As requested by a reader of my blog last week, I will be discussing all of the resources that may be helpful to new college students. Note that while the names of the resources I discuss on this blog will be specific to UC Berkeley, you can most likely find similar resources for other colleges.
Disclaimer: Due to the ongoing pandemic, many of these resources may either be closed or only available virtually. Please continue to stay safe, social distance, and wear a mask as per CDC guidelines.
Please let me know if any information is missing or inaccurate, and feel free to add your personal suggestions in the comments or ask questions about any of these resources! Also, suggestions for future stories are welcomed.
Academic
College Advisors
Description: Each college in UC Berkeley has its own team of advisors trained to answer any questions you may have about course selection, major selection, enrollment logistics, and even graduate school/career preparation. You will be assigned an advisor based on your last name. Though most advisors have drop-in appointments, booking an appointment at least a week in advance is recommended due to heavy demand. To book an advising appointment, go on the advising website for your respective college. Note that due to the pandemic, all advising sessions will be conducted through Zoom. For small questions, emailing your advisor is recommended.
My Experience: As a freshman, I met with my advisor to discuss course selection. He answered my questions clearly and succinctly; after our meeting, I knew which classes I should enroll in and which classes I can skip due to AP credit. I have also met with my advisor in my final year to check if I met my graduation requirements. The major drawback about college advising is the delay; due to high demand, it can often be difficult to book a timely appointment. As mentioned above, book your appointments far in advance!
Links:
College of Letters and Sciences Advising: https://lsadvising.berkeley.edu/
College of Engineering Advising: https://engineering.berkeley.edu/students/advising-counseling/ess-advising/
College of Chemistry Advising: https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/ugrad/current-students/advisers
College of Natural Resources Advising: https://nature.berkeley.edu/advising/undergraduate-advising
College of Environmental Design Advising: https://ced.berkeley.edu/students/undergraduate-advising
Student Learning Center (SLC)
Description: The SLC offers adjunct courses, peer tutoring, and study groups for multiple subjects, including writing, math, science, economics, and social science. Adjunct courses are supplemental courses that help students understand the course material deeply through developing effective study strategies and working on good practice problems. Typically, you sign up for an adjunct course in the first week of class. After you complete the introductory work, often a diagnostic quiz and corrections, you can receive the course number to officially enroll in the adjunct. Each week, you will review the concepts from lecture and work on practice problems in class for one day, then take a quiz on those topics for the other day. You will be expected to correct all of your mistakes on the quiz and get your corrections signed off by the adjunct instructors and peer tutors. There are also midterm and final review assignments, structured similarly to quizzes.
In the SLC, you can also receive one-on-one help from peer tutors on homework assignments, adjunct assignments, or conceptual questions. These peer tutors have been trained by taking a pedagogy course and passing a rigorous exam. The goal of the peer tutors is not to show you the correct answer; the goal is to guide you so you can arrive at the correct answer yourself. The SLC also offers writing help; peer tutors can help you revise your writing for content and style.
For some smaller courses or courses taught by certain instructors, there are study groups instead of adjuncts. Study groups are very similar to adjunct courses; students review and discuss the course material with the study group leader and work through practice problems.
Note: Due to the pandemic, all adjunct courses, peer tutoring, and study groups are held online; check the SLC website for details.
My Experience: I cannot recommend the SLC enough for anyone taking popular lower division courses. In order to do well in Berkeley courses, doing homework is not enough. Understanding the material at a deep enough level for you to teach is. The SLC helps transform new students into active learners through the philosophy of building the fundamentals. The instructors and peer tutors teach study skills and emphasize conceptual understanding, two areas that many new students are deficient in. They will not hold your hand. Instead, they will help you understand the underlying concepts you may be weak in and challenge you to solve the problems on your own. Their philosophy builds confidence, which is necessary for succeeding in the rigorous environment of Berkeley.
I was also a peer tutor; by learning how to teach, I learned how to be a more effective learner. I also developed better communication skills through tutoring students and preparing for teaching demos through the pedagogy course.
Links:
To learn more about the programs offered and to sign up, visit the SLC website: https://slc.berkeley.edu/
Course Office Hours/Homework Parties
Description: Each course has office hours where you can not only ask questions related to course material but also ask questions about research opportunities, graduate school, or industry. For larger courses, there are both instructor office hours and teaching assistant (TA) office hours. Instructor office hours are mostly for high-level questions about the course material, whereas TA office hours are often for homework help and exam preparation. In the computer science (CS) department, there are also homework/projects parties where students can collaborate with each other on homework/projects and get help from TAs. Many CS courses also have guerilla sections for exam preparation, which consist of a short review followed by many practice problems.
My Experience: Office hours, homework parties, and guerilla sections have helped me understand the material so much better than if I only studied by myself. When you discuss the material with another person, you can find out your misconceptions and bounce ideas off of one another. These resources also serve as a social outlet, a way to make classes of 1000+ students feel personal. Fun fact: I have met most of my close friends from Berkeley through these resources!
Links: See your course’s syllabus/website for specific details.
Peer Tutoring
Description: Though the SLC offers tutoring for many courses, it doesn’t currently offer tutoring for courses in the College of Engineering, such as computer science courses. Fortunately, there are many student groups on campus that provide peer tutoring free of charge. The Center for Access to Engineering (CAEE) has peer tutors that can help you with entry-level engineering courses, such as the introductory CS course, CS 61A. Computer Science Mentors (CSM) also offers small group tutoring for all lower division computer science and electrical engineering courses, in which a mentor will lead the group through discussion and practice problems on a worksheet. Many departments also have their own peer tutoring programs listed on their website, but some may not be free.
My Experience: As a student, mentor, and leader for CSM, I am proud to say that CSM has been the highlight of my Berkeley experience. CSM creates a family-like atmosphere in its small groups, which has proven to be very effective in making sure every student’s voice is heard. In large lectures and discussion sections, many students, including myself sometimes, are often hesitant to ask questions. CSM helps students break that silence. Groups are usually 5–6 people, which means that the instructor has time to interact with each student. CSM mentors are trained to be compassionate towards all students, no matter their previous experience or background. As a result, even the most quiet students participate, and everyone benefits from the conversation.
Links:
CAEE tutoring: https://engineering.berkeley.edu/students/academic-support/
Here, you can find links to the tutoring schedule as well as links to sign up for tutoring.
CSM tutoring: https://csmentors.berkeley.edu/#/students
Contains information on the process of signing up. Usually, you sign up around the second week of classes on CSM’s scheduler.
Example of department tutoring: https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/ugrad/current-students/tutoring
Health (Physical & Mental)
Tang Center
Description: Tang Center is UC Berkeley’s health care services center, providing comprehensive services in primary care, psychiatric counselling, optometry, and sexual wellness, among many others. You can schedule appointments online on the Tang Center portal or by calling (510) 642–2000. There are urgent care services available for immediate issues; appointments are drop-in. Tang Center has an on-site pharmacy, where you can refill your medications, and a laboratory for any lab testing. You can also get many common vaccinations and get tested for COVID-19 here. Birth control, STD testing, and pregnancy testing are available.
For counseling, there are two types of services: Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and Social Services. CAPS counseling is helpful for both psychological-social and academic-career concerns. If you are feeling stressed due to academic pressures, want advice on how to handle an interpersonal conflict, or are unsure of your long-term career plans, CAPS may be right for you. CAPS offers both urgent drop-in appointments for emergencies and scheduled appointments, and both group and individual services are offered. Due to the pandemic, counseling is conducted virtually through phone/video chat. Social Services counseling is useful for concerns related to substance abuse, eating disorders, or sexual violence.
Note: If you are struggling at any time emotionally, please do not hesitate to reach out to counseling for help. You are not alone.
My Experience: Tang Center appointments are just as difficult to get as academic advising appointments. I recommend booking Tang Center appointments well in advance (at least 3–4 days).
Links: (They explain the programs better than I can!)
Overview of programs: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical
Making an appointment: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical/appointments
Primary care: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical/primary-care
Pharmacy: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical/pharmacy
Urgent care: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical/urgent-care-tang-center-campus
Optometry: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical/optometry
Psychological counseling: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/counseling
Nutrition counseling: https://basicneeds.berkeley.edu/about
Link also contains information about the Basic Needs Center, which provides assistance with rent, financial aid, and food access.
Sexual wellness: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical/primary-care/sexual-health-care-tang
Food pantry: https://pantry.berkeley.edu/
Offers affordable access to a variety of healthy food.
Financial
Financial Aid Office & Work-Study
Description: Are you wondering how you can finance your education? Do you want to learn which loan can help you have the least amount of debt? Are you interested in applying for scholarships? The financial aid office can help you answer those questions. You can calculate your expected financial contributions online as well as the expected amount of financial aid you can receive. The staff at the office can help you compare different financial aid options, including grants, loans, scholarships and prizes, and work-study, to help you come up with the best personalized plan. The financial aid office also has helpful information on aid for study abroad, summer school, and international students.
My Experience: Though I have not interacted with the financial aid office much, I have heard from other students that appointments are scarce. Try to schedule an appointment at least a week in advance. (Notice the common thread? Schedule your appointments early! There’s 40,000+ students at Berkeley and probably only a handful of spots each week!)
Links:
To sign up for a virtual appointment, create a case on Cal Student Central. Instructions can be found here: https://financialaid.berkeley.edu/contact-us
You can also call the financial aid office at (510) 664–9181.
The financial aid office has useful informational articles online: https://financialaid.berkeley.edu/explore-types-aid
Work-study program: https://financialaid.berkeley.edu/work-study
Bears for Financial Success
Description: Bears for Financial Success is a group consisting of student financial counselors that can help you learn how to manage your finances. Their advisors can sit down with you to create a spending plan, discover options for saving money, and teach you how to build good credit. Personal finance is an understated part of college education; the financial choices you make today will set the ground for your finances in the long-term.
My Experience: I have found the articles on their website to be extremely helpful in planning out my own finances. They are short and easy to understand!
Links:
Schedule an appointment and read articles here: https://financialaid.berkeley.edu/bears-financial-success
Career Planning
Career Center
Description: Courses may teach you many important skills, but one skill they won’t teach you is how to develop your career. Through the Career Center, you can discover your career interests, develop networking and interviewing skills, and network with recruiters at career fairs and infosessions.
Each semester, the Career Center hosts numerous career fairs. These career fairs often are themed; there are STEM, Business, EECS, and Civil Engineering career fairs, among many more. At career fairs, you can meet with representatives from different companies, ranging from large companies to stealth startups, and ask questions about working at the company and the available opportunities. There are also smaller infosessions for a specific company, where speakers often do an informational talk about company culture, products, and opportunities, followed by Q&A.
At the Career Center, you can book a one-on-one appointment with a career counselor. You can discuss career paths, review your resume and cover letter, and devise a strategy to get your desired career through meeting with a counselor.
The Career Center holds workshops that are focused on topics relevant to both graduate/professional school and industry. During these workshops, career counselors discuss in depth tips and tricks for making yourself stand out from the candidate pool, including resume writing, interviewing, and finding extracurricular opportunities to help learn vital career skills.
My Experience: Having been to countless career fairs, I cannot stress enough the importance of attending them. Though you can easily find out basic information about companies online, you can only find out genuine, personal testimony about working at a company by talking with an employee. While it may be easy for your resume to be discarded in a pile of online applications, you’re more likely to move past the first round of screening by establishing those vital human connections. As with all things Berkeley, do try to get to the career fairs early. If you arrive on time, be prepared to see a line that snakes all the way down Bancroft Avenue (when career fairs are in-person again)!
Links:
View information about events and sign up here: https://career.berkeley.edu/
Clubs and Activities
Description: There are over 1000 registered student organizations at Berkeley. 1000. That is more than the size of a small town. That means there is bound to be a student organization that satisfies your interests, whether it be sports, visual and performing arts, or consulting (“Are you interested in consulting?” may be your catchphrase for freshman year!). If there isn’t a student organization that speaks to you, you can create your own. While there is a temptation to sign up for everything, please don’t. Try to get as much information as you can by attending infosessions and the first few meetings, but stick with the ones you are genuinely interested in.
My Experience: I have been primarily involved in two organizations: AFX Dance and Computer Science Mentors (CSM). AFX Dance is a hip-hop dance group that consists of multiple levels: training, project, and competitive. Training teams are for everyone: no experience is required. Project teams are for dancers of intermediate-advanced level who want to learn fundamentals better and prepare for competitive teams. The competitive team competes in prestigious dance competitions at the state and national level. I was drawn to AFX because of its friendly, accepting atmosphere: I had always wanted to learn how to dance but couldn’t join many teams due to a lack of experience. AFX teaches dance from the ground up: you learn the fundamentals through drills and workshops so you can apply them to your set pieces. Aside from learning fundamentals, each team learns a set of dances that they perform at the end-of-semester showcase where all AFX groups and other Berkeley Dance Community (BDC) groups perform. The time commitment is moderate but worth the time: for beginner teams, it is around 5 hours a week, and for project teams, it is 6 hours a week. The competitive team has varying hours depending on the competition schedule (usually around 8–9 hours a week). Practices are held during evening hours so they don’t interfere with classes. The team instructors host office hours where you can review the pieces and ask questions before casting, which is an evaluation where you perform the piece in a group.
Aside from dancing, AFX is also a social group! Members are split into families: the family heads organize activities, such as board game night and family dinner. Teams often host socials where members can get to know each other better: many teams like to get dinner or visit a local destination together. There are also inter-team and AFX organization wide activities, like scavenger hunts and guest workshops. Each team has a photoshoot (see my profile picture for an sample photo) that is themed.
I am very grateful for AFX Dance in improving my self-confidence. AFX Dance taught me that there is no need to be afraid of learning something new: everyone starts somewhere. I started from barely remembering the dance for my first casting video on a training team to dancing on a project team. AFX has been my reprieve through exhausting school days: I have been part of 8 teams (both summer and semester) and have met some of my best friends through the organization.
This semester, AFX Dance will be operating remotely through a workshop based program. Information can be found here.
Mentoring through CSM has allowed me to give back to the UC Berkeley community by inspiring students to boldly pursue their dreams in CS, no matter their prior experience. I started out as a junior mentor for CS 70 (discrete math and probability theory) in Spring 2019, and to be very honest with you, I was scared the first time I taught. I remember the whiteboard marker slipping out of my sweaty palms and falling to the floor as I tried to explain stable marriage. I remember feeling inadequate, feeling like my explanations paled in comparison to the lectures of Berkeley legends. However, as the semester continued on, I learned that the only perfect mentor is the mentor that cares. The mentor that gives helpful study advice. The mentor that actively encourages all questions from students. The mentor that listens to their students when they feel stressed or sad. CSM gave my time at Berkeley a purpose bigger than myself: it was a joy to see so my students grow into inquisitive learners. As a result, I felt motivated to stay in CSM for 3 semesters, taking on junior, associate, and senior mentor roles. Like AFX, CSM has a similar “family” structure, where course coordinators oversee multiple families. Each junior mentor is part of a family, led by 2 senior mentors. The senior mentors lead the junior mentors in a task force, which is responsible for supporting the course or CSM in some way (review sessions, finances, video walkthroughs). The senior mentors also create fun social events: my family got shaved ice at U:Dessert Story and played board games! The best part about CSM is that the entire organization feels like a family. Unlike many other club orientations I’ve been to, CSM orientation feels welcoming: people bond through eating cheap pizza and creating skits, and inclusiveness is heavily emphasized.
Note: CSM will be holding all sections and events remotely this semester.
Links:
Umbrella list for all student organizations: https://www.berkeley.edu/campus-life/student-organizations
Includes links to information on student government, Greek life, sports, performing arts groups, volunteering, and so many more.
Directory for all clubs: https://callink.berkeley.edu/Organizations
Within this directory, you can search for clubs by category (i.e. dance groups, professional clubs). You can read a description of the club and get contact information, such as the club’s website.
AFX Dance: https://www.facebook.com/AFXdance/
CSM: https://csmentors.berkeley.edu/#/
Next week, I will be discussing some environmental and cultural student resources!
Update: If you are ever confused about which resources to use, Connect@Cal can help you make that decision! You can make a request through their website stating the concerns you have, and their database will suggest different campus resources that may help you out. Shout out to the Connect@Cal team- please check them out!