ESS 704: First-year Experience

Laura Vogt:
Hello, thank you for joining me this week on our podcast, The Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m your host, Laura Vogt, the associate director of marketing and communications in the College of Engineering. And this week, we’re talking with two students, Andrew and Christopher. Both started at Berkeley Engineering as frosh, and I interviewed each student at separate times, and we’re starting today’s podcast with Christopher Zavala.

Hi, Christopher. Thank you for being a guest on our podcast. Can you please introduce yourself?

Christopher Zavala:
Hi. Yeah. I’m Christopher Zavala. Next year, I’ll be a sophomore studying in bioengineering here at Berkeley. I’m originally from Bakersfield, California where I attended Liberty High School. And I guess two organizations that I’d like to mention my involvement in is first, the Bioengineering Scholars Program, and then I also play oboe for the University Wind Ensemble.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much for being here today. I’m from Fresno, so I actually know Bakersfield quite well.

Christopher Zavala:
Awesome.

Laura Vogt:
So, setting your schedule at Berkeley is going to be a pretty different experience than what students had to do in high school. Can you tell me what you found to be the most useful resource when you were planning your first semester?

Christopher Zavala:
Oh, yeah. It was definitely a more independent process, but I think the two biggest resources I stepped out to ask help from was the ESS advisor and the ESS peer advisors.

First off, they both know the classes really well, and if you plan something and you miss that there’s a prerequisite here or there’s another class that’s recommended to take before it here, they really point you that you should probably take that class, and they usually fill in the bubbles you can usually miss. So, that’s really helpful for planning my schedule.

And also, especially the peer advisors, they’ll be honest with you because they’re your fellow students. You start looking to those advisors. They’re really helpful. They’ll tell you if, “Okay, maybe this course load’s a bit too heavy for this semester,” or, “Maybe there’s an instructor you’d prefer better if you’re interested in this or that.”

Laura Vogt:
And so right now, all the students are going through Golden Bear Advising. Do you remember doing Golden Bear Advising last year?

Christopher Zavala:
Yeah, I think I remember it being on B courses. I don’t really remember. There’s a lot of it. There’s modules on different things. Some of them was on Berkeley’s history. And there’s one module on I think enrollment, which I remember. I don’t think it took more than an hour to do, but it was pretty straightforward and it really showed you the basics of how to use Cal Central and how to enroll in your classes and plan your schedule out.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, good. And did you ever have to refer back to it throughout the summer? Was it a good resource in and of itself to refer back to?

Christopher Zavala:
I think it was a good resource just to see everything flat out in one spot. And then, a lot of things you’ll remember from it. There’s certain functions on the Cal Central scheduling planning website and sometimes you want to refer back to the information. And I didn’t usually go back to the enrollment B course GBA module. I really just looked up onto the ESS website. They usually had the same exact information. You could usually find it a bit faster if you really want to find a specific detail.

Laura Vogt:
Excellent. And what helped you choose which course or which instructor that you enrolled with?

Christopher Zavala:
I think the best resource I used was Berkeleytime. It’s this website that lets you see different courses and see who teaches the class. And sometimes you can see the breakdowns of those class grades by the instructor and which semesters they were taught. It’s a really good resource if you want to see, maybe you want to take a professor with this class, certain professor and see what semester they offer it in. It was really helpful. And this is a little less official I want to say, but if you want to use the Berkeley Reddit, there’s usually a lot of posts about people’s sharing their experience in certain classes or with certain professors. I think it would be a pretty useful resource if you’re a Reddit user.

Laura Vogt:
So once you did your initial registration, how many times did you feel like you had to go back and update your schedule?

Christopher Zavala:
So for my first semester, I had to make a pretty big change. I started off enrolled in Math 53, which is multivariable calculus. So I came into my freshman year with AP credit for Calc BC, which covers Math 1A and Math 1B here at Berkeley. But after enrolling in Math 53, I quickly realized that the pace in the standard of Berkeley math classes is a bit faster than I was used to. So about two weeks into the semester, I was kind of scared to do this, but I actually had to drop out of 53 and then re-enroll into Calc two, which is Math 1B here. And it was a bit scary to be honest, but your ESS advisor, they’re really helpful. My advisor really helped me get through every step of the process, made sure I got into Math 1B, and then it helped me prepare better for 53 and 54 the next semester.

Laura Vogt:
I’m really in awe that you knew yourself well enough that once you were in the class you were like, I need to take a step back. Let’s refresh what I did before.

Christopher Zavala:
Yeah, it was really scary because it was, again, it was like two weeks until the semester started. It’s not like beforehand where you have still have time to adjust. So it’s kind of good to know now that you can even be a little bit into the semester starting and you still have enough, enough freedom, not freedom, but more like enough wiggle room if you have to, to really analyze the situation and then make a choice for your schedule that is really beneficial.

Laura Vogt:
And you think that was the best thing that you could have done for yourself then?

Christopher Zavala:
Yeah, for sure.

Laura Vogt:
That’s so cool. I’m so glad that you were able to have that opportunity and get more of what you needed out of your schedule. So did you use the swap or wait list functions at all?

Christopher Zavala:
Not for that semester. I was luckily able, there was open seats in Math 1B, so I was able to just get into the class really easily. But I actually had to use the wait list for, both the wait list and the swap functions both for this upcoming semester and my last semester. The wait list. It’s kind of scary to be honest because you’re really kind of uncertain if you’ll get into your class or not. And I know I had to be on the wait list for my chemistry lab, and those lab classes, they fill up pretty fast and you usually end up on the wait list. But luckily I was able to get into that class. So it was nice. It’s really easy to set up a wait list class on Cal Central.

Laura Vogt:
And how did you find using the swap function?

Christopher Zavala:
Oh, so the swap was more of an interesting story. So yeah, this past semester there was pretty much a big change in enrollment in CS classes. And so I had planned my schedule to take a class called CS70 here at Berkeley, but they ran out of open seats in that class. So I instead decided to enroll in a different class: A stats class. But I learned about the swap function, which lets you, well, I guess it’s main purpose is to directly swap between two classes if there’s open seats in one class. So you enroll into that class, but then you realize you want to swap it with another class that usually is open. It’ll do that instantly, but it’s also a really fancy way. It’s called a delayed swap. It’s the same mechanism, but if you’re not able to enroll directly into your desired class, it’ll put you on the wait list and then later into the semester if you do get into your waitlisted class, it’ll just swap you directly. So it was a really useful tool.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, that’s nice. So it does it for you. You’re not having to constantly go in and check and see where you’re at and make sure you get in when there’s a moment.

Christopher Zavala:
Yeah, exactly. It’s really nice in that way.

Laura Vogt:
And so once you were on campus, how did you go about creating study groups or creating a network of support with your peers?

Christopher Zavala:
Okay, so for my freshman year, a lot of your peers and all of your networks come from, I would say, your dorm floor building. If you’re in the dorms, they come pretty much like your best friends. And then usually, there’s people at least one or two people on your floor for sure in your building that are in similar classes. So it’s nice you get to be in the dorms and then if you ever need help or want to work on a project or study with someone, there’s usually at least one person on your floor who is in the same class and really wants to help people.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, nice. Did you feel like you had to break out of a shell or anything to do that? Or were you pretty comfortable talking to new people anyway?

Christopher Zavala:
I think a lot of it comes out to being comfortable to talk to people I know, from my floor specifically and my RA, she had this list, a Google sheets where we can input our classes for the semester so we could see who on our floor took what class or was taking what class, when and where, what semester. So it was a nice resource, even if you didn’t necessarily know someone who was in that class, you could always look into the little Google sheet and be like, “Oh, okay, so-and-so’s in this class. Maybe I’ll go introduce myself and maybe we can study.” It was really helpful.

Laura Vogt:
That’s kind of nice, a little bit of an icebreaker there for you already. And so did you go to office hours? Did you have to do anything to prepare if you went?

Christopher Zavala:
Oh, yeah. I went to pretty much office hours for all the classes I’ve taken here at Berkeley at least one time for each class. I feel like it’s a good way to either get to know your professor or a lot of times your GSI, they’re both really helpful sources to help you with your questions and whatever. But if you’re going to go to office hours and you have a question specific to homework or a topic, it’s usually nice to prepare for a little bit, know what I’m going to ask because usually your GSIs, they won’t just give you the answers. You have to show that you know the steps there and if you get stuck you have to explain to them, “Oh, I got to this position.” And then be like, “I don’t know how to do, at this spot.” They want to make sure you at least attempted to understand what you’re going to ask.

Laura Vogt:
Well that’s good. I know the real basis of a lot of things at Berkeley is understanding the process.

Christopher Zavala:
Yeah.

Laura Vogt:
And so what do you think was one of the best resources for your success that you found on campus?

Christopher Zavala:
It was for sure my ESS advisor. If you’re a Berkeley engineer, you get assigned an ESS advisor in the engineering student services center. They’re usually matched by last name and by your major. So they’re pretty much experts in the classes you’ll have to take. And they know every policy and if you have have a question, I definitely recommend going to them. Probably not, I would say, first, but they’re a pretty good person to ask early on if you can’t find an answer to your question because they can often point you to someone who does know the answer, a good keystone to whatever question you need to get answered.

Laura Vogt:
Awesome. Excuse me. So I know we were working with scheduling and figuring out when we could interview you. So you’re doing something this summer, are you doing an internship or-

Christopher Zavala:
Yes, I’m doing on-campus research.

Laura Vogt:
Oh nice. How did you find that position?

Christopher Zavala:
So the program I’m in, the Bioengineering Scholars program. It’s a program designed to help underrepresented minority students get researched and get experience in a lab, specifically in the bioengineering program. So I was able to be matched with Professor Clark’s lab, which I’ll be starting next week on Monday.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, nice. Did you have to go through any kind of application process or anything to prepare for it?

Christopher Zavala:
Oh, yeah. Before, I guess the summer before, I don’t know if applications have closed for this upcoming year, but I’d have to do an application December before I came to Berkeley to get in. And then you have to enroll in a seminar class for it your first semester. So yeah, you do a bit of, you work up to, you learn the basics during your seminar and now we’re finally getting into able to use the experience you’ve learned so far.

Laura Vogt:
Being at Berkeley now, you’ve fulfilled one whole year. Do you have a favorite memory so far?

Christopher Zavala:
Yeah, I think my favorite memory so far was the big game day. It’s our big rival day against Stanford and our football team. It’s a really fun day. It’s really festive. It’s like the Cal Band’s always playing and there’s always blue and gold everywhere. It’s a really festive, fun day to be on. It was really fun. I really enjoyed it.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, that’s nice. So if you could go back and do one thing differently for your first semester, what would that be?

Christopher Zavala:
So I think I would try to not be afraid to continue some of the activities in high school. I was a pretty big band kid back in high school. I played a lot of instruments in a lot of different groups. But coming to Berkeley my first semester, I thought maybe I wouldn’t have enough time to join different groups and play different instruments. So my first semester I just didn’t join any groups, I wouldn’t be able to play instruments. And it was kind of frustrating because that’s usually what I use to enjoy my time. So second semester I was able to join the wind ensemble, which is really fun. I’m really glad I was able to do it my second semester.

Laura Vogt:
Well that’s great. Is there anything else that we didn’t talk about today that you want to share?

Christopher Zavala:
I guess I’ll leave one last piece of advice: always ask for help because even if the first student you’re asking for help from doesn’t have an answer to the question or can’t solve your problem, they can usually point you into the correct direction that helps you solve your problems.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much for being here today.

Christopher Zavala:
Thank you for having me.

Laura Vogt:
And enjoy your next semester and enjoy your summer of research.

Christopher Zavala:
Thank you.

Laura Vogt:
So thank you to Christopher for his insightful thoughts on this first year as a Berkeley engineer. And now we have Andrew Ji. Andrew, thank you so much for being a guest on our podcast.

Andrew Ji:
Thank you for having me. My name’s Andrew Ji, as mentioned. I’m an aerospace engineer and also hoping to double major in electrical engineering computer science. I went to Dos Pablos High School in Goleta, California. I’m part of Air Force ROTC. I’m a student researcher at the Space Sciences Lab. I think I’m the vice president of the AIA, which is the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. And I was part of Cal Band at one point.

Laura Vogt:
That is a lot. I can understand why something might have to fall off your schedule.

Andrew Ji:
Yeah.

Laura Vogt:
And we’ll talk about that a little bit more here. But let’s start off with right now, all of our students are going through Golden Bear Advising. So they’re picking their schedule and I know that setting your schedule at Berkeley is significantly different than what most students went through in high school. So what did you find to be the most useful resource when you were planning that first semester?

Andrew Ji:
So of course I’m going to have to add, mention my ESS advisor. I’m lucky enough to have Myra. She’s a great advisor, I’m assuming all of the advisors are like this. They’re really, really quick to respond. They give amazing advice and they have a good insight on what’s great for an engineering student. They’re specific to engineering of course, but also, I was lucky enough to have a few friends who went to Berkeley before I did. There’s this EECS major who’s a year older than me. He was able to tell me, “Oh, you want to consider taking this class? You might want to be hold off on that class,” that kind of stuff. And he also was able to tell me some of the- Myra as well, some of the basics of course planning, “probably want to go for three technicals, not four technicals your first semester, or maybe even just do two technicals and a reading class or something like that.”

And I also have used some of the online resources that Berkeley students have actually come up with themselves. Stuff like Berkeleytime, which you can kind of take a look and see how grade distributions work for different classes. So it gives you an understanding of which classes are harder and which classes are maybe a little easier. And also Rate My Professor, of course it’s not the most accurate, but it also gives you an understanding of what professors you might be working with.

Laura Vogt:
So when you were just talking about the course load, it’s got to seem weird where you’re coming from high school where you’re taking seven or eight classes and we’re now telling you, “Only take three.”

Andrew Ji:
Yeah, definitely.

Laura Vogt:
How did you get your mind to understand what the timing was going to be like?

Andrew Ji:
So I was lucky enough to be like, I don’t know if I would say lucky enough because I actually really liked the six or seven, eight classes throughout a whole year kind of situation. But I actually, I went to a high school that had a block schedule because of COVID. So we ended up actually only having three or four classes per semester. But I remember that transition, that first year, when I went from six to seven classes a year to three or four one semester and three or four the other semester, it was pretty jarring because I felt like I was spending way too much time on this amount of material. And at the same time, not enough time on the same amount of material. But eventually once you start delving into it and realizing how much there is to learn and figuring out how to best use your time, it actually makes a lot more sense.

Laura Vogt:
Well that’s great. So it’s nice that you had a little bit of a transition ahead of time of coming into Berkeley. So how much time did you spend on your Golden Bear Advising and did you ever refer back to it throughout the summer?

Andrew Ji:
I remember when it came out, I spent basically the whole week looking through it. And I even scheduled a meeting with Myra during the summer because I wanted to get on top of this as quickly as possible. I could just get it figured out, be happy with my schedule, move on to bigger, better things. And I remember coming back to it a few times when I was reconsidering some of my classes. I actually wanted to switch lab sections for one of the classes I was taking. I used it along with someone that I knew, talked to them about the swap feature and I made that happen.

Laura Vogt:
And, so you changed your schedule the one time, did you think that you were going to change it a lot or were you pretty happy with what you ended up with when you first registered?

Andrew Ji:
Well, I think I was more or less set on the schedule that I had because of- I reference my major at the time was just aerospace engineering. So they have a whole website with a flow chart of: these are the classes you’ll probably take freshman year, sophomore year, and so on and so forth. And I saw that the freshman year classes were pretty cut and dry. You wanted to get this stuff done. So I was like, okay, I’ll just take these classes. And yeah, I just said I was going to take these classes. I was lucky enough to actually get a earlier enrollment period, so I didn’t have to worry too much about getting a serious backup set of classes. I was pretty sure I was going to get these classes, so I really didn’t make that many changes.

Laura Vogt:
Since then, have you ended up using either the wait list or the swap function a lot?

Andrew Ji:
I’ve used the- let’s see. Yeah, actually I’ve used both quite a bit. Especially for this coming semester, planning for it during the spring semester, I actually had a pretty early enrollment date, but I was also too focused on trying to get through current semester at the time. There was a lot going on. I was trying to take four technicals. It ended up okay, but I was too focused on that rather than my classes. I had a general idea of what I wanted to take, but I didn’t really plan it out with my friends.

I know a big part of planning your courses is actually trying to get into the same classes as your friends because it makes it easier. So I ended up having to swap sections a lot and sometimes I would be unfortunate enough to have to swap into a wait list section. So I would just sit in there and fingers crossed, hopefully get in. Usually I did because it was relatively early on in the enrollment process.

Laura Vogt:
Do you have any tips for anyone that are trying to do a swap or to swap a class out?

Andrew Ji:
I think the swap function, you’ll have to go through it a few times. You’ll have to read through the documentation if that makes any sense, and go into the program itself and see how it works. But if I recall correctly, how it works is basically, you say that, “Okay, I want this certain class in lieu of this other class that I’m already taking.” And then you basically say, “I want to swap these.” If one of the classes you’re trying to swap into, you can only sit on the waitlist, it won’t actually swap those classes, so you’ll technically still be enrolled in that class. You don’t need to worry about losing four credits or something like that. And then once that wait list hopefully opens, you switch in.

And waiting on wait lists, that’s a whole ‘nother thing. Really depends on your position. If you’re earlier, if you’re maybe wait list position four or five or top ten in a hundred person class, there’s a really good chance that some people will drop, some people will switch their schedules and you’ll get yourself in there. But if you’re pretty late, you probably want to plan on having an actual backup.

Laura Vogt:
Okay. And once you were on campus, you’d already talked about you want to try to get classes so that you’re taking them with your friends. So how did you go about creating study groups or creating that friend group so that you could have that network?

Andrew Ji:
So I think this is going to be a pretty consistent theme for all my answers, but you had to put yourself out there. It’s kind of important. I think a lot of people say this, but at least I didn’t take this to heart at first. Everyone is new to this experience being here. So everyone’s looking for new people. If you just put yourself out there, you’ll find a hand reaching back. And that kind of goes for everything, whether that’s trying to meet people in classes or try out for clubs or any of those kind of activities, maybe do research, something like that. You just really have to put yourself out there.

Laura Vogt:
And how did you investigate the organizations that you got involved with?

Andrew Ji:
Going through that process is mostly just checking out their website, seeing their social media, PR really matters. You can kind of get an understanding of what they do, the kind of people that they look for and kind of stuff that they want to happen. Show up to their info sessions, maybe try out the activity for a few weeks, see if you’re actually really interested in that kind of stuff. Also, talk to people. Talk to friends who might know other people in the clubs or actually talk to people in the clubs, see what their take on it is. And that can really just narrow some stuff down. And it doesn’t hurt to maybe have a few friends at some of those clubs that you can do those clubs with.

Laura Vogt:
Nice. Going back to academics for a little bit, did you go to any of the office hours for your classes?

Andrew Ji:
Unfortunately, my schedule got really hectic, so I did not, except for this one time I did. That one time was actually really enlightening ’cause the professor was able to go over everything in detail with everybody present. And it was a different kind of experience from lecture. Lecture seems more like you sit, you show up, you sit down, you listen. Whereas for office hours you can actually show up, you can ask questions, you can be more engaged in the topics at hand.

Laura Vogt:
Did you feel like you were intimidated before you went? Or were you happy that you had the opportunity to go in?

Andrew Ji:
In some ways, yes. I definitely felt a little intimidated because this person’s a subject matter expert in their field. They’re on the cutting edge of their research. Even for the most intro of classes, these professors are doing some of the craziest research. That’s obviously going to be super intimidating, but after showing up, they’re human, too. They’re nice people, it was fine.

Laura Vogt:
Oh good. And what did you find to be one of the best resources for your success on campus?

Andrew Ji:
I’d really say it was the kind of pure community, being able to speak with other students, develop those connections to help either with classes or extracurriculars, really mattered. Actually, I’d also want to shout out TAs and GSIs, I’m not going to lie. Some of them teach the material better than the professors. I’m just going to be completely honest there. That’s mostly because they’ve spent- most of them, a lot of them spent years teaching the same material over and over again. Whereas professors have to juggle research on top of their teaching duties.

Laura Vogt:
No, that totally makes sense. So a lot of students as they come in have to learn resilience because you’re going to end up getting not quite the grade that you wanted on the class. Maybe you were this 5.27 whatever GPA or something when you came in. And it’s going to be a lot different when you get there. So did you ever have a moment where you had that bad grade on a test or a project? And if you did, how did you come back from that?

Andrew Ji:
I’m going to say I had that moment multiple times my first semester. I think coming into it, a lot of the students like me, especially myself, are really, really fixated on doing well in their classes. Cause that’s the kind of academic focus that Berkeley usually pulls from. And so I would take every small mistake a little too harshly. I remember I got really, really, for instance, this is kind of a random anecdote, but I took the 61A midterm, midterm two in fall. And I remember I for some reason did not see a whole page of questions at the end of the test until the last 10 minutes. I spent all that time reviewing the first five pages three times. And I remember coming out of that feeling completely destroyed, completely disappointed in myself. I’ve been taking tests for 12 years now and I somehow still made that kind of mistake.

But I was lucky enough to have friends around me who would listen to me rant for a couple hours and comfort me and eventually sleeping on it next day was more or less all right. So you just have to be able to roll with the punches, that’s what really matters. You have to remember that most people coming out of- I know high school GPA’s are a little bit more inflated these days, so it’s a little easier to get a higher GPA. But coming out of especially Berkeley, your GPA’s not going to be like that 3.8, 3.9 4.0, it’s probably going to be a little bit lower. And that’s fine. That’s the average for everyone.

Laura Vogt:
And do you have an internship or anything this summer?

Andrew Ji:
Yes. I am working at the Space Sciences Laboratory right now as a student researcher. I started through URAP actually in the fall semester. I did URAP for two semesters and I was lucky enough for them to be like, Hey, you want to work here over the summer? And-

Laura Vogt:
What is URAP?

Andrew Ji:
Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, if I remember the acronym correctly, but I think it’s the most common, it’s the university sanctioned research opportunity portal. If that makes any sense. There’s opportunities for everything from the humanities to stuff like space sciences. And it’s pretty, I’m not going to say, it’s difficult in some ways, but it is also kind of like college applications. It’s going to be- you wouldn’t have to be a little lucky to get in. I of course got really lucky because I’m a freshman and somehow that happened. But we’re happy to be here. Sorry, that was really a real tangent.

Laura Vogt:
No, that’s good. How did you found out about just, how did you find out about URAP?

Andrew Ji:
I found out about it because honestly, I think I was just on the internet. I was looking for research and when you look up Berkeley research for undergraduates, first thing that pops up, and I remember looking through all the different opportunities as an aerospace engineer. I want to do aerospace engineering things. And then one of them said, space sciences laboratory. And I was like, oh that sounds so great. So I ended up choosing that, trying to apply to that. I applied to two or three programs, was lucky enough to get into one. And yeah, I’m here now.

Laura Vogt:
That’s great that it’s something that you did during the school year and then you get to expand your hours probably over the summer then.

Andrew Ji:
Yeah, yeah. I get to spend more time on learning through doing basically.

Laura Vogt:
Did you stay in Berkeley for the position or is it remote?

Andrew Ji:
Yes, I’m here in Berkeley right now, living on my own, like a hundred percent on my own. No dorms or anything, learning to cook, all that fun stuff.

Laura Vogt:
I think that’s a big change then too.

Andrew Ji:
Yeah, definitely. My parents came up, I think the weekend after school ended and they gave me a crash course on cooking basics, made sure I could survive the next six weeks I would be up here.

Laura Vogt:
The joke is live off of macaroni and cheese if you have to.

Andrew Ji:
I don’t think that was an option. I think my mom just gave me a bag of rice and was like, as long as you can do that, you’re probably fine.

Laura Vogt:
Well we always joke that my four year old nephew, if we could cut him open, he’d be all macaroni and cheese. Cause that’s like the only thing I’m going to eat. So-

Andrew Ji:
Macaroni and cheese is pretty great.

Laura Vogt:
So looking back at your time here at Berkeley, do you have a favorite memory so far?

Andrew Ji:
This is going to sound pretty, pretty dull and really, but I actually really enjoyed studying with some of the friends I was able to meet here. I remember, especially this past semester, my schedule got really, really hectic. Especially with one of the new classes I was taking, Aerospace Engineering 10, and I met some great people there and we spent a lot of time working on the lab projects together, studying for the final, all of that kind of stuff. And it was like, it’s very, very fun. It was a lot of time because the class was rough, but it was fun.

Laura Vogt:
That’s good. I’m glad that you’ll be able to find a joy in the studying part of it.

Andrew Ji:
Yeah.

Laura Vogt:
So if you could go back and do one thing differently your first semester, what would you change?

Andrew Ji:
I would definitely say maybe reach out a little bit more. Like I said, that really didn’t occur to me until the tail end of my first semester. I really tried it out a little bit more my second semester. But I’m going to be honest, I kind of just locked myself in my dorm room and was trying to do my best in class, which was a habit that I had from high school, but I should be trying to break.

Laura Vogt:
That’s good. It sounds like you definitely did it at some point, if you’ve got friends and things in a network that you can go to now.

Andrew Ji:
Yeah, definitely.

Laura Vogt:
So is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you want to share?

Andrew Ji:
I think one final thing would be, remember to have fun. You’re spending from maybe 20, 30, 40,000 dollars a year up to like 70, 80,000 dollars a year depending on where you come from in the US in the world to come to this university. So in addition to getting your education, might be worthwhile to make the most of that copious amounts of cash.

Laura Vogt:
Nice. Well thank you so much for being here today.

Andrew Ji:
Thank you.

Laura Vogt:
And thank you to Christopher and Andrew for being on the podcast. And thank you to everyone for tuning in to the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. We’ll be back next week with more tips from students on your first year and first steps should you become a Berkeley Engineer.