Berkeley Connect

Berkeley Connecters:

The Berkeley Connect motto is “you belong here.” You belong in Berkeley Connect, and you belong at UC Berkeley. This is your university, and we are here to help you make the most out of your time here.

We are grateful to have...Read more about How We Create a Sense of Belonging–Together

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

Professor Katherine Snyder, faculty director of Berkeley Connect in English, came up with the idea of scavenger hunts as a fun way for students to explore resources available to them on and around campus. Her brainstorm was a huge hit!

Fabiola Vazquez (pictured...Read more about Students reveal their favorite Berkeley Connect moments

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

Ever been in this situation? You have an opinion or an idea and you just know you’re right. You set out to prove it, and all the facts you line up seem to prove your side of the story. This is confirmation bias– the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or...Read more about From Discovery to Disappointment: A Learning Experience in Physics Research

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

The world is a confusing place and we humans struggle to parse all the information thrown at us on a daily basis. The one thing we can rely on through all our struggles is logic and problem-solving skills, right? Not so fast! In a recent Berkeley Connect Math discussion, Berkeley Connect Mentor...Read more about Hotels, Social Media, and Logic: How Math Paradoxes Disrupt our World

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?

Recently, the Bancroft Library here on the Cal campus held an open day for multiple Berkeley Connect programs to view some of the amazing items in the library’s collection that can’t be checked out by anyone. Students had the opportunity to examine volumes by some of the most influential...Read more about Exploring the Treasures of the Bancroft Library

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

We invited students participating in Berkeley Connect in Spring 2019 to enter our Student Voice Contest and share with us a memorable experience they had in Berkeley Connect. The winning entry below was written by Michelle Zhou, a first-year Psychology student...Read more about My Favorite Berkeley Connect Moment: Sweet Time in the Garden

We invited students participating in Berkeley Connect in Spring 2019 to enter our Student Voice Contest and share with us a memorable experience they had in Berkeley Connect. The winning entry below was written by Madelyn Ahr, a senior majoring in Media Studies...Read more about My Favorite Berkeley Connect Moment: Connecting Across Political Differences

We invited students participating in Berkeley Connect in Spring 2019 to enter our Student Voice Contest and share with us a memorable experience they had in Berkeley Connect. The winning entry below was written by Arelli Adams, a first-year Media Studies student...Read more about My Favorite Berkeley Connect Moment: Professors Procrastinate Too!

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

Do you think of learning as an activity primarily done indoors, in a generic classroom with uncomfortable chairs? A recent Berkeley Connect Social Welfare field trip shattered that stereotype. Students got a breath of fresh air as they walked around the Berkeley Botanical Garden in the hills...Read more about An Outdoor Education

Physicists get to puzzle over the great mysteries of the universe. But they were not born solving equations and pondering quantum mechanics. To get where they are today, professional physicists had to fit the pieces together in their own lives. Recently, a distinguished panel explained to...Read more about A Career in Physics: Putting the Pieces Together

It’s that time of the year. What’s your internship for this summer? Have you started looking? Already landed one? Scared that you haven’t even begun to think about it? Last week, Berkeley Connect in Math hosted a panel on summer internships to help demystify the process. The featured speakers...Read more about To Be or Not to Be (an Intern)

It’s another day of school, so you’re reading. And reading. And reading. Yet, nothing seems to be getting through your head. Retaining information can be a difficult endeavor in any field. It’s all too easy to read copious amounts of texts without actually having the information go to your...Read more about Students’ Favorite Reading and Study Tips

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