Small Group Discussions

Rebekah Flores, a junior in Berkeley Connect Social Welfare, created this post to capture all the great advice students shared with each other at a recent Berkeley Connect session:

Berkeley Connect is a donor-supported program. To...Read more about Berkeley Connect students give each other wise advice

Imagine that you and a small group of conservationists must decide which life forms are most important to save from the brink of extinction. It’s a horrible task to be given; the extinction of any living thing is a tragedy and could cause immense damage. The web of biodiversity that connects...Read more about Environmental Conservation: How to Make the Right Decisions

Citations are the bane of many a student, absolutely critical yet seemingly so hard to master. In a recent Berkeley Connect in History discussion, mentor and recent History PhD-recipient Camilo Lund-Montano helped students understand the tricky world of citing using the Chicago Manual of Style...Read more about How to Cite the FBI, and Other Challenges for the Historian

Ever received a comment on something you wrote that really helped you? What about something that really didn’t help or just confused the heck out of you? We’ve all gotten feedback on our work, whether in school or in the workplace. What we make of that feedback can mean everything for...Read more about The Good, the Bad, and the Unhelpful: Using Feedback to Grow as a Writer

Ethics is the study of right and wrong and as such, it means different things to different people. In a recent small group meeting for Berkeley Connect in Philosophy, some of those differences were discussed and debated. Berkeley Connect mentor Erica Klempner, who recently received her PhD in...Read more about Ethical Dilemmas: What is the Right Thing to Do?

The ways that we listen and engage with music have changed drastically over the past 150 years. Starting with the invention of the phonograph in the late 1800s, sound systems have evolved at lightning speed to match musician and consumer demands. That brings us to the central question recently...Read more about Talking about Music, Technology, and Childish Gambino

Sometimes, life throws a curveball and sends you barrelling along a trajectory you didn’t expect. It can be difficult to maneuver these experiences. However, it’s something we all face, whether it’s entering university, moving to a new city, or getting a new job. In a recent Berkeley Connect...Read more about Ch-ch-changes, and how to manage them

Moral guidelines can become difficult to determine when exploring new frontiers of science and technology. When pursuing scientific discovery, how do we know when we’ve gone too far? These challenges were on display when graduate student Amanda Mok led Berkeley Connect Computational Biology...Read more about The Line Between Innovation and Immorality

It’s midterm season. You know what this means –– studying, trying to focus, and drinking gallons of coffee. Self-care is especially imperative during the general stress of midterm season.

There are some common problems that many students run into during this period. However, there are...Read more about How to Have a Life During Crunch Time

Entering a classroom in Morrison Hall, Berkeley Connect Music students were greeted with an array of sensory pleasures: the speakers played “Footprints” by Wayne Shorter and the strong smell of garlic and Chinese takeout pervaded the room. Once the students had settled down, graduate mentor...Read more about Notes on Changing the Campus Culture

“What is your dream job? What job are you applying for? Do they match?” As the Spring semester nears its end and employers begin recruitment for internships and part-time jobs, many undergraduates are thrown into the professional world unsure exactly how to pursue their dreams or whether they...Read more about Preparing for professionalism with ESPM

Students at Berkeley care. We care about our environment, we care about social issues—and we care about academics. With midterm season well underway, you don’t have to travel far on campus to see students frantically studying or comparing the number of hours they slept the night before....Read more about Studying, Stress, and Self-Care

Exploring cities, whether as a resident or as a traveler, is an architect’s bread and butter. To an architect, wandering the city is akin to visiting a living museum where buildings are the exhibits and the people, cars, and greenery bring those exhibits to life. Last week, Berkeley Connect...Read more about Seeing Like an Architect

Students at UC Berkeley know that a history of our university would be woefully incomplete if it didn’t mention Cal students’ longstanding engagement with issues of social justice. We are reminded of past victories every time we refuel at the Free Speech Movement café. Ongoing protests and open...Read more about Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom

“Hate. It’s a strong word,” began Berkeley Connect Music mentor Andrew Ly. He paused to wait for the chattering to die down but he didn’t need to—the students in the classroom were already curious to see where Andrew’s provocative opening might lead.

A recent Berkeley Connect in Music...Read more about The Music We Hate

For the non-historians out there, the past is often taken for granted. We know what we learned in high school and we have the “facts” to back it up—the atomic bomb touched the world in 1945, humans touched the moon in 1969. But who decides what qualifies as history? How do primary and secondary...Read more about What Shapes History

What draws an individual to study a particular field? Or even dedicate their entire career to it? At a recent Berkeley Connect ESPM section, Professor Alastair Iles visited the class to discuss his career in environmental science with the students. Professor Iles is hearing-impaired, so he...Read more about Environmental Research, Environmental Action

Berkeley is known for its rich history of student activism. Since the Free Speech Movement that UC Berkeley students instigated back in the 1960s, the protest culture has remained alive and well here on campus. This was the subject of a recent Berkeley Connect Social Welfare discussion.

...Read more about Student Perspectives on Black Lives Matter