bit more shy, and then going to the study abroad experience, forcing myself to make new friends, and really learn about other people in a different part of the world. It was a really really fascinating. And another one of my favorite parts of studying abroad was getting to be in a space where these real world issues are occurring. So when I did study abroad Brexit had just happened. And so my professors were really wanting to show the students like the different cultural perspective. I mean, we hear and read the news all the time, but actually being in a country when that happens is a really impactful experience for me.

LAURA: Thank you so much for coming, and sharing your experience with all of our students.

JOY: Thank you for having me Laura.

LAURA: And we’ll talk to everyone next week. Thank you.

Important Links

• Make an appointment with your ESS Adviser

LAURA VOGT: Welcome to the (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineering. I’m Laura Vogt, the communications and events manager for Engineering Student Services. And it’s the beginning of the fifth week of classes and we have two important deadlines this week. Both of them are going to be on Friday so I’ve invited Sharon Mueller and Kathy Barrett back to talk about the add/drop deadline and the technical grading option change. Sharon, before we start, why don’t you remind people who you are.

SHARON MUELLER: I’m Sharon Muller, the director of advising and policy for Engineering Student Services.

LAURA: And Kathy what about you.

KATHY BARRETT: I’m Kathy Barrett and I’m the associate director of advising in Engineering Student Services.

LAURA: So the first question on my mind is how should students decide if they should drop a course?

SHARON: So I would say of course first of all you have to remember that you need to maintain at least 12 units unless you’ve been approved for a reduced course load. So if you haven’t, everybody needs to maintain at least 12 units, and also you need to make sure that you’re maintaining at least two technical courses for your major for this semester as well. So let’s say you have that and let’s say, you have more than that, and so you’re trying to decide, well, should I get rid of that extra technical course and drop down to 12 units? And so what I would say to consider whether or not to do that at this point. I would say sort of think about what is your course load right now. How does it feel to you right now? Do you feel like you’re just sort of barely treading water? Do you feel like oh yeah I got tons of time on my hands. Or do you already feel a little squeezed? And I would say whatever you’re feeling now with your course load, I think you can pretty much guarantee that the minute the drop deadline passes you’re going to feel about 10 times more pressure and probably absolutely true around weeks 8 nine 10 when things are really heavy duty. You’ve got several projects due, many midterms, maybe a paper due. So courses haven’t quite ramped up yet to their full to the full level of energy that you’re going to need to actually do well in them. So I think that’s really important. You might be, you know, sort of treading water now but think about, OK, if my workload doubled at this point how is that going to feel. So it is a really hard time actually to make that decision. It’s you don’t quite know yet what are the full demands of this course. So be prepared to step that up and if you feel like I don’t know if I can step up anymore then I would say it might be a good idea to consider dropping something to make your course load more manageable drain weeks nine and 10.

KATHY: I think what people worry about too is they’re going to fall behind. And I think for a lot of students especially kids who came in with quite a bit of AP, they may already be in math 53 or 54 so they’re already sort of a year ahead in the math curriculum. So they they’re not behind. And also there is some recession whether it’s here or at a community college. There’s potential to catch up during the summer too even if it feels like they’re going to be behind. So I would say that’s another thing I think students worry about is they’re going to get behind if they drop something. But it really can be helpful if they are feeling overwhelmed at this point in the semester and they’ve taken on more technical courses than they can really handle right now. It’s OK to drop and we can sit and plan with them to schedule to figure out well how do we catch up if we feel behind. But I think if you end up with two technical courses for your major, You still should be in good shape. And for some students again they’re already ahead so they’re not going to fall behind.

SHARON: I was just going to say I think another thing to keep in mind is that if you’re, let’s say, you want to get an internship this summer, we are kind of ramping up into this season of recruitment for that, and a lot of that happens in the fall. And a lot of the career fairs happen in the fall. So if you want an internship in the summer just keep in mind that’s going to take some time to be interviewing to be meeting with people submitting resumes going to career fairs and also think about what are your commitments outside of school some of the student organizations I know students are pretty involved in those and have those ramped up yet too. So it’s also thinking about your course load but also what’s outside of your course load. And I would say that it is important to be really mindful of what is manageable for you. And if students are worried about falling behind or they’re just not sure what to drop I would certainly encourage students

to come in this week to meet with their advisor to make that decision.

KATHY: One thing I just wanted to follow up with Sharon mentioned that students could have permission for a reduced course load. So those are students who might work with the DSP program so they’ve been given permission to take a reduced course load. We also will work with students who are parents, or if you are a student and you have to take care of a parent, or if you have other family obligations or you have to work for financial reasons. We would definitely encourage students to come in and meet with their adviser talk about what their schedule looks like. Can they handle 12 units given their other outside obligations. We certainly do want to look at things that students have to do like care for young children or care for an elderly parent or students who have DSP accommodation. They need to get a letter from their DSP adviser letting us know that they have permission to take a reduced course load. And we do need them to follow the deadline and also have that to us by Friday. So those folks do want to be working on that and have that to us by Friday so they can get their schedule to work where they want it to be.

SHARON: And one other category would be students on the fall degree list if they don’t need 12 minutes of courses in order to graduate. And then they’ve decided maybe I just want to take what I need to graduate. That’s also possible. So they should also talk to their adviser about taking reduced course load for their final semester as long as they’re finishing up their degree requirements.

KATHY: And they’re absolved from the 12 units, and the two technicals, so graduating seniors can take advantage of taking just what they need to graduate.

LAURA: And if you’re having to decide between the courses that you’re currently enrolled and then which one to drop if you’re feeling like you’re overwhelmed. How do you make that decision or is there some. What’s the resource for them to make that decision.

SPEAKER: So I would say I mean one thing to be mindful of are prerequisites and course sequences. So let’s say for example if you’re currently in physics 7A and you’re also in math 1B well technically you can’t really drop math 1B because that is a prerequisite or co-requisite to stay in physics day. So you’d really be doing yourself a disservice by dropping the math course that provides the knowledge you need to be successful in 7A. So that’s something to be mindful of and then you know think about what do I plan to take next semester and am I taking courses now that are prerequisites for what I’m taking next semester. So to kind of think ahead and think about what am I taking that you know really doesn’t need to be taken this semester. And let’s say you know all of your courses are like that then maybe think about which one do I feel I’m struggling in the most at this point. Sometimes it might just be one course that you’re struggling in can but it can really pull down all your courses because you’re putting so much time and energy into that one course. And so just you know those are some things to think about. And if that’s all very confusing. We’re here to help students make that decision.

LAURA: So we definitely have the website to make the appointment with your advisor is engineering.berkeley.edu/ess-advising and all that. Also put a link up to it on our welcomengineer.berkeley.edu Website. And I think we kind of wanted to talk a little bit about if you’re waitlisted for a course. Is that something that you need to address right now with this drop deadline?

SHARON: Yes because it’s actually the deadline also. So this Friday the 22nd is also the add deadline. And I just want to remind students it’s really really important that you check your schedule on CalCentral just to make sure that you’re actually enrolled in the courses you’ve been attending and thinking you’re enrolled in, you might have been told, Oh sure, Yeah we’re going to take you off the waitlist we’re going to get you in the course. You want to make sure that actually happened. Sometimes it could be that you were told that but that information never actually got to the enrollment manager who needed to enroll you. So it is really important to make sure that you’re in the courses that you intend to take.

KATHY: And I would say the other thing to think about if you’re on a waitlist still and the time for the class the course that you’re waitlisted in has any conflicts with the classes that you’re currently enrolled in, you’ll never be able to get off that waitlist because we know that CalCentral won’t let you enroll in a time conflict. So even though you know, oh, well the class I’m enrolled in is webcast and I actually don’t have to be there Tuesday/Thursday at 9:30 so I can add it and this other 9:30 class I’m waitlisted for, they don’t know that and CalCentral so they’re never going to add you. The department schedule or the enrollment manager can override that so you can go talk to them go to the department office for the classroom waitlist. Then if you know that there’s space in the class and you’ve kind of been told, You should be added, you should go check in with them because there is a possibility they could then override that conflict. Of course you certainly don’t want to override conflict and I don’t know how comfortable they would be overriding a conflict when it’s two classes that you should be in both at the same time and you’re just choosing not to go to one. We wouldn’t recommend that. And also that could also present a final exam scheduling problem so not a guarantee that you’ll get it. But certainly we know, unless you go talk to the Enrollment Manager, time conflicts won’t be resolved by automatically so you do have to do something to take care of that.

LAURA: And then the second big important deadline that we have this week is the grade option change deadline which is changing from P/NP to (letter grade) or vice versa. So what do we need to know about that?

SHARON: Yeah. So it’s this Friday the 22nd is also the deadline to change your grading options for technical courses that don’t fulfill any requirements for your major. Of course, technical courses that fulfill requirements for your major have to be taken for a letter grade. So you don’t have a grading option deadline for those because you don’t have an option. So what we mean by grading option deadline is that if you’re taking a technical course for fun and it cannot fulfill any requirements for your major, It can’t fulfill technical electives or anything on your degree track. You do have the option you can take it pass no pass or letter grade. But this Friday the 22nd is your deadline to make that choice. OK. So that would be important. Think about if you’re taking a course for fun and you’re realizing that it’s even though it’s really fun for you and it’s taking a lot of time just consider, Well is it more important to me to get a good grade in that course or should I really focus on getting a good grade in my course for my major and then maybe I’ll just switch that one to pass and pass.

KATHY: And just to clarify too, it really has to be a course that we can’t use for anything. It can’t be one of the things we like, Oh I know, I’m just going to take something else later on. So I’m not going to use that one right now. As long as I can at this point, you know, your adviser could take that class and use it to satisfy his requirement. It’s not something you can do pass no pass, so even though you know in your mind it’s like oh I plan to do something else later don’t worry about it, it’s like we can’t let you drop it or change to P/NP. So it’s not a huge list of things sometimes and certainly for freshmen and sophomores probably less. There’s not a lot of courses that they probably are taking they can do that but if you have a question of course e-mail your adviser come in and make an appointment. We’re happy to let you know. Yes, that’s a course, it is an option for you to do P/NP, or no that’s not going to take that letter grade it or maybe it means, oh then that’s something I want to drop because I just was taking it for fun. Now I can’t change it to P/NP. I actually don’t want to keep it. So that is the time to kind of think about what you want to do with that class. Depending on what your options are.

LAURA: And we actually have a list on our Website of all of the academic deadlines that are coming up so if you go to engineering.berkeley.edu/ESS. On the left side is a list that we update every semester so it tells you when the fifth week deadline is. I think we’ve got a 10th week deadline for humanities and social science.

SHARON: Yes that’s a change creating option for humanities and social sciences.

KATHY: except for your reading and composition. But if you’re taking an American cultures course you can do P/NP, so anything else you’re doing besides the reading composition course you have that option and you have 10th week so you have a long time to decide about that. It’s just a technical one that’s coming up now.

LAURA: So is there anything else about these two upcoming deadlines that we’ve got this week that we haven’t gone over that we want to just reiterate one more time. It’s Friday at 11:59 p.m. on your CalCentral.

KATHY: And you need to be all done and out of CalCentral. You can’t be half way through. So don’t go on at 11:59 and start your process.

SHARON: I would say its a little risky to start probably any time after 11 just in case there is some kind of malfunction. So I would say you know preferably you’re not making that decision at 11:00 at night. Sometimes those decisions don’t end well.

So yeah I would just reiterate check your schedule and call Central make sure that you’re in the courses that you thought you were in and make sure that you’re mindful of these drop deadlines and the technical P/NP a letter grade deadline.

KATHY:

So yes that’s true. Everyone needs to be in 12 units unless you have permission otherwise and two technical for your major. So that’s the starting point for everyone. And then we can help you figure out you know nuances of your schedule after that if you need it. But that’s what everyone should be by the end of the fifth week.

LAURA: and ESS is a fantastic place for resources to come in and talk to advisors, peer advisor, you can make appointments online,

KATHY: drop in on Wednesday,

SHARON:in case the appointments fill up quickly since that is the drop deadline.

Wednesdays are always drop in so students can come on Wednesday.

LAURA: Fantastic Well thank you both so much for stopping by today and having the conversation with me and for making sure our students understand these two pretty important deadlines we’ve got.

Important Links

• Engineering Student Council
• Student Teams and Organizations
• Abigail Jacob, Engineering Student Council President

LAURA VOGT: Hello! And welcome to the (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineering. I’m Laura Vogt, the Communications and Events Manager for Engineering Student Services and this week we are talking with the Engineering Student Council president Abigail Jacob. Abbi please tell us about yourself.

ABIGAIL JACOB: Hi, my name is Abigail Jacob or as most people know me as Abbi. I’m, like Laura said, the current ESC president. ESC is the Engineering Student Council, it represents the engineering student body, support engineering societies in reaching their full potential; and promote a diverse community through successful collaboration between students, faculty, society, and the College of Engineering. We work very closely with the College of Engineering with events such as the New Student Orientation and also we work very closely with ESS and so that means I’ve known Laura for about two years. We work on events such as the Blue & Gold Dinner, where we have a conversation with our current student organization presidents with a very prominent faculty. A good example is last year we talked about collaboration, which we translated into the Engineer’s Week. I’m the current student outreach coordinator for science tech services which used to be called residential computing. So what I do, work with rebranding because most people from previous years know us as rescomp and now we’re transitioning to tech services. And I also coordinate professional development events with CITRIS and other organizations within the College of Engineering and the University as a whole.

LAURA: So you’re quite busy.

ABBI: Yeah, but I like doing it.

LAURA: Oh that’s good.

ABBI: When I entered Berkeley what got me through Berkeley other than the hard engineering classes, which is when the number of one priority is, is seeing how people use their education to kind of improve their surroundings. One of Berkeley’s main missions is service and the easiest way to do as a student is to put service into your community and my community happened to be at first the College of Engineering and that’s how I got involved in Engineering Student Council. And then I realized that I wanted to affect the community as in University of California. And I want to use my kind of interest in technology and moved on as a tech consultant in what used to be rescomp and they moved on as a supervisor and then I realized I could yes, be in a more technical role and be a lead supervisor or I could do what I wanted to do and that’s allow these technical resources that we offer our staff to the whole university. And that’s how we became not only a residential kind of resource with rescomp and now our position to a resource for the whole university: students, staff and faculty. I want to translate that kind of saved mission into ESC. I’ll be honest, yes, I started out as a I don’t know what I want to do in this organization but it seems like an organization that is very much involved in the College of Engineering. I started out as a corporate committee member where I just started contacting random industries hoping for money because more money allows us to support our organizations and if we can make them awesome then that’s a good representation of our organization, as well as, the College of Engineering. That is ESC’s main goal is to make sure that our student organizations reach their full potential. Like if your main kind of barrier is money, then fine don’t worry about the money. Worry about your building, worry about your planning, or about your outreach and will take care of that kind of thing. At least that is how I would like ESC to be.

LAURA: That makes sense. So your biggest concern me as the ESC president is to help make the student organizations and competition team successful.

ABBI: As well as outreach teams or outreach organizations. So my goal is to make sure that student organizations don’t have to worry about things that they don’t need to worry about. So if you’re a competition team that’s building a car, you don’t really need to worry about finding funding if you contact us. We’ll try to help make sure that you have the money to participate in those competitions. If you’re an outreach team and you need to get to like say San Diego and at this point, as students, who don’t have the money to pay for the gas or even the accommodations. My main goal is to make sure that we can find those resources for you. And if we ourselves can offer those resources to see if anybody on campus can offer those resources for you.

LAURA: How many of the student orders do you have that ESC works with right now?

ABBI: Currently we have about 76, which is what we’ve increased from 40 to 76. That’s quite fun. It’s got a big group and a very responsive group.

LAURA: Do you also do things outside of the Blue & Gold Dinner, I know you talked about that you do collaboration with them. What other type of things do you do to keep the clubs that are collaborating together?

ABBI: I make sure that every club and organization’s representative has my email. So if they do require one in one support, whether it be filling out the forms for the year, as well as just trying to…A good example is when Fem Tech was first starting out a couple of years ago. I had met with Andrea Lombard, who was the previous president and also founder of FEM Tech, to advise on how they should structure events. Plus she was graduating that time so I gave some input as well on making sure that their events are publicized so they can grow as an organization. I offer advising as well as feedback. But at the same time, when I offer advice and feedback, I make sure to ask feedback from those organizations, so I know we as ESC are kind of doing our best to accommodate for every organization. Another recent project I’m doing is with Dawn of College of Engineering with regards to the new M.E.T. program. They want to start their own board and student organization that will be later registered with us. So I’m advising on how to make their constitution, how should they structure their leadership, tailored to their kind of goals. So it’s kind of advising but it’s more to make sure that they are kind of setup for the school year.

LAURA: So you’ve been there for not just clubs that have been around for a while but the new startups to help get them off the ground.

ABBI: If there’s a student that comes up to me – and there are some will just come up to me and say – Hey, you’re Abbi and I’m like yes that’s me. And they say I’m thinking of starting a cosmetics club and I’m like OK cool. Just like we are a chemical engineers or we are mechanical engineers or whatever but they’re engineering students who have seen other organizations being registered and just getting the resources that they need and they would like to be part of that. So then it’s my job to make sure that their dream of a new organization comes true. It’s kind of like being the fairy godmother of organizations hopefully.

LAURA: Have you also worked with people who come up to you and say – I have this idea that I want to do something – If  you know that it is something that is already in place, then do you help get them to the people that are already doing it?

Abbi: Yes, a good example is in the previous ASUC, this is a non-engineering kind of person, said he knew of a couple organizations that wanted to do something similar to CalHacks. You kind of understand like well we can’t have both events. But what we can do is instead of having two conflicting events where they’re kind of competing against each other, how about we work together. Has a larger reach to other students because what at least from my experience is that every event that’s kind of labeled engineering has kind of the interpretation of – Oh this is only for engineering students. And if even if you’re interested in an event, you can’t attend because you’re not an engineering student. Which is something I’ve been trying to promote during my time as ESC, is that even though we’re an engineering student council most of our events are targeting the college as a whole.

LAURA: Do you have students that come that just know they want to get involved in something but they don’t know what would match them best to get involved with? Are you able to talk to them and say OK well these are clubs that you might be interested in or…

ABBI: Yes, actually this happens a lot. So our first event during the year is NSO [New Student Orientation] and usually they come up to me – Oh I remember seeing you at tabling, I’m so and so and in some major. During my high school period I participate in this, I want to continue that kind of trend. And then I will recommend them a series of clubs. But if you have a student who completely doesn’t know what they want to do, which who I was, I always invite them to be part of Engineering Student Council because when you’re part of Engineering Student Council you’re now exposed to the 76 groups that we are now supporting. And with then talking to them, you might find your next new club. A good example is, my previous committee member, Nick, found a mechanical engineering club, I believe it was ASME, through Engineering Student Council. And he loved it and you know he didn’t know he loved it. And so he kind of met up with their leaders and I’m like oh that’s something I want to be involved in. You know like you you don’t have to be a student that goes into college engineering. OK. I want to be the next new NASA’s engineer or I want to be the next new rocket engineer or I want to be the next best researcher in the world. You can come into the College of Engineering saying – I love engineering but at this point, I don’t know what specific projects I want to get into. And that’s the beauty of college, right. You explore what you want do. If you go into a biomedical organization. OK. This may not be for me and you have like the next four years to figure out what’s for you. A good example, I ended up doing an environmental policy rotation, which has nothing to do with my major but I love it. I love what they’re trying to do, they’re trying to help people out, which is what I love to do. So yeah.

LAURA: Well that makes sense, if you want to help people out, your involvement in something where you’re helping all these student organizations out. You are not just working with individuals but entire groups.

ABBI: It’s inspiring because when you see these student organizations I’ve seen student organizations who have stayed until 10 p.m. at night, if not later, just for one event. If you got to work with people that are dedicated to their craft, to the organization, to their cause and you get to work with them and not just one of them but all of them. I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat.

LAURA: Let’s talk a little bit about your E-Week [Engineer’s Week] that you mentioned. What is E-Week and when does it happen?

ABBI: Engineer’s Week is a week where we kind of celebrate the College of Engineering in our community. It usually happens during the spring semester, so this year’s E-Week and last year’s happened during February, Valentine’s Day! I’d like to think of it as first a corporate opportunity where we can gain funding for student organizations for next year. But it’s also kind of an opportunity for different majors within the College of Engineering, and even other people who are not in the College of Engineering, we try to make sure that’s very clear that you do not have to be part of the College of Engineering. Your friends can come. The reason why is I want everyone to have a good time and realize that engineering is not just difficult kind of academia but it’s also quite fun. There are a lot of applications to it. A good example. is when you have a Northrop Grumman representative playing with Legos next to you know 18 year old students and you realize that a lot of Engineers started out like us. If I can provide the opportunity for other students to realize that professionals start as students and if they see other students that have the same struggle or maybe have the same interests then I feel like E-Week has accomplished its goal. I think one of the most inspiring and successful events and the event that I really truly appreciate was made by one of our communications officer who is Annie Pan. She came to realize- Hey like a lot of engineers from Berkeley make startups and a lot of startups don’t get enough publication, recognition. She realized that if we want more money, let’s half the amount of money they need to be part of E-Week and promote these businesses. A lot of our students end up applying to those businesses and I talked to people, I followed up. One student said they loved it and they would have never thought of pursuing a startup because when you go in you want to get the biggest companies, to get the biggest paycheck. The student had a big appreciation of meeting a smaller kind of company and having more of a hands on experience with them. So if I can make that experience happen with E-Week then I would think that’s the best.

LAURA: You’ve been a success.

ABBI: Yeah we did a great job. But if I can change or just have any given experience to a student, if it’s just one student that’s enough for me, I’d like to be more students to have that experience.

LAURA: Just to kind of wrap up our conversation about ESC and the student orgs that you can get involved with –  what’s the best way for someone listening to the podcast right now that wants to explore student organizations – what should they do?

ABBI: Ask. Like if you have a classmate who’s in urbanization or if you if you were here somebody in the library. Don’t be rude but just go up to like – Hey I heard you talking about this organization. He told me more about it and people who want to tell you about the organization because if you’re interested in something that they’re involved in they will tell you everything. And if it’s something that you’re interested in ask them like hey I know you’re busy. Maybe it’s after recruitment. Say if you can check them out and then they’ll remember you. They’ll probably end up being leadership and recruiting you. There’s different recruitment processes for every club. But if it’s a recruitment kind of a club that is a long process for recruitment that’s the best way to do it.

LAURA: Let’s put your contact information for ESC and for you on welcomengineer.berkeley.edu.

ABBI: I’ll be more than happy to help. And so I mean that’s what I love to do that’s why I want to do that.

LAURA: Thank you so much for stopping by today. I really appreciate your time and everything that you do for ESC and what you do for student organizations on campus. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in and we’ll talk to you again next week.