ESS 513: Getting involved

Laura Vogt:
Hello, and welcome to The (not so) Secret Guide to being a Berkeley Engineer. My name is Laura Vogt. I’m the associate director for marketing communications for the College of Engineering and your host. This summer seemed to fly by as we’ve introduced you to resources and given you tips from your peers, as you prepare to be a Berkeley engineer. And this week, we’re doing both with Ben Heronimus and Hitesh Kamisetty from the Engineering Student Council. Ben, I’ve met you a couple of times, but this is your first time here on the podcast, so thank you for joining us. Why don’t you tell us about yourself and what your favorite part of being a Berkeley engineer is?

Ben Heronimus:
For sure. Thank you. Hi, I’m Ben. I’m super excited to be here. This is my first time, like you said. I am currently a senior majoring in engineering, physics, and astrophysics, and trying to minor in aerospace engineering, but we’ll see if I get it done. Yeah, that’s pretty much all about me. I’m also the president of the Engineering Student Council here at Berkeley.

Laura Vogt:
And what’s your favorite part of being a Berkeley engineer?

Ben Heronimus:
I would say my favorite part about being a Berkeley engineer, and I was just writing this for my speech to the freshmen, is actually just the fact that you can walk around on campus and see the Nobel laureate parking spots, or you’re walking around campus and you see someone and you’re like, “That’s literally the top of a field.” Or you’re talking to a professor and you’re like, “Wait, this is actually someone who is at an entirely other level than everyone else here in this subject.” And the fact that your opinion and your voice is still wanted and heard from all of these amazing people, that’s my favorite part, is just talking to these experts and still having your opinion and voice be valued.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. And Hitesh, your turn. Can you tell us about yourself, and what’s your favorite part of being a Berkeley engineer?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
Sure. So my name is Hitesh, and I’m currently a rising sophomore studying industrial engineering operations research here at Berkeley. Although I can’t relate to Ben just yet about how awesome it is to be on campus, hopefully I’ll get to have more of that soon. So far, to being a virtual student, my favorite part about Berkeley is simply the community that you can meet and the knowledge that you can learn. For example, coming from someone that studied almost exclusively about business, about economics in high school, I learned a lot more about electrical engineering, a lot more about computer science and so much more, not to mention the great people I’ve met. You also have the opportunity to interact and make change at Berkeley. For example, me being our current executive vice-president just in my sophomore year. Sorry, external vice-president just in her sophomore year. So I really think the awesome thing about being a Berkeley engineer is the amount of change you can do and the people you can meet.

Laura Vogt:
That’s awesome. I’m glad that you feel like you got to meet people and get involved, even though you were all virtual last year.

Hitesh Kamisetty:
Yep, It’s been a great time getting to know everyone, especially meeting the rest of the ESC. I think it was a really, really amazing community to learn more from and to contribute to.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much, and it’s nice to meet you today and thank you so much for joining us. As part of Golden Bear Orientation today, the podcast is airing on Monday the 23rd, we’re having a student organization fair so that students can learn more about the different orgs and get involved outside of the classroom. I want to learn more about the importance of student organizations and how they serve students. I know they take a lot of time and where students can actually get more information about how to join. So let’s start off with an organization that the two of you are representing for us today, which is the Engineering Student Council. It really comes across to me as a service organization because you provide so many resources to the student orgs and to individual students. So can you tell me more about ESC and its goals?

Ben Heronimus:
Yeah, for sure. I always love to talk about ESC. So I started in ESC my freshman year. I was on FiCom. I was like, “All right, this seems pretty cool. We’ll just talk to a couple of clubs about funding.” You’re inside the finance committee. So that’s who gives out funding to our amazing student organizations and keeps them well funded. So I started out there and I was like, “Okay, this seems like a good thing just for the resume, I guess.” And then as I continued throughout that first semester, and then into my first year, and then carrying on all the way to this year, I really saw it, how big of an impact ESC has. We have projects ranging from the Free Menstrual Product Initiative, all the way to Blue and Gold, which we’ll probably talk about a little bit later, all geared towards ensuring that our students and our student organizations can succeed and feel safe, really, in the Berkeley environment.

Laura Vogt:
Excellent. You mentioned that you were working on the Blue and Gold Certification. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? So, what were you seeing, and the folks that were involved in ESC, seeing that made you… Excuse me. What were you and the peers in the ESC seeing that made you want to add the certification and require it or ask people to be part of it, and what are you hoping it’s going to do?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
So just to give a bit more background about why we have Blue and Gold. Ever since… Even me being from Georgia, I’ve heard about Berkeley’s competitive and cutthroat club culture. We really wanted to change that, especially for students who haven’t maybe had the prior exposure, or students who haven’t had the resources to have had this prior exposure to these clubs, almost demand. We want to make our clubs more inclusive and more equitable. In order to do that, we wanted to have some kind of program that would reward clubs that do so as well as give students more opportunities. And that’s where Blue and Gold is kind of born from. And this has been about a three-year process right now to getting to the stage where we’re about to launch for our first year, kind of figuring out what clubs need, what students need and everything in between.

Hitesh Kamisetty:
And we’re really hoping that this will allow students to be more invested in any particular field. Also, have them interested in learning more about other fields. For example, let’s say you’re studying electrical engineering and you want to know more about what a MechE club does, right? So we want to provide you an opportunity to explore what a different club does as well as get involved in the community and learn more. Whereas previously, if you didn’t have that experience, it was much more difficult to break into that club, even at the collegiate level. Generally, this is a time to explore, this a time to learn more stuff, and we wanted to really have the opportunity to open up to students here at Berkeley.

Laura Vogt:
Is there a place for students to learn about organizations that are sponsored by ESE or that have gone through the Blue and Gold Certification?

Ben Heronimus:
Yeah, so we’re actually right now working on Blue and Gold Certification and certifying clubs. And then at the end of this process, which will be done, hopefully, in the next two weeks, we’ll be putting a list on both the COE website and the Engineering Student Council websites with a list of all clubs that are Blue and Gold certified. So all of the clubs that are being equitable and inclusive in their recruitment practices, all the clubs that have the stamp of approval, so to say, from ESC and the College of Engineering.

Laura Vogt:
And when you have that list, it will link out to the club website so people can easily find out more about them?

Ben Heronimus:
Exactly.

Laura Vogt:
What are the other ways that students can learn about events that any of the organizations have? Is there a central clearing house location for any of those kinds of things?

Ben Heronimus:
Yep. So we are currently working on, in fact I believe it’s with you, the universal Google calendar, which is going to take all of the random places where departments and the college and ESC and student organizations put events and unify them into one great big calendar that you can just go to look at and say, “All right, today, these events are happening on campus in the College of Engineering, virtually.”

Laura Vogt:
I like that idea that you’ve got. It Won’t just be student orgs. It’s going to be the departments, and the college overall, and everything that’s very engineering centric.

Ben Heronimus:
Exactly. Yep.

Laura Vogt:
And how can students learn more about ESC and actually get involved in it? Because you had talked about, Ben, that you started off with FiCom. What way the students are… I don’t know what I’m trying to say here. How do students do that?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
I think the best way to learn more about ESC and what we do is to go to our website, esc.berkeley.edu. Here you can read more about who we are, what we stand for and what we’re trying to do. In particular, you can also get all the committees and our officers who lead them. If you want, you can of course reach out and you can find more information about in our team and our committees. So you can read more about what projects we’re working on, who we are as leaders, and what change we hope to bring. If you feel interested or if you want to know more, feel free to contact us and we’d love to help you learn more.

Laura Vogt:
So for ESC, if you’re just starting out, how much of a time commitment is it to be on one of your committees?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
I would personally say it does vary by committee. Only, it does ramp out, it does change throughout different times in the year. For example, let’s say we’re about to launch Blue and Gold just like we’re about to do at this point. So there might be a bit more time commitment right now, maybe about 10 to 15 hours a week. Whereas generally, we don’t want our members to expect more than five hours a week. But, if you feel more responsibility, you can talk to your committee leader and I’m pretty sure they can give you more assignments to work on, or less. We really do want to be flexible and allow more students to be involved in ESC, so it’s very much dependent on how much you want to take on and what committee you want to be part of.

Laura Vogt:
Excellent. And so what are the benefits of joining a student organization or competition team?

Ben Heronimus:
I would say, I would think it’s a pretty long list, but I’ll try to keep it down just for the sake of the podcast. Number one, of course, what everyone’s going to say is, “Hey, it’ll boost your resume” but I don’t even think I would put that number one. My favorite part is just… As I came from Colorado I knew maybe three people coming here and knowing them was a very hesitant term for me. I met them once at an event in Colorado. I was so worried that I wouldn’t know anyone on campus. I wouldn’t be able to create that community to make me feel comfortable being here. I ended up joining a couple of clubs, a couple of student organizations, and truly I found a bunch of friends, a group of people who support me and can help me achieve my best, my best self. So that’s been my favorite part, but of course if you want those resume boosts that’s good for it too.

Laura Vogt:
And what is the process of applying to be on either an ESC committee or to join another organization? Is it every one significantly different or is there a basic idea of what people do?

Ben Heronimus:
Through Blue and Gold, we’re trying to unify it a little bit, or I guess a lot bit, to make sure that our student organizations, and student organizations associated with the college, are following somewhat of a uniform plan. So that means taking out GPA minimums and ensuring that we’re being inclusive in all of our practices. So the main way to join any of these student organizations is to, one, come to the event that’s on Monday, today. We’re going to have a huge recruitment. What’s it called?

Laura Vogt:
Student org fair.

Ben Heronimus:
Yes, student org fair. You can come meet all of us and see our, at least the top has of our shining faces. I’m sure everyone there would love to talk to you about their student organizations. Other than that CalLink, which is put on by the lead center of the greater college, is a great place to go looking for student organizations. Or just look on Facebook, a lot of clubs recruit through there, will throw off recruitment posts on Facebook. So yeah, those are the main areas.

Laura Vogt:
So once you get yourself involved in these student organizations, do you have a suggestion of maybe how many orgs to join so that you can get some kind of time management idea of what you’re doing?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
To be honest, I honestly do believe it depends on what kind of clubs you’re trying to join. For example, ESC might not be as much of a time commitment if you’re just a member, whereas some other clubs, for example if you’re trying to be on a competition team in a CalSol, that may require a lot more hours that you have to dedicate in order to make sure that you’re successful. So it really depends on how many clubs you try and join. Also, how many units you’re trying to take or what your course load is like. I think it really takes some time to be able to figure out how much you can manage. I would always advise to start a bit lower because you can always add more, but it’s much harder to take stuff away, especially if you’re breaking commitments that you’re making. So I definitely advise to take a bit lighter and then you can add on more if you feel so inclined.

Laura Vogt:
And did you have anything for time management when you were actually having to do scheduling or anything like that, that you learned that you could share?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
I would personally say Google calendar is your friend. So I know people that… I mean, I should take advantage of more-so in my second semester. However, I know some of my friends who’ve been doing it since the beginning and they block out pretty much every part of their time. For example, when they plan to eat, what time they’re going to classes, when they plan to study for each class, homework, so on and so forth. Of course, you don’t have to go all the way down to that level of detail, but I would recommend kind of blocking out when you have classes, when you plan to work, when your free time is, just so you can get a better understanding yourself about how much more time you have to take on other commitments, how much time you have to dedicate to schoolwork, so on and so forth. So I’d say Google calendar is your friend. If not, you can also have a pocket calendar or anything else so you can make sure you know what is coming up.

Laura Vogt:
Can I have each of you share an experience with a student organization that has had a positive impact on you?

Ben Heronimus:
I could go first. I kind of have two, so I’ll make them quick. One of them is more fun and I really enjoyed it, and it’s the thing I use to talk to all incoming students, all students here, and the other is a little more formal. The first one is my favorite thing to do in the engineering student council, arguably. Don’t tell the rest of the engineering student council this, is to give out cotton candy at all of our events. So at CalDay, at the student organization fair, at all of the events, I pull out the cotton candy machine. And just to see the smile on college kids’ faces when they’re like, “Wait, that’s for me, not just for the kids? Wow. Cotton candy. Yay.” That’s so much joy for me right there.

Ben Heronimus:
Then, I guess more of a technical part of it. I am part of the STAR team, which is Space Technologies and Rocketry. And I kind of self-taught, and through the leadership of the club, learned how to work through simulations, which is like simulating designs in… You, CAD them and then you simulate the design in the software and it tells you the forces that will be applied to it, yada, yada, yada, a lot of technical speak. Just through that club interaction, I was able to gain research through Lawrence Berkeley National lab. I’m now working on nanotechnology, and it was just really great to see that progression of just joining a club randomly because I like rockets and then transferring all the way to doing research and working with a professor.

Laura Vogt:
Both of those sound great. I like the fun one too, with the cotton candy. I always like seeing you guys out there with that. Hitesh, do you have a experience you want to share?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
I think my experiences, just because of my first year I didn’t end up doing that many clubs, but I would say my best experience has been with ESC, I guess in a less formal note. We have something called game nights that we have about once a week where we just mess around. It was really fun getting to know all the officers on a more-so informal basis, just talking about what happened in our week, anything interesting that we had, so on and so forth. So it was really fun getting to know someone where we’re not just working on stuff, but just messing around de-stressing kind of stuff.

Hitesh Kamisetty:
Then I guess on a more formal note in ESC, it’s what we’re kind of here for today, talking about the Blue and Gold. I really found this to be very impactful, particularly finding that a lot of my friends, a lot of my peers, are having a really hard time. You would enter into these various student organizations that are really interested in, simply because they didn’t have the opportunity to be able to learn these content and practice these skills back in high school where they weren’t really expected to do so. I find it really important that I’m making a difference in future students’ lives, and current students, that they can actually take part and learn more about the field that they’re interested in.

Laura Vogt:
That’s great. I’m glad That you’re getting something so important out of it.

Hitesh Kamisetty:
It’s been real fun and really interesting to be able to know all the intricacies of the way that Berkeley works, essentially, and how we can make that change [inaudible 00:17:02] better.

Laura Vogt:
That’s awesome. Is there anything else that I missed or that we want to add for the conversation today about ESC and getting involved in student orgs?

Ben Heronimus:
I would say I just want to hammer home a point that Hitesh made earlier and that’s take your first semester, take your first couple of semesters to really find what works for you. You don’t have to stress. I know you’re going to, but don’t stress so much about what has to be done and what’s perfect. Figure out what’s perfect for you because honestly that’ll make a world of difference in the next couple of years. Just make sure it’s good for you and that it’s a good fit for you. Don’t overwork yourself. Exactly.

Laura Vogt:
Hitesh, did you have anything you wanted to add?

Hitesh Kamisetty:
No. I just think the theme of what we talked about today, I think Ben really said it best. Welcome to Berkeley, have fun, get to know people, join clubs that you find interesting, and we look forward to seeing you on campus.

Laura Vogt:
Thank you both so much for joining us today. I really enjoyed listening to your experiences and how things have affected you, and just how you’re getting involved. I’m just excited that Berkeley has these opportunities and that you’re making those opportunities even better. So thank you both.

Ben Heronimus:
Thank you.

Laura Vogt:
And thank you to everyone for tuning in to The (not so) Secret Guide to being a Berkeley Engineer. I look forward to podcasting with you next week.