2 posts tagged “berkeley”

Alex wrote a bit about the UC Berkeley campus at night which prompted me to think about my campus experience so far and the drive to get in to Berkeley for so many reasons, one of them being the campus. I decided to make an actual post after I filled the comment form. (*cough*voxneedstrackbacks*cough*)

Like a lot of people, I spent a lot of time on various college campuses a while back and not a single one of them stood out to me. This really frustrated my mother when she'd ask me what I thought of so-and-so college and I would say "eh, it was OK." I wasn't just being a typical teenager (in this case), nothing special was jumping out at me with a reason to be in a particular location. At the end of that process I just assumed that I wasn't supposed to feel any comfort with my campus so I folded in a couple other items and choose one that I had visited that looked the "best." Shortly thereafter, I left. Less than a year later, I was living across from Stanford and, while I had no connection to Stanford other than the fact that I lived close by, I'd visit for events and just to wander around the campus. The fact that this campus was incredibly beautiful left me in awe but didn't really change my non-plussed attitude about the campus in general. That leads me to a couple months ago when I visited Berkeley for the first time to meet a counselor and discuss the transfer process. The campus at Berkeley is so incredibly amazing, there are barely any words I can use to describe it. Most notably, there was a sense of welcoming at Berkeley that I never felt at any other campus. Finally finding a place that feels right is half my reason for wanting to be there. I'm really psyched to take even a single course there this summer.

I finally signed up for this summer course at Berkeley. Summer courses are easy enough to sign up for, I'm a student at CCSF at the moment so I'm eligible as a visiting student to take a class there during the 7-week summer sessions. It's a hard-core schedule, most of my Monday and Wednesday during the day is gone and mornings on Tuesdays and Thursdays are gone as well. My work schedule will reflow around those to make full 9.30am-10pm Mondays and Wednesdays and 9.30am-7pm Tuesdays and Thursdays or so. It's some long hours but I do 8.15am-10pm Mondays and Wednesdays already with a short break in the middle and I'm not tired on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The occasion is nothing special, anyone can take a summer course at Berkeley if you're taking classes elsewhere. I'll be doing the Berkeley acceptance thing next winter though.

I have never, ever been excited by school so it baffles me that I'm so excited to finally be taking a serious, interesting course at Berkeley this summer. Okay, I'm not so baffled but at least excited (for being excited). I've been diving into any physics I can find head-first for the better part of the last year and I'm not bored yet. A little astonished at how much stuff I have yet to learn, but not bored.

I was so incredibly anti-school when I left three (!!!) years ago. I still maintain that school is broken for people with similar learning patterns to myself but I've found that it's still completely possible for me to learn in this kind of environment, I just have to make it work for me by doing a little bit of extra research and thinking beyond whatever the class explains. I did a lot of research on things I knew absolutely nothing about when I spent about 6 months playing with electronics and robots a while back and I think that's really been the key for understanding that even though a bad class (or any class with even moderate time restraints) will give you the basics, it takes more effort to really understand the meaning of what's going on beyond memorizing the formulas for a good grade. There's no way I can really do well in a class without understanding every detail surrounding a concept and I staunchly refuse to memorize anything because that's a broken way to learn anything. The information is out there, you just have to poke around for it. Thanks, internets.