ESS 506: First-year experience, transfer

Laura Vogt:
Hi, my name is Laura Vogt, and I’m the associate director for marketing and communications in the college of engineering and your host for The Not So Secret Guide to Being A Berkeley Engineer. This week, we are continuing our exploration of the first year experience with three transfer students, Paulo Borrero, Leena Elzeiny and Jon Watkins. I taped them at different times, but I combined their co-interviews into one podcast. And we begin with introductions starting with Paulo.

Paulo Borrero:
Yeah. Sure thing. So, I’m a second year transfer student. I went to one of our college in Southern California. Berkeley was one of the schools I applied to. I chose Berkeley because when I first got in, I remember I got reached out to them almost immediately. I had past alumni, seniors now, that have reached out to me and just congratulated me. Along with that, there’s also a ton of resources available and I knew how well [inaudible 00:00:56].

Leena Elzeiny:
Yes. I am Leena Elzeiny. I’m a third year. Well, I just finished my third year at UC Berkeley and I’m heading into my fourth year. I’m actually a transfer student. So I’m heading into my fourth year without any experience of being on campus. And my passion lies in electrical engineering, computer science. But, I shifted more towards the EE side of that combination. So, I’m really interested in computer architecture at the current moment.

Jon Watkins:
Hi. So, my name is Jon Watkins. I am a senior. I’m going into my fifth year. I’ll be graduating in the fall. My major is bioengineering. I am a student veteran. So, my experience might be a little bit different. But, I am also a transfer student. I came from Diablo Valley College in the Bay Area. And, my goals after college have actually changed since coming to Berkeley. I intend to go into healthcare and come a nurse practitioner, go to grad school for that. So, my time at Berkeley showed me a lot and taught me a lot. And, I learned a lot about what I wanted to do afterwards.

Laura Vogt:
What you find was the hardest aspect of transitioning from community college to Berkeley?

Leena Elzeiny:
I will say, I definitely prepared myself for the worst. I had heard whispers about how Berkeley’s so cutthroat and all of these things. I will say, as now a year into it, it’s not. It’s very wholesome community. But, having heard that and having prepared myself for it, I will say that I feel like my first semester, I almost overcompensated. I heard that [CS-70 00:02:56] is one of the most difficult classes inside of the CS program at Berkeley, which is one of the hardest programs at Berkeley. So, in this class I was spending maybe 15 to 20 hours every week focused on it and I look back and I really think it was unnecessary. And so, I didn’t need to put in the amount of effort that I did into that class as it was nearly 50% of all the hours I was working on homework period.

Leena Elzeiny:
I will say though that I became more cognizant of that the next semester. So, I made it a point to make Fridays from 12:00 to 3:00, time for me to just get outside. And it was really important to me that I set that time aside because at Berkeley you have access to so many opportunities and if you can think of something, then you can do it.

Paulo Borrero:
Well, definitely I’d never lived on my own. So, just kind of knowing how I would be by myself, I was very lucky that while I was living there, I already knew. So, transitioning into that was fairly easy, but definitely being a new area, living in Atlanta, it’s been tough and it just took some time to get used to, and just get comfortable with myself and my new surroundings.

Jon Watkins:
Definitely, the fact that, at community college, we’re most often used to, at least I was kind of being the top dog on campus or being a 4.0 student, maybe not even opting to study very hard for exams or homework and getting to UC Berkeley where you’re then surrounded by all the other top dogs on other campuses, transferring from other community colleges. And so, because of that and because of the competitive curve that’s in classes, it’s not just like a point-based system where an A is up for grabs for everybody. They really try to determine not if you understand the material, but who’s best at understanding the material. So, it’s quite competitive in that sense. And that was a big challenge for me. That was a huge change.

Laura Vogt:
And was the time management different? How did you find a balance between your classes and your work and having a social life?

Paulo Borrero:
Yeah, definitely. That’s [inaudible 00:05:31] accustomed to just because I didn’t really know what work week course or so it’s going to be like compared to what it was at my community college. At my community college, I was able to have a hard time, 20 hours, 28-hour a week job as well as taking full classes. So, I definitely was not able to do that ever. That’s for sure. I really just took the time to really figure out what I needed for myself, especially with it all being on zoom and everyone living at the same house and having multiple people. I never really felt like I could have my own alone time. So, really, what helped me a lot was figuring out some time where I could just use for myself and just be lost in my own thoughts, listen to music, workout.

Paulo Borrero:
So, I’m a big morning person. I’d wake up before the rest of my house. And I just relax, take a breakfast, and just kind of disconnect, especially with everyone. Being at home a lot of time, like I said, hopefully with every person this fall will be a lot easier to shut outside to the cafe or anything like that. But I definitely still think I was still, wake up early and have that time for myself.

Paulo Borrero:
Yeah. Definitely, that’s [inaudible 00:06:42] accustomed to just, cause I didn’t really know what the work week course or so it’s going to be like compared to what it was at my community college. At my community college, I was able to have a part-time, 20 hours, 28-hour a week job as well as taking full classes. So, I definitely was not able to do that ever again. That’s for sure. I really just took the time to really figure out what I needed for myself, especially with it all being on zoom and everyone living at the same house and having multiple people. I never really felt like I could have my own alone time. So, really, what helped me a lot was figuring out some time where I could just use for myself and just be lost in my own thoughts, listen to music, workout.

Paulo Borrero:
So, I’m a big morning person. I’d wake up before the rest of my house. And I just relax, take a breakfast, and just kind of disconnect, especially with everyone. Being at home a lot of time, like I said, hopefully with every person this fall will be a lot easier to shut outside to the cafe or anything like that. But I definitely still think I was still, wake up early and have that time for myself.

Jon Watkins:
Yeah. I think, actually more so than my freshmen counterparts, because as a transfer student, I was commuting. I was living on my own, very much outside of campus housing. I was feeding myself, paying bills, having to take care of other responsibilities involving … They range from things like making sure your car insurance is up-to-date, and your car registration is good, and your parking permit is satisfied, too, kind of satisfying, making sure your finances are all good and whatnot because nobody else was really like looking after those things for me. It certainly was more of a balancing act than I saw among some of my freshmen friends and sophomore friends who had transferred, who would come in as freshmen.

Jon Watkins:
But, let’s see. I think that the thing that helped me the most was kind of my willingness to ask questions of both faculty and previous transfer students. And my engagement with them through pretty much any sort of medium, whether it be prep or T-Prep or whether it was a club that I joined actually called Stack, [inaudible 00:09:18] or just … And it’s funny. Some of the most valuable information that I gained that helped me balance things and figure things out and become more efficient with my time. They were conversations that may not have even been had in the most formal circumstances. If I met a transfer student at a some sort of formal venue like T-Prep, but then we’d become friends and then we go out for food or drinks, the conversation continues. And so, that was really important for me to foster those relationships with previous transfer students. And I feel like I could ask them anything I wanted.

Leena Elzeiny:
Having that kind of access to opportunities is amazing. The only issue is that I want to do everything. And so, setting those boundaries for myself became really important to me second semester and rolling back and being like, “Wait, I can’t just do everything.” I need to prioritize what I think are the coolest things and also allocate time for myself so that I’m not scheduling anything from this 12:00 to 3:00 period. And I just get to soak in the sun just a little bit because California weather is beautiful.

Laura Vogt:
I like that you figured out what you wanted to change from your first semester, your second semester. And then you can build on that for the rest of your time here as well.

Leena Elzeiny:
Yes, definitely. I make it a point to try to think of what I can do best, better for incoming semesters because it’s all a learning process. I anticipate that to be the case also for this new in-person semester. It’s going to be more than I need to figure out and I’m not going to do perfectly, but I definitely want to be aware of the changes that I want to make so that every semester it could just be the best that I can make it.

Laura Vogt:
Were you able to create study groups in your classes and how did you start meeting people and making those connections in the classes?

Paulo Borrero:
So, first I was able to actually make connections through T-Prep, transfer engineering summer program that Berkeley offers, which is great. That was extremely helpful. Maybe it’s very beneficial, socially-wise, as well as professional development-wise. So, I was able to already know people in most of my courses. The ones that I didn’t know, people were on it on the whole Discord, Facebook, Slack. And they were pretty active on it too. So, being able to reach out on that and ask for help was really easily, as well as people would just hop in on calls and just do homework. So, if you had free time, just hop in a call and then someone else would be on there, probably. And then, as well as I know of the ESS has a tutoring center, that was also beautiful.

Laura Vogt:
And how did you go about making study groups? I know it’s probably a little bit harder in the pandemic, but creating study groups, and networking, and creating new friendships.

Leena Elzeiny:
Yes. So, there were multiple ways that I was able to create study groups. The first was through organizations that I was in. So I’m in association of women in engineering, in EECS. And there, it was really easy to just pop onto Slack and say, “Hey, anybody taking this class? Do you want to be my project partner?” And, it’s awesome to just be able to call and specifically women in that way and then get a lot of responses. So, I got eight or nine people being like, “Hey, I also want to partner.” And then they partnered up as well. And it was amazing. And then, another way that I was able to do it was through office hours. It’s really amazing what office hours can do for you. Because in specifically EECS, you tend to have two separate office hours, one with the professor, and then one that is by the other core staff who can answer homework questions.

Leena Elzeiny:
But the one for the professor is more specifically for lecture questions and sometimes those are very empty. So, what I decided to do for both semesters is I chose one class that I would go to every office hours for. And there would be days where it was just me and one other person talking to this professor. And in that way, I was able to find people that are very like-minded. And also when office hours hadn’t, let’s just say 20 people, which is not that surprising because it’s like a 200 person, no more. It’s like an 800 person class, but it only had 20 people in office hours max. You’re able to drop a link in chat and just be like, “Hey, I think we communicated really well. Can we form a study group together?” And in that way, you’re able to feel [inaudible 00:14:52] out. You also know that it’s somebody’s hardest class that they’re taking, if they’re dedicating that time to it.

Leena Elzeiny:
And you want to find somebody who wants to dedicate an equal number of hours when you’re trying to find a study group. In, specifically EECS, the lower division courses will have something called a homework party. And they’re amazing. It’s basically different classes. We’ll do it in different ways, but they separate, they allocate a certain amount of time for you to do homework where there is TAs there to help you immediately on call and then they separate it based on question. And so, you can join a group of people who are all struggling with question number six, let’s just say, and you get to talk it out and really hear other people’s opinions and then possibly form a study group afterwards. And as you’re hearing people out, there’s a point where you reach a consensus that you’re all confused and that’s when you call a TA over.

Leena Elzeiny:
And, I’ve met some really cool people through those means. I just got to say, well, everybody at Berkeley blows me away, but specifically communities of people that are in office hours that are in homework parties or inside of random Discord groups and are active, are just phenomenal people.

Laura Vogt:
Can you tell me a little bit more about how you chose the student groups that you’re a part of? Or, how did you research them or find out about them?

Leena Elzeiny:
Well, when I came into Berkeley, I went through all of the engineering related clubs and wrote down the ones that I was particularly interested in, but I actually ever never ended up following up on nearly any of them. I think, it all happened in a much more natural way where it was. So, for the organizations that focus specifically on women, that was something that I was looking for. I would say, join at least one organization that has to do with you or your identity or your values, because in a way, those are people that have a shared experience and you’d be surprised on how valuable that is. And so, whether it’s about race or ethnicity, or if it’s alignment through your religion and values, or if it’s having to do with gender, I think, it’s really important that you join at least one of those organizations.

Leena Elzeiny:
It’s difficult because I’ve heard statistics where there’s over 800 clubs at Berkeley. And the ones that you hear about are only the surface. All of the ones that you hear about are ones that are to be honest, overcrowded, and sometimes hyped up a little bit too much. But then there are others that you can find right below the surface where it’s like, “Oh, I’m interested in doing computer science and social justice.” And you can find a club for that. In that club, we’ll have projects that they’re working on that align those two, or you’re interested in law and computer science. Sorry. I’m interested in computer science. So the ones I know are all going to have that in it.

Jon Watkins:
I felt like because I was close with my transfer cohort through T-Prep and through the … Yes, that’s actually. I think that the tutoring center at ESC-

Laura Vogt:
Oh, yeah. The center for access to engineering excellence.

Jon Watkins:
Yeah. Oh my God. That’s an excellent place. I know of a lot of transfers that would like meet there, study, hangout, and talk. And so, there were people that I met there who didn’t attend T-Prep, but who I would eventually be friend. And then, that was awesome. So, that was a really good location. But for me, it was kind of just all word of mouth. Through my cohort of transfer students, we are friends. We’d all talk about what clubs are you interested in? What are you going to do? And so, I think I heard about Stack through them and did digging online also within the first couple of weeks of school. I’m pretty sure there’s Calapalooza. And then there’s a bunch of tabling event. And, had I not heard about Stack and realize that was the one I wanted to be a part of and I definitely would have attended those and gone and just kind of tested the waters and would’ve seen what was available to me through that.

Paulo Borrero:
I joined [inaudible 00:20:03] team, and then I also joined the American society of civil engineers. And I have [inaudible 00:20:09] on the side. Construction has always been what I always wanted to get into. So, I know during T-Prep, Julie, our head department send out emails about certain competition teams for our department. And I never really thought about going into competition too. I didn’t really know what I thought, but it just said top construction. I was like, “Oh, construction. That’s what I want to do.” So then, I joined the construction team and I already had an internship for that related to heavy civil. So, they just kind of put me on their heavy civil team. And that was it. I had a team and it was a lot of fun. It was great amount of time. I also met people through there that were also just highly motivated and loved construction as much as I do. So it was just a great little thing that we had going on between.

Paulo Borrero:
Construction has always been what I always wanted to get into. So, I know during T-Prep, Julie, our head department send out emails about certain competition teams for our department. And I never really thought about going into competition too. I didn’t really know what I thought, but it just said top construction. I was like, “Oh, construction. That’s what I want to do.” So then, I joined the construction team and I already had an internship for that related to heavy civil. So, they just kind of put me on their heavy civil team. And that was it. I had a team and it was a lot of fun. It was great amount of time. I also met people through there that were also just highly motivated and loved construction as much as I do. So it was just a great little thing that we had going on between.

Laura Vogt:
If you could do one thing differently about your first semester at Berkeley, what would it be?

Jon Watkins:
Actually, yeah. You know what, it really came out during COVID, but I kind of suffered from some mental health issues, I think in my fourth semester, my third semester on campus, actually probably while I transferred. But, I had only taken care of it in my third semester. Maybe just due to reluctance or whatever nervous about it. But I think, had I gone back to that first semester when I was transferring and there’s a lot of stress and anxiety and things were changing. Taking advantage of reaching out to the Tang Center and the CAPS, they have behavioral psychologists that are available to students and are able to help with any sort of depression or anxiety or things that everybody goes through. I think, that would have really helped me stay grounded in that first semester. And then that would’ve just carried on throughout. Yeah. I think that was a big one.

Jon Watkins:
One of my fate, one of the things I’m proud of is that I maintain the physical fitness routine, which I think was really important to it. It helped me stay kind of calm and helped me feel really, I don’t know, cool, like a Berkeley student. I don’t know. That was at the RSF. But anyways, take advantage of the Tang Center and mental health services.

Paulo Borrero:
I definitely think I would have reached out more to alumni, coffee, chats through the clubs and organizations. You get a network of past people who are part of the clubs. So those were always a great resource. I just never took the time to do them as much as I wanted to. But definitely I think, I would have joined more as much as academic clubs are important, I definitely think I would have tried to look at more social clubs, which I won’t be looking at for the fall. I’ve heard those are a lot of fun just to have eight people out of your major or a little engineering, anything, all it.

Laura Vogt:
For your network?

Paulo Borrero:
Yeah, exactly. And just experience new things.

Laura Vogt:
Is there anything that you want to add or reiterate?

Leena Elzeiny:
There’s a lot of opportunities at Berkeley. And, if you … I do want to hype this up because it’s amazing. It’s something that I’ve never had access to in the same way. And even at other universities, it’s not this in any way, shape or form. Berkeley is extremely unique in that if you want to go into specifically social justice and computer science, you totally can. And there are going to be clubs for that, and there’s going to be internships. Or, if you want to work on the side at a startup, there’s also those, as well. And so, being open to those kinds of opportunities, and you’re going to get those kinds of opportunities through emails, specifically, and through organizations. So, reading them, seeking out and saying yes, applying that program at Google that I did at the end of April and applied to, I really didn’t think I was going to get in.

Leena Elzeiny:
I didn’t think it was marketed towards me and also, it was during a chaotic time because it’s right at the end of the semester. And we’re just, I’m trying to wrap up a ton of things. And so, it was the last thing on my mind, but I become an officer at society of women engineers because I said yes, and just decided to, I don’t know, throw in my application, see what happens, same thing with Google and same with so many other things that I can think of. And it’s just crazy to me to think that those are just one email away from your fingertips.

Paulo Borrero:
What you get out of your Berkeley experience is, it all depends on what you put it. And that’s a lot for everything that you do. I’ve tried to put as much as I can. And I definitely think I’ve done as much as I can, especially with everything being online. I never fell at one point. I was just a transfer student. I think, Berkeley, [inaudible 00:26:46] department, I guess makes you feel very welcomed as a student. I feel like I’m a Berkeley student. I don’t feel like I’m a transfer student. I don’t get looked different because I’m a transfer student and [inaudible 00:26:58] was super welcoming and is super nice. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and just meet as many people as you can. And just enjoy the time while you’re there. I’m already sad [inaudible 00:27:11] your left.

Jon Watkins:
Good luck. Put your resume forward. Enjoy the food around campus. Get outside. Go hike the fire trails. Take it slow. Enjoy it. Go bears.

Laura Vogt:
Thank you so much to Paulo, Leena and Jon for their insights on transferring to Berkeley engineering. Next week’s podcast is a collection of advice from all of our student guests about registration. And, thank you everyone for tuning in and listening to the Nazi secret guide to being a Berkeley engineer. I look forward to talking with you again next week.