The Climb in UC Berkeley

I was in still in high school when I first set foot in UC Berkeley, and I still remember feeling a certain sense of destiny as I looked upon its proud Sather Tower. My brother (who was a student in UC Berkeley at the time) had pointed to the tower and said to me, "One day, you will come to UC Berkeley." Now, my brother had said this to me as an encouragement, but if only he had known how true his words would be! Although I had taken an unexpected path, I had nevertheless arrived at UC Berkeley.

Upon my arrival, I found myself needing some time to adjust to Berkeley. Many of UC Berkeley's defining characteristics stood in contrast to those of UCSB: its Greco-Roman style architecture (whereas UCSB's buildings were more modern in design), its solemn atmosphere, and constant political activity. The campus was also hilly, rendering bikes rather useless. I did laugh at the thought of those poor Math and CS students having to climb to the very top of the hill to get to class, though (but then I cried a little, because I remembered I'm a Math/Stats major with a heavy interest in CS. Talk about a double whammy, right?).

Anyway, UC Berkeley was truly a place where I could spread my wings. I enrolled in many CS courses, such as:

1. CS 10 - The Beauty and Joy of Computing
2. CS 61A - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
3. CS 61B - Data Structures
4. CS 170 - Efficient Algorithms and Intractable Problems
5. CS 188 - Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
6. CS 195 - Social Implications of Computing

I was delighted by the fact that UC Berkeley courses were able to delve into much greater depth than those of UCSB (due to the fact that UC Berkeley runs on a semester system instead of a quarter system as UCSB does). The courses were challenging and piled on many demanding projects on top of homework, so time management and studying ahead was crucial to stay on top of the materials. Something that I really enjoyed about the Computer Science courses was that we had to work in groups for most of our projects and therefore we could bounce our ideas off of each other. Some of the group meetings we held would go late into the night, so we would simply buy pizza and eat while working/chatting together.

The journey wasn't all smooth-sailing, though. The biggest trouble that I had was that, when I transferred, I received only partial credit for the courses I took in UCSB since UCSB worked under the quarter system while UC Berkeley was under the semester system. This usually isn't an issue for community college transfers, since the transfer process between community colleges and UC's has been worked out in great detail. For UC inter-campus transfers, however, the details get a little fuzzy. If I remember correctly, I ended up getting 2.66 units out of 4 units for the courses I took in UCSB (UC Berkeley courses usually come in 4 course unit sizes), so I ended up having to retake/make up several courses to fill in the 1.33 unit gaps in my major requirement courses. It was a mess; the whole process in which the administrators were trying to decide which course materials I was missing felt rather arbitrary since different teachers teach slightly varied topics (according to whichever topics they feel are vital to the subject). Not only that, the depth to which the professor teaches the material also varies between professors (and between year to year sometimes, even for the same professor!).

Anyway, I decided to stay an extra semester in UC Berkeley in order to 1) make up for the semester I used to retake several UCSB courses and 2) open up my schedule so I can take CS courses while I also complete my Applied Mathematics major requirements and the university's requirements. I'm glad I decided to take the additional time, since I would not have been able to pursue my interests in Computer Science otherwise.

I graduated from UC Berkeley on December of 2017. After four and a half years, I had finally completed my undergraduate education and discovered a new passion along the way. I'm grateful that great institutions such as UCSB and UC Berkeley saw some potential in me and gave me a place in their campus. I left both UCSB and UC Berkeley with lasting memories and friendships, and I will forever be both a proud Gaucho and Golden Bear! The journey ahead will always be uncertain, but that uncertainty harkens back to my initial feelings during the start of my adventure in UCSB. I look forward to more great adventures in the future!