ESS Podcast

[Laura Vogt]

Berkeley has a lot of resources, but knowing they exist and actually using them are 2 different things. Hello, and welcome to “The Not-So-Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer.” I’m your host, Laura Vogt, and today we’re introducing key programs and resources and how they can support you from day one with Marvin Lopez, Director of Programs for Engineering Student Services. Hi, Marvin. Thank you so much for being here today. Why don’t you tell us about yourself and what led you from engineering and industry into student affairs?

[Marvin Lopez]

Absolutely, and good afternoon. Thanks, Laura, for having me here. I am the not-so-secret Director of Programs in Engineering Student Services, and it’s my pleasure to be here, I believe, for the 10th year that I’ve done-

[Laura Vogt]

Wow

[Marvin Lopez]

… these podcasts with you, so thanks so much. So yeah, so a little bit about myself. I have been director of student programs for 10 years, and

[Marvin Lopez]

I don’t mean this in any cheesy way, but it’s the best job I’ve ever had. I love doing what I do because it allows me to bring all my experience, literally all I’ve done in my career, into focus, and allows me to bring all that knowledge, all that insight to help students succeed. I’m also an engineer, so I have a computer science and engineering background from another UC further south from here. [chuckles]

[Laura Vogt]

That we will not mention?

[Marvin Lopez]

That we will not mention. And so, I’m actually an engineering student program, and I had a software engineering background and

[Marvin Lopez]

worked in industry for many years. But I realized that while I love technology and still love technology, what I really love is people, and in particular, developing, coaching talent, and in particular, developing, coaching new talent or the emerging talent, so college students and interns. And so I moved from engineering and software heads-down coding to leadership roles and ultimately recruiting,

[Marvin Lopez]

diversity roles in industry. And through that, I was able to be on campus sponsoring literally the programs that I now support here. And so through that process, I realized that what I really

[Marvin Lopez]

could see myself doing in the future was being on campus and making that difference directly with students. When you’re in industry, you make that difference, but it’s indirect. Here, you make it very directly, so by not just running the programs, but through the personal interactions I have with students. And so,

[Marvin Lopez]

that brought me from industry to campus, and I’ve never looked back, and I love what I do.

[Laura Vogt]

That’s awesome. I know that it’s fun to watch you when you get to work with students and help them develop who they’re going to be. The excitement that you have for them as they succeed, it’s really cool.

[Marvin Lopez]

Absolutely. Right now is the worst time of the year for me because it’s quiet. There’s no students around.

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

So I’m looking forward to having them all arrive because, yeah, I do love that experience, and primarily because I had the same experience myself. I was in programs like this, so I’m 1st generation. I had support programs like this, and I wouldn’t have had the experience and the career I’ve had in my life had I not been part of these very programs many years ago. So to now have the privilege to run these programs for students and to bring my experience and run these programs, pretty cool. And so, I’m happy to do it.

[Laura Vogt]

Talking about the fact that you’re a first-generation student, do you think that has changed the way that you approach the support that you give students?

[Marvin Lopez]

Absolutely. I’m coming at it from a firsthand experience because I know the challenges that I had when I was a student as a 1st-generation college goer, and helping me formulate it and sort of inform the things that I do now and the way we structure our programs. And the challenges are universal and sort of timeless, the idea that as a 1st-generation student, you don’t have role models. You don’t know the sort of unwritten rules of how things work. It’s not built into your knowledge where to go for resources and where to find the

[Marvin Lopez]

resources you need to leverage to do the things you want to do. And so knowing that 1st-generation students have that challenge, we’ve shaped a lot of the programs that we do with that knowledge, and I make sure that the programs that we put in place address those challenges and those gaps that 1st-generation students have, because I went through them myself.

[Laura Vogt]

And is there any one particular thing that excites you the most about Berkeley Engineering students?

[Marvin Lopez]

You know, that’s a great question. So, I came from industry, so I’ve hired lots of students in my time when I was an engineer. I used to do recruiting, so I’ve hired lots of students when I was running university recruiting programs. And so I’ve seen students from a lot of different universities, different institutions. One of the things that I really enjoy about Berkeley students is, above all, how they have a real sense of what they want to do, a sense of the impact and the difference they want to make in the world. We talk about the mission of the college, right, of educating leaders, serving society, and discovering knowledge. And I think the serving society part is really true. Our students really do care to make a difference out there. And if they don’t have a sense for that, we teach them that. We work with them to help discover that, and we see that from day one. If you’ve been to our prep program, you know that in the summer we have the expo that culminates the program, and students bring their very real problems that they want to solve that they personally care about. And I think that’s a unique thing to our students here.

[Laura Vogt]

I know one of the things I always thought was amazing was there’s so many student organizations that we have, and a number of them are here because a student thought, “I want to be able to do this,” or, “I want to support this,” and comes up with an entire process and program and gets friends involved and-

[Marvin Lopez]

Absolutely. EnableTEC-

[Laura Vogt]

Yeah

[Marvin Lopez]

… is a perfect example. Engineers Without Borders, E4Kids. They’re all out there doing something that of truly meaningful to individuals in the community. And I think it’s unique to our students here, and it’s something that I find particularly enjoyable.

[Laura Vogt]

We’ve mentioned ESS throughout this entire podcast series, but today we’re really talking about the programs that support students. So what does the programs team do in ESS?

[Marvin Lopez]

Right, so we do talk about ESS all the time, and it’s something I really enjoy sharing, and that I try to embrace and embody in our program is my little pithy

[Marvin Lopez]

phrase that you can’t spell success without ESS, because it’s factually true.

[Laura Vogt]

I love that phrase.

[Marvin Lopez]

But that it is really true in what we do. So,

[Marvin Lopez]

across all of ESS, and within the program side of ESS, fundamentally what we do is we try to remove barriers to success. So we provide,

[Marvin Lopez]

dare I say, a portfolio of world-class programs that help students achieve the things they came here to achieve. So, we provide programs-

[Marvin Lopez]

… that complement their education in the classroom with,

[Marvin Lopez]

that support them academically. So we have programs that, like tutoring, for example, to help them

[Marvin Lopez]

do well in their classes. So if they’re doing well, they can do even better, and if they’re struggling, we help them get through that. We

[Marvin Lopez]

provide programs to lend out laptops if their laptop broke,

[Marvin Lopez]

professional attire for an interview. We

[Marvin Lopez]

guide them through how to land their dream job and how to land an internship. We guide them to become great leaders, not only through student organizations, but personally. And above all, we try to support them through their wellness and make sure that they are well personally, physically, because if you’re not doing well physically, personally, then the rest doesn’t matter. So ultimately, what we do in the program side is provide programs that help them overcome challenges and achieve the things here they came here to achieve.

[Laura Vogt]

One thing you’ve talked about for years is your 4 C’s of success. Can you walk us through what those are and why they matter?

[Marvin Lopez]

Yeah, so the 4 C’s, even though I’m not a marketing person, but I seem to have a marketing… There’s something marketing in me-

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

… because I came up with this 4 C’s. I love alliteration, so 4 C’s, 3 P’s, you name it, I’ll use them. And so something that came along to me when I 1st started in the role was the idea that what we do, the philosophy behind what we do is the 4 C’s to success, which starts with community. So above all, what we build and the way we… A focus of all our programs is to build community, is to help students build community,

[Marvin Lopez]

succeed through community, because we realize that what got them here won’t get them there, right? So the doing it alone, being on their own does not help. They need to work together, so we help them build community and work together. Then we teach them the… So the next C is capital, the cultural capital to navigate Berkeley. So the unwritten rules to how to land an internship, how to land research, how to talk to your professor in office hours. So we teach all that cultural capital to complement the capital they already bring. These students have rich capital that they already bring, their resilience, their commitment to their success, their ambition. And so we couple that with the capital of how to navigate Berkeley. Then we teach them how to collaborate, how to work together. Something that we’re very intentional about is that we want them to not just sit around the table, put their headphones on, and study together. I’m doing the air quotes thing.

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

But that they really teach each other, that they find out, they’re actively studying together. They find out who’s good at what topics and explain that to each other. And so we teach them how to be truly collaborative, not just academically, but also in their clubs and their activities in general. Ultimately culminating in the final C, which is confidence. To embrace the confidence and to embrace, to embody, demonstrate the confidence to do the things they came here to do. And in particular, things that they didn’t even think they came here to do. It’s something that we enjoy seeing as students discovering new goals, new passions, new missions. And so we help them achieve that confidence to go do the things they came here to do.

[Laura Vogt]

And so all of those translate back into how we’re supporting the students in the classroom.

[Marvin Lopez]

That is correct. So this is all what we call co-curricular support is more an academic term. It’s the knowledge that they need outside of the classroom. So in particular, Berkeley is very theoretical, and so the support we provide them through our programs helps them put that theory into practice. I mean, in particular in the student organizations, but also working together and teaching each other, working together building formula cars and drones, working together to be well together, to study together, to work out together. By being involved in our programs, they’re taking care of the entire life experience or the student experience and do well as a student, and thrive here, not just survive.

[Laura Vogt]

Community seems like it’s the foundation of everything that you’re doing in programs. So how do students actually start building the community once they arrive?

[Marvin Lopez]

There’s a couple of things that we offer that some are targeted to very specific communities and others are broadly. Starting with the broad support, we have what we call the Center for Access to Engineering Excellence, also the CEE or also the Center, where students come and, above all, can build community. They can come and meet other students. They can study together. They can get free tutoring. They can get a coffee, a snack. If they want to print their homework, they can do that, and come together and study together and rise together. We also have our mentor program, the Engineering Mentor Program, where students can apply to be both a mentor or a mentee, where we pair them with a 2nd and 3rd year student, especially as freshmen. So we pair freshmen with 2nd to 3rd year students, right?

[Laura Vogt]

Mm-hmm.

[Marvin Lopez]

They’re in the same major. They might be from the same town, the same area, and guide the students through their experiences. So help students, essentially, through their own experience, guide students to succeed as well. And then there’s programs that are a little more targeted, more focused, like PREP and T-PREP. So PREP is the Pre-Engineering Program, and T-PREP is the transfer version of that, the Transfer Engineering Program, that are heavily focused on 1st generation students to build community, to build that community from early on. So they come here in the summer. It’s a 3-week program, a residential program.

[Marvin Lopez]

And through that process, they build that community and engage with each other and form that thriving community that helps them thrive together while they’re here. Through all these programs, we encourage students to work together and build that community that supports each other, that celebrate each other, but also pick each other up when things get rough. And we want them to be active in that process of not only celebrating each other, but picking each other up.

[Laura Vogt]

When you think of belonging, what does a successful student who feels like they belong look like?

[Marvin Lopez]

Belonging is an interesting question, but to me, when you can be yourself in a place, and in particular, when you can be yourself in a place that you’re normally not accustomed to, that’s when you belong, right? When the environment welcomes you, the

[Marvin Lopez]

community welcomes you for who you are, exactly as who you are. You don’t have to be anything but yourself. That’s belonging, right? That you can be authentic. If you can be your authentic self, that’s belonging. And it’s an active

[Marvin Lopez]

effort. So both the community has to be a welcoming, inclusive community, and you also have to put yourself out there to engage with the community. And it’s something that we do very intentionally, and especially in the Center for Access and Engineering Excellence, we try to build a community that’s very welcoming, very inclusive, so that you feel like you belong, like you feel you can be yourself and be exactly who you are. And so we build and we’re intentional in making sure that anyone that wants to be in our spaces in the college feels like they belong there. And

[Marvin Lopez]

when you can be you for who you are in a

[Marvin Lopez]

place, in a classroom, in a college, in a Center for Access and Engineering Excellence, that’s what belonging looks like.

[Laura Vogt]

And I know I’ve heard from students, and you have probably heard from many more students, that when they look around at their peers, they feel like everyone else has it all figured out and I don’t. What message can you give them to be like, “You’re not alone in this. It’s not just you.” [chuckles]

[Marvin Lopez]

Funny you ask me that, because many students ask me the same thing that, “My roommate has 5 internship offers, and look at me, I don’t have anything. And my neighbor is in 10 clubs, and I don’t have anything.” Half the time it’s not true, right? Because I do talk to the other students, I know that they also don’t have 5 internships-

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

… and are also in 10 clubs. So half of it is sort of a bluffing. But ultimately, what I tell them is

[Marvin Lopez]

that the only person they should compare themselves to is in the mirror. That is themselves. Is never mind what other people are doing or not doing, never mind whether people are talking about what they’re doing or not doing. Worry about what you came here to do, what you want to achieve, the difference you want to make, and are you achieving those things? And never mind what everybody else is doing. Every single story is different. Every single journey is different. And comparing ourselves to each other is the most useless exercise, because what’s important to me may not be important to somebody else. And if I try to measure myself to what they’re accomplishing,

[Marvin Lopez]

it is not helpful. And so above all is do not compare yourself to anybody else but you and the things you came here to do, the achievements, the impact you want to make, and the challenges you’re overcoming. And let everybody else

[Marvin Lopez]

supposedly have all these things figured out or not,

[Marvin Lopez]

and live their life, and you’ll live yours based on what you want to achieve and what you came here to do.

[Laura Vogt]

One of my favorite quotes is, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” And I feel like that is something I wish I embraced in college. [laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

That is absolutely true. That’s absolutely true. It’s not about perfection, it’s about getting better, and getting better and doing the things that you want to do and accomplishing the things you came here to accomplish, not anybody else.

[Laura Vogt]

What are some things that students often don’t discover until much later that you wish they knew about during their 1st semester?

[Marvin Lopez]

So a couple of things. The student clubs, I think, is one that students need to explore earlier. The difference is that in high school, you can join 50 clubs, 20 clubs, and you do a little bit for everybody and you put on your resume and your application. Here,

[Marvin Lopez]

clubs are much more in-depth. They’re much more meaningful. And so you don’t want to join 10 clubs. You want to join one or 2 clubs, 3 clubs maybe,

[Marvin Lopez]

and show the commitment to that club. And also from a recruiting perspective, companies and others want to see that you’re committed to an organization, that you’ve grown through an organization, that the impact you’re making is growing. And so you want to do that early on, and

[Marvin Lopez]

find the clubs that may speak to you. And your first club may not be the one,

[Marvin Lopez]

so join a couple of clubs, explore some clubs. But once you join a couple of clubs, commit to those clubs and grow in your presence, your influence, your impact,

[Marvin Lopez]

to develop as an engineer, as a leader. Research, I think, is something that some students do come already with that experience, but a lot of students don’t know anything about research. And

[Marvin Lopez]

the other day I was asking some students had they done research, and they had this sort of blank stare at me, and I said, “Well, do you know what research is?” And they said, “Oh, it’s when you go to Google, right?” And I said, “Well, that’s one kind of research.”

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

So a lot of students don’t know what research is, and that you can work with the faculty in their labs and contributing to their investigations. So research is another area that there’s many forms to land research on this campus through informal programs or informal outreach and formal programs.

[Marvin Lopez]

So I think that another opportunity that many students don’t

[Marvin Lopez]

leverage is doing research. Study abroad is another area that I think students-

[Laura Vogt]

Oh, yeah

[Marvin Lopez]

… I’m a huge fan,

[Marvin Lopez]

partly because I didn’t get to do it when I was in college, but I’m a huge fan of students going overseas, especially engineering students going overseas to explore what engineering is about,

[Marvin Lopez]

and to see the world and to expand their horizons.

[Marvin Lopez]

Because ultimately, engineering is a global profession nowadays. And so understanding what engineering looks like in other places and what cultures are, and

[Marvin Lopez]

getting that cultural expertise to me is huge. So that’s another thing that, in fact, many of our students don’t take advantage of. And then there’s sort of the day-to-day activities that we have in the center that also a lot of students don’t discover till later. You don’t have to come just for tutoring. Come hang out and get some coffee, get Hot Cheetos, and see who’s there and find out what’s going on and meet other people.

[Marvin Lopez]

And a lot of students do, but many students don’t. And so I wish they would come see what we do until later. I know that sometimes not all students come see our ESS advisors early on.

[Laura Vogt]

Oh, yeah.

[Marvin Lopez]

So, that’s a different unit of ESS, but I wish they would come and see their ESS advisors early on to build that relationship and get that knowledge early on, not when you need it.

[Laura Vogt]

I’ve met graduating seniors who didn’t realize tutoring existed until their last year. So why do you think students wait so long to use some of these resources?

[Marvin Lopez]

You know, and on that note, the other thing that a lot of students don’t take advantage of, again, many students do,

[Marvin Lopez]

is internships. A lot of students-

[Laura Vogt]

Oh, yeah

[Marvin Lopez]

… wait till… I’ve literally had students in my office about to graduate, looking for a job. And they haven’t had internships, and I ask, “Well, we’re… You know, now you come see me?” So,

[Marvin Lopez]

all of us are here to support students land those things, so come see us early. Come see me, come see our career center team, come see the satellite offices here, or have satellite office hours in ESS through the years, so come see them, come see us. And put yourselves out there and develop that knowledge, those skills to land those internships that are so critical, but don’t wait till later.

[Laura Vogt]

We’ve been talking a lot about 1st year students, so what about our new transfer students? What support is available for them?

[Marvin Lopez]

So transfer students play a critical role and are a critical community in the College of Engineering because of the life experience they bring. As you know, college students are… Transfer students usually

[Marvin Lopez]

have been in community college 2, 3, 5 years. And so, they come with a rich life experience, a rich set of insights and knowledge that

[Marvin Lopez]

we value here, that make the college richer. And so, at the same time, they’re only here for 5 semesters, maybe 4 or 5 semesters, so their time here is very short. And so, transitioning and integrating into the campus and the college can be tricky, and in particular,

[Marvin Lopez]

when it comes to professional opportunities. So, for transfer students, it’s really critical to land an internship that 1st semester, or research experience, and so they have to hit the ground running.

[Marvin Lopez]

So, we have, at the least, we have T-PREP,

[Marvin Lopez]

our Transfer Pre-Engineering Program, which is a three-week program that’s about to start this coming Monday,

[Marvin Lopez]

where students, we choose something like 40 students, transfer students can apply into the program, and they live here on campus, they build community, they get to know what the campus is about.

[Marvin Lopez]

And so, through that program, students build community. And then once they get here on campus, we have a team of transfer ambassadors. So there’s a dedicated set of students whose role, whose job, and somebody in my team manages that. And so their collective role is to ensure that transfer students have the support, the knowledge, the expertise to go do the things that they came here to do. And so the transfer team, the transfer ambassador team put on events, and especially

[Marvin Lopez]

they focus on 2 areas, academic support, no, professional support, sorry,

[Marvin Lopez]

[chuckles] and social activities. So, we know that transfer students

[Marvin Lopez]

come fairly well prepared academically, but they may not know of the other transfer students, and also they need to know, they need to gain those career readiness skills immediately. And so, the transfer ambassador team puts on events that preps them for interviews, that preps them for

[Marvin Lopez]

engaging with different companies, and preps them for

[Marvin Lopez]

technical interviews in particular, because those have become a challenging aspect of the recruiting process. And so the transfer team puts on all these events to make sure that students have those skills to land those internships right away, and also put on social events to build community. So there’s Friendsgiving in November. There’s the closing celebration at the end of the semester. There’s a welcome event at the beginning of the year, and other events throughout the semester,

[Marvin Lopez]

not exclusively, but really focus on transfer students to build that community so they can support each other, and again, thrive at Berkeley and go on and do the things they came here to do as transfer students.

[Laura Vogt]

Another major part of what you’re doing is preparing students for their careers. So, let’s talk about leadership.

[Marvin Lopez]

So leadership is really about understanding… Personal leadership is understanding your mission, your purpose, and

[Marvin Lopez]

the impact you want to make. And translating that into external leadership and leading others is about creating that vision, creating that set of that purpose, that direction for others, not just organizations, but others around you,

[Marvin Lopez]

and inspiring others to achieve the things that they came here to do. Something that we work closely with, in particular our student organizations, is helping

[Marvin Lopez]

students in the organizations embrace leadership, meaning help them be

[Marvin Lopez]

comfortable defining who they are as leaders and defining what their organizations are about. It’s not just about

[Marvin Lopez]

setting up meetings and having events, but about what is the purpose of this organization? What are they solving for? What difference are they making as an organization, and how do they achieve that? How do they inspire their peers to achieve that? And so leadership is really about inspiring others to do things that they may not thought they wanted to do, or they may not want to do.

[Laura Vogt]

[chuckles]

[Marvin Lopez]

And so it’s creating that vision of a future, creating a vision of a better place, a better future,

[Marvin Lopez]

what’s often in industry called the North Star, is that guiding

[Marvin Lopez]

light of where you’re going as an organization, as a person, as a group. That’s leadership. And something that I always, conversations I have with students often is about the difference between leadership and management, right? Because managing is about-

[Laura Vogt]

Right

[Marvin Lopez]

… the details of making that happen, right? It is about the meetings and the budgets and the tasks. But leadership is about the vision, the purpose, the direction. And

[Marvin Lopez]

it also, it’s not necessarily a role.

[Marvin Lopez]

Management is a role, right? You’re the director of this or the manager of that. Leadership is about behaviors, is how you inspire others, not necessarily through a role, but through your actions and through your words and through your role modeling. And so we teach students to embrace that and how to be those leaders that inspire their peers to do the things they didn’t even think they wanted to do.

[Laura Vogt]

I think a lot of students hear leadership and immediately think, “I have to be president of a club.” Is that really what leadership means?

[Marvin Lopez]

No. That’s part of it, and there’s some aspect of it where you do have to ensure that those things get done, but that’s what your leadership team is about, right, the people that work with you. Leadership is about creating that vision. And often, it’s not about a role either. You can be a leader in your dorm, right, as simply somebody who others emulate, others look up to, and others see-

[Marvin Lopez]

… that has a vision for a better place, a better future, a better tomorrow,

[Marvin Lopez]

in their activities, whatever those may be.

[Laura Vogt]

And so how are students developing those leadership skills and other professional development skills during their 1st year here at Berkeley?

[Marvin Lopez]

So leadership skills heavily come from being involved in student organizations. So they develop those roles. Again, the sense of purpose, the sense of mission, the sense of direction through student organizations, but it also starts within themselves. So something that we encourage students to think about is what is it… In particular, we do this in our PREP program and T-PREP program. I actually happen to co-teach a class in the spring, so a plug here for my class.

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

I co-teach a class.

[Marvin Lopez]

I’ve been teaching it with Professor Pruitt, and I’ve also been doing it with Professor Duan.

[Marvin Lopez]

We teach a class on personal leadership, which is also about defining your own personal sense of purpose. And so, and other classes do the same, and other activities do the same, where that guide students through the idea of the process of understanding, what do they come here to do? What is their

[Marvin Lopez]

purpose, their mission? But that also, of course, translates into a professional activity, so a job [chuckles]-

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

… in the end. And so we, at least the programs like PREP and T-PREP and the CAE, we put on workshops that help students,

[Marvin Lopez]

that guide students through their development of all the skills that they need for their recruiting life cycle, from

[Marvin Lopez]

building an elevator pitch. So literally understanding how to introduce yourself and how do you, in 30 seconds, tell who you are, what makes you you, through all steps of the recruiting life cycle, from creating a great resume, your LinkedIn page, how to network, how to interview,

[Marvin Lopez]

how to negotiate your job offers, how to engage with professionals. So the entire life cycle, we put workshops on that. And also in partnership with our friends in the Career Center

[Marvin Lopez]

to make sure that students have the skills and the knowledge they need to land those great internships that they came here to land, that lead to professional, their careers down the road.

[Marvin Lopez]

So we put all that together, and that’s something that all our students can take advantage of. And it starts in the first year.

[Laura Vogt]

And to plug my newsletter every week, where do you find out about these opportunities? [laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

Well, let me tell you, there’s a great newsletter that comes out every Monday afternoon that I call the Bible of ESS-

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

… where if it’s not in there, it does not exist,

[Marvin Lopez]

that tells you everything they need to know about everything that we offer, at least in the College of Engineering or in the ESS.

[Marvin Lopez]

Workshops, networking opportunities, student organizations, activities, scholarships. Some of the scholarships that we do manage are in there. So anything that we offer to our students is in the newsletter. And so we encourage you, highly, highly encourage you to read that newsletter thoroughly.

[Marvin Lopez]

And I can tell you for a fact that students that have read that email closely have landed all kinds of opportunities, internships,

[Marvin Lopez]

scholarships, because they read the

[Marvin Lopez]

newsletter and they acted on it, and they took advantage of things. Lots of students read it and don’t act on it. So read it, act on the things that are there, and the magic happens.

[Laura Vogt]

I know I get really excited when I ask somebody how they found out about something, and they say that they got it in the newsletter. I’m like, “Yes!”

[Marvin Lopez]

Right, same here. Absolutely.

[Laura Vogt]

Double check. [laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

I love it. I love it, because it’s all there.

[Marvin Lopez]

And I hear from students, “Well, I didn’t know about tutoring. I didn’t know about X.” It’s in the newsletter. So if it doesn’t exist, it’s not in the newsletter.

[Laura Vogt]

We know that Berkeley Engineering is demanding, so how do you encourage students to prioritize wellness while they’re chasing all these goals?

[Marvin Lopez]

And this one I have to describe because I can’t show you. This doesn’t have a cool,

[Marvin Lopez]

what do you call it? Alliteration.

[Laura Vogt]

Oh. [laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

But we also have the pyramid of our academic journey or student journey that really starts with wellness at the bottom, right? If you think of a pyramid, there’s wellness, and then on top of that you have academic, and then you have on top of that you have professional, and then ultimately leadership, or those 2 can be interchangeable. But to me, at the bottom, the bottom of that pyramid is wellness, and it’s the idea of being well physically, mentally, spiritually, if that’s important to you, but just being holistically well. Because if that part is not there, the rest doesn’t matter. And so we provide support in different aspects of that wellness and programs and activities to help you be well. Above all is people, right? And we help you connect with each other because ultimately you need people to be well. You need a community that can help you and support you. But we also have activities like,

[Marvin Lopez]

I have tote bag painting sometime in the semester. We have our welcome event. We have movie night, to help you decompress, unplug once in a while.

[Laura Vogt]

Take that brain break.

[Marvin Lopez]

That’s right. And that is critical. Connect with each other. We have snacks in the CAE. We have all of the most delicious, bad snacks you can think of, Hot Cheetos and Doritos.

[Marvin Lopez]

We do have oatmeal as well, so that’s always good.

[Laura Vogt]

[laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

So all the things you need to be well physically. And then we also work closely with our psychological services team. So when things do get a little out of balance, we work closely with them to, one, put on activities with us to help students

[Marvin Lopez]

be mindful and conscious of what anxiety looks like, how to address anxiety, how to overcome anxiety and stress. But also, if things really get out of balance, to go see our psychological services team,

[Marvin Lopez]

and in particular, to go see them before things get really out of hand so they have the tools and the knowledge and the insights to address these challenges,

[Marvin Lopez]

ideally more proactively before things get really out of hand. So,

[Marvin Lopez]

ultimately, we help students be together with each other and help them normalize the idea that this place is stressful, but there are things you can do together with each other to overcome those things. And we are here to support you

[Marvin Lopez]

in providing the resources you need to be well. So, the snacks and the coaching, the counseling. … to make sure that you have all the pieces in place.

[Laura Vogt]

On a personal level, how do you think students can balance their academics, their extracurriculars, and their wellbeing?

[Marvin Lopez]

You know, it’s a journey, and it’s different for everybody. So, what works for one person is not the same for other people. Some people need… You know, I personally need people, so I can’t… You know, being alone does not work for me. So I need to be with people to feel well. Other people need to retreat, and they need to be alone, and decompress, and disconnect, and that’s okay. So I think understanding, and that’s something that

[Marvin Lopez]

is critical in that 1st semester, 1st year, is understanding what is your routine. You know, what does that routine look like? And understanding the things that you want to do repeatedly, the pattern you want to follow repeatedly, that helps you thrive in all aspects of your college career. So understanding what works for you mentally, physically. So, do you work out? Do you not work out? Do you run? Do you walk? Do you sleep? When do you do that?

[Marvin Lopez]

Whom do you do that with, and all that. So understanding what that looks like is 1st and foremost. Then you need to understand your academics, and when do you study? Who do you study with? When do you go to office? Not whether you go to office hours, but when you go to office hours,

[Marvin Lopez]

and schedule that in. Build out your schedule, your time management.

[Marvin Lopez]

Then understand the clubs that you might be interested in, and start joining, start exploring. And then ultimately,

[Marvin Lopez]

start thinking about of a career. But it

[Marvin Lopez]

literally is a pyramid. It’s a process. It’s not doing them all at once.

[Laura Vogt]

Mm-hmm.

[Marvin Lopez]

You know, 1st of all is build out that routine that makes you

[Marvin Lopez]

be well physically and mentally, and then add the academics, then add the professional, then add leadership over time,

[Marvin Lopez]

so that you don’t feel burned out trying to do everything at once and figuring it all at once, because that’s very dangerous.

[Laura Vogt]

What specific advice do you have for our new students during their 1st semester?

[Marvin Lopez]

In their 1st semester, I think they should be,

[Marvin Lopez]

above all, is come to the CAE, find out what we’re having, the opportunities we have there, the activities we have there, to build community. Above all is work with, engage with your peers and actually in your classes, but also, especially through the programs we have in the CAE and other places, to build that community, so that you can start understanding, to start building that routine that I mentioned. Start looking at some of the clubs that you might be interested in to, above all, build community, right? Meet other students. Not so much just join the clubs for the sake of joining, but build that community

[Marvin Lopez]

to start building that

[Marvin Lopez]

community that’ll support you, that’ll guide you through your 1st semester, and actually the remainder of your career.

[Marvin Lopez]

Go to office hours. Engage with your faculty. That is absolutely critical

[Marvin Lopez]

to thrive here. So, engage with your faculty, engage with your peers, build that community of supportive individuals in ESS and outside

[Marvin Lopez]

in that 1st semester to start understanding what that routine looks like.

[Marvin Lopez]

And if you struggle, come see us, right? Come see us in ESS, come see in the Psychological Services team to understand

[Marvin Lopez]

what that routine should look like. Are you taking advantage of all the things that you need to take advantage of? Are you doing the things that put you in a position to succeed? And if you’re not, how do you adjust? I think taking advantage of the opportunities early on and building that routine is critical.

[Laura Vogt]

And why do you think students often come in thinking like, “I have to figure this out on my own,” but you’re like, “No, ESS is here for you.”

[Marvin Lopez]

Yeah, the biggest myth, and to be honest, in this world is that, is the myth of the self-made person, right? The self-made man, self-made woman. There’s no such thing. We all work, we’ve all succeeded because somebody helped us along the way. Somebody guided us, mentored us, coached us.

[Marvin Lopez]

I myself, back in my day, had a challenging academic career, and I had people that coached me and guided me through those challenges. In my professional life, same thing. There’s many challenges that I faced professionally, people that coached me and mentored me through that. And same thing here.

[Marvin Lopez]

I was thinking, if you’re watching the World Cup right now, or if you’re a Formula 1 fan like I am, you see those people, the drivers in particular in those cars, they have a huge team behind them. They’re not there alone in the car. And so, no one does it alone, and especially here at Berkeley or anywhere else.

[Marvin Lopez]

So, any question you have, somebody’s already asked it. And so, ask. Reach out to us in ESS, reach out to your peers,

[Marvin Lopez]

reach out to your faculty. This entire village of support is here, literally at your disposal, but you have to ask. And there’s no such thing as a dumb question. It’s the proverbial thing about the only dumb question is the one doesn’t get asked. That is absolutely true. So embrace the idea that no one does it alone. It’s okay to ask questions. Ask, you may get.

[Marvin Lopez]

Don’t ask, you don’t get.

[Marvin Lopez]

And we are here for that support, and if you come to see us, we’ll absolutely support you, but you need to ask us 1st because no one does it alone.

[Laura Vogt]

What would be the one piece of advice that you want to impart on students?

[Marvin Lopez]

You know, there’s several [chuckles] one pieces of advice that I would give. But I think-

[Laura Vogt]

Several one pieces of advice. [laughs]

[Marvin Lopez]

I would say, though, above all… Actually, no, probably the one thing. I’m a big believer that what got you here won’t get you there. That at every step of your life, literally what got you here won’t get you there. So, the habits that you might have had in high school may not necessarily get you to the next level here. So,

[Marvin Lopez]

very often students come here and they studied alone. They went to the library, and I used to do this back in my high school days. I went to the library every day, studied by myself, and got the grades to get to Berkeley, and here I am. I joined 20 clubs, and so I was able to put all kinds of things in my application, and here I am. You know, and so on. Those behaviors won’t get you to the next level. So here at Berkeley, studying alone does not work. Doing things on your own does not work. Joining 20 clubs does not work. You know, 2 or 3 maybe. So the things that you’ve done in the past may not help you to get to the next level here.

[Marvin Lopez]

So studying alone is not… So now here, you have to study with others. What they teach you in the classroom is not all that they test you on, and so you have to learn, gain that extra knowledge from working with your peers, by going to office hours, by looking at old tests. Joining clubs is not something you do as a hobby, just to join clubs for the sake of it. It’s for a particular purpose. It’s to align your passions and your academic knowledge with your purpose. And so joining clubs is a much more intentional activity here. Research is something that you may not have done before that now you have to do here. And so all the things that you’re used to doing may not get you to the next level. And so,

[Marvin Lopez]

I’m a big believer that what got you here won’t get you there. So do things that you’re not used to, that you may not have done before. Put yourself out there in front of human beings, connecting with people, not AI, but actual human beings. And when you do that, the magic happens. And if you’re not sure what that looks like, come see us in ESS and we’ll guide you through that process, that conversation, because we are here for your success. That’s why we’re ESS.

[Laura Vogt]

Well, thank you so much, Marvin, for being here today and sharing all about these programs and resources and just what it’s going to be like as a student and what we want you to do and what our goals are for you.

[Marvin Lopez]

You’re very welcome. This is an amazing opportunity and an amazing place to be,

[Marvin Lopez]

that if you take advantage of the resources that are here for you, you can thrive and come and do the things that you came here to do.

[Laura Vogt]

And thank you to everyone for listening to “The Not-So-Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer.” Berkeley has a wide range of programs and resources, so take the time to explore them and use what’s available to support your goals. And be sure to check out the rest of our series to learn even more about what’s here for you, and we look forward to welcoming you to the College of Engineering next week.

[Marvin Lopez]

Go Bears.