Michelle, a UC Berkeley sophomore studying molecular biology and psychology, shows around campus and explains why she loves it. She highlights top professors, research opportunities, and the diversity of students and architecture. She also shares a campus superstition about stepping on seal statues.
Chapters
Hi all, my name is Michelle and I am a current sophomore at UC Berkeley going on to my junior year, so third year of college.
Okay, so where are you from?
I'm originally from the Central Valley here in California, so if If you look at a map of California, think of the absolute center of the state, and that's where I'm from.
So what are you majoring in?
I'm currently a double major, and I'm studying molecular and cell biology, which here is known as MCB for short, and I'm also a psychology major. Okay, so we have these seals around campus, and there's a superstition that we have around them that if you step on them and you walk through them, you're not going to be able to get a 4.0. And it's one of our, like, many school traditions, so Over here, like I said, is Doe Library, and it's one of our main libraries. If you turn over here to this side, you have Moffitt, which is currently under construction, but it should be completely done by the— I think by the start of next semester. Back here we have another cluster of libraries. This is the East Asian Studies Library, and it's one of the prettier ones, actually. So in this main area we have our Glade, and people like to bring their hammocks here you can just relax in between classes or hang out with friends.
Okay, okay, okay, so I can get the 4.0 grade.
Exactly.
Okay.
What I really like about this campus is how green it is. So if you look there, there's a lot of campus lining the area. I'll take you there in a sec, but my favorite area is somewhere up here, and it's the College of Journalism area. And here are some engineering buildings to the side. Okay, so this is the Graduate School of Journalism, and this is our north gate. It's a little bit lacking, a little bit boring, but it is one of our main gates. This is what the inside of middle, like, patio area of Graduate School of Journalism looks like. It's quite pretty. I like coming here to study between classes. We're currently doing work. This is where our daily newspaper is printed. Don't quote me on that though. I don't know what these buildings are. I think they're more, uh, CS and engineering buildings. They're quite new, uh, because we get a lot of funding for our computer science and electrical engineering programs. Best about Berkeley— UCLA and Stanford are very pretty places, but their design concept and architecture all flows together seamlessly. With Berkeley, you have a little mishmash of different styles when it comes to architecture and things like that. Like, you can see how this building has wood on the sides with glass, but then these are a little bit more modern looking, and this just looks like a blob of gray. And so it's all a bunch of designs that seem like they wouldn't go well together, but somehow at Berkeley they do, and it gives it a little bit of its own quirk. And so, yeah, and another thing that we tell freshmen all the time is that if you're ever lost, look for the Campanile. Yeah, it's easy to Physics North, it used to be— I think this used to be called LeConte Hall, but it was renamed to Physics Building because the person it was named after first originally turned out to be not so great. But yeah, if you take any physics classes, you're most likely going to be here, and there's a library inside. So this is Burge Hall. One of the classes that I really liked taking here was called African American Studies for short, and it was basically on how how living in the US affects African Americans and how they've been treated. And it was quite interesting, it was quite enlightening, and I would recommend it. It's Africam 5A if you ever come here. And then there's this glass walkway area that leads from the physics building to Burge.
Okay, so what do you like about Berkeley?
Okay, so from an academic standpoint, what I really like about Berkeley is that you're taught by some of the best professors and people in the area that you're studying, and it's so cool to hear them speak about their research and how they're helping change the world little by little. Um, from a more just social standpoint, Berkeley is full of so many cool and amazing people from diverse backgrounds, and we have so many international students and just people from all over the US, so it's really cool to hear their perspectives and just speak to them because they've got— I don't know, it's like interesting.
Oh, I gotcha. Yeah. Okay, uh, so the video— why do you talk to me and help me take the video?
Well, I don't know, I was just interested in seeing what you were doing since you were recording videos and things like that, and I thought, oh cool, what's he doing? Um, but at the same time, I thought that you might be maybe like an incoming freshman or someone that's just interested in visiting Berkeley that was taking a video, and I remember coming here and touring campus when I was a junior in high school with my mom, and I remember being so lost because there's so many buildings and it's such a big campus. And so I thought, well, if I can help you in case you need help, well then why not?
Thank you very much.
It's a pretty diverse college from what I'm used to, and so there's people from so many different cultures and backgrounds, and it's always cool to kind of have them teach me little tidbits of their cultures and backgrounds and things like that. Like, I have a friend group that's made up of someone that's Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. So you have those 4, and like I learned little phrases here and there about them. I will say though that for the most part it does feel like you're encountering a lot of, uh, computer science people because we have such a big computer science student population. But that's not to say that we don't have other majors and other things. There's a little creek. It doesn't look all that pretty, but there are prettier sides of it over there. Here's a faculty area. And then here's another place that people like to come to bring their blankets and just sit, read a book, wait in between classes, maybe even just hang out with friends. As you can see right now, there's some people just lounging on the grass. Okay, so we're coming up on the music area of campus, and so this is, I believe, where most of the music classes take place. And there's a hall in here in which we sometimes hold concerts. And then right in front of it, kind of in the distance, you can see the music library. It's the greenish building. It's quite pretty. It has a lot of open and natural light. And so sometimes when walking to and from classes, you'll see people outside playing different instruments and holding classes, especially because of the pandemic. You can hear them. You can hear this person practicing. I don't know what they're playing, but they're playing something. And then over here, um, you can take some PE classes or physical education classes in Berkeley. And so you'll see some people doing, you know, exercise here. Some people use it to play soccer. Um, I once saw archery practice here, which I didn't even know we offered. We also offer taekwondo classes if you're interested in that. So this is GBC. Uh, it's known as GBC. The full name is the Golden Bear Cafe. And here, if you want to grab like a quick coffee, we've got a Peet's Coffee inside. Uh, you can also get food in there. It's pretty nice. I like getting their fried chicken sandwiches, uh, whenever I feel like breaking my diet. This area down here is the Cesar Chavez area, and this is where a lot of, like, if you're in band or anything like that, you'll be coming through this area.
Okay, thank you for helping me today. I can take the great video about UC Berkeley. I really appreciate it. Thank you. So I hear that you study Japanese last semester, so please finish this video with your Japanese.
Okay. Konbanwa, ichan mataishita.
Bye!
