ESS 602: Summer preparation

Laura Vogt:
Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m your host, Laura Vogt, the associate director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Engineering. I know that many students are thinking at this point, “What can I do this summer to be the most prepared I can be for college to start in August?” And even if you’re not thinking that, maybe you should be. Well to answer and give some tips, we have Tiffany Reardon from Engineering Student Services. Hi, Tiffany. Welcome to the podcast.

Tiffany Reardon:
Hi Laura. Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

Laura Vogt:
Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us about your role at Berkeley Engineering.

Tiffany Reardon:
All right. So I work in Engineering Student Services and I am part of the Programs Team. So the Engineering Student Services Programs Team. We’re here to really support students in their academic endeavors, in their professional development endeavors. I specifically run a few programs, PREP and T-PREP are the biggest programs that I run. And some of you listening may be participating in PREP and T-PREP this summer. We’re looking forward to having you. If not, I’ll be able to work with you in the fall and beyond, as I do host a number of workshops and I teach a few seminars.

Laura Vogt:
Thank you again for being here today. So let’s start with the big question of overall, what should students, our first year and our transfer students, be doing this summer to get ready to be Berkeley engineers?

Tiffany Reardon:
All right. Well, I’ve been getting a lot of students that have been emailing me with that same question. I know a lot of you are very eager, probably very eager. Some of you might even be considering taking classes this summer. Some of you are maybe thinking how can you get started as soon as possible. Many of you are very motivated and that is amazing. And that’s awesome. And that’s why you’re here. However, I’m going to tell you to do something that might be a little bit different, and that is step back for a moment. Step back for a moment and think about your overall plan for the fall and setting yourself up for success.

Tiffany Reardon:
And the way that I believe that what you can do to get ready for the fall semester would be really to focus on four key areas. One is academic, so academic preparation. And we’ll talk a little bit about that, I’m sure, more in depth. Two is social. So social, things that you maybe want to do at Berkeley while you’re at Berkeley, maybe there’s clubs, maybe there’s things you’re already involved in that you’d like to continue that have nothing to do with engineering. So social. Three is professional development. You probably have a dream job in mind and even if you don’t have a dream job in mind, you can kind of explore things that might be of interest to you. And lastly, and very importantly, is who your support system will be at Berkeley. So those four things, academic, social, professional development, and support, that’s the best way that you can prepare for a successful transition to Berkeley.

Laura Vogt:
So if we start with academic, one of the things that I think that some of the students might want to refresh their skills in their math, physics or chemistry. What’s the best way that they can do that?

Tiffany Reardon:
Okay. That’s a wonderful question. So for students that are really, maybe it’s been a while since you took a math class, maybe you took an AP class last fall. If you’re a community college transfer student, maybe it’s been a while since you’ve taken your math courses. You can do a lot of things online. You don’t necessarily have to take a class. I’ve actually had some students tell me that they’re going to enroll in community college classes specifically to brush up. I wouldn’t do that. You don’t need to do that. There’s plenty of resources online. If you’re an incoming freshman, you might actually enroll in the pre-calculus essentials course that the math department hosts. You can do it for credit or you can do it for no credit. And these are self-guided things that you can do. Everything’s online.

Tiffany Reardon:
You don’t have to be in person. So if if you’re out of the country, if you’re out of the state, if you’re down in SoCal, which I know many of you are because we have a lot of SoCal folks this year, you can do that. You can do that remotely. That’s specifically for math. If you’re thinking about chemistry or physics, certainly there are a lot of resources online and we’ll be putting links to these resources. But the Khan Academy, Khan Academy has some fantastic courses that you can do at your own self pace. But you don’t have to enroll in a course. And I think that all of you know, again, all of you are lifelong learners, right? You are all very academically minded, but you don’t always have to enroll in a course to get the content and to get your objective, which is to brush up on your skills.

Laura Vogt:
And I know for some of the courses, especially engineering courses, isn’t there like online test banks or something that students can take a look at?

Tiffany Reardon:
Yeah. So there are a number of engineering honor societies, which are fantastic resources for a number of reasons. But one of which is the test banks. So they have copies of old exams. So you can kind of look at those old exams and give yourself kind of a test and see if it looks familiar or if it doesn’t. Now, if it doesn’t look familiar, if you’re thinking, “Oh my goodness, this doesn’t look, I’ve never seen this in my life.” It’s fine. You’re just looking at the test. So that’s where you can maybe look at some of the resources available. So for example, if it’s an engineering class and you haven’t had that level of physics yet, that’s completely okay because at least now you know. Very, very importantly what you’ll be doing, if you’re not already doing it now, is you’ll be doing the golden bear advising.

Tiffany Reardon:
So the golden bear advising piece is very important because that’s how you know what you’re going to be taking in the fall semester. I’ve had so many students email me saying, “I have my classes planned for the fall. This is what I’m going to take.” Usually it’s a very ambitious roster of classes. And I usually say, “Okay, let’s cut that in half because it’s a lot.” But really looking at the time commitments and really looking at the concepts, you can do that online. You can do that online. Everything’s there online. We’ll post some links for you. But really just kind of take a step back. And the academic piece is indeed, it’s very, very important, but is not the only thing. So I just want to emphasize that’s not the only thing. And again, if you encounter, maybe you go to a test bank and nothing looks familiar, guess what? You’re here to learn and we’re here to teach you. So don’t feel bad if it doesn’t come naturally.

Laura Vogt:
One of the things when you’re talking about, that they come in with list of courses that they want to take, that there’s seven or eight courses on it. I think some of that, especially for our first year students, comes from that’s how many you were taking in high school. You were taking seven to eight classes a day.

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely. And, I mean, our transfer students, I know a lot of transfer students that have to attend three different schools just to get the courses. So aside from taking a bunch of classes, you’re also commuting. So all of you tend to be, I’m not going to say overachievers, but very goal oriented, let’s say. But I think that kind of getting out of that, once a student sees their schedule and it’s very likely that your ESS advisor will recommend two technical courses your first semester, when you see that you might be thinking, “That’s not a lot.” I guarantee you, I guarantee you, you will not be bored because think about it, you have your lecture, you have your lab if there’s a lab, and you have the discussion section. And then of course you have to study for these classes. So the ESS advisors, they’ve been doing this a while, they know. I’ve been working with students a while. So don’t worry. You’re not going to be bored. I can guarantee you that.

Laura Vogt:
There’s a reason why 12 units is the minimum.

Tiffany Reardon:
Yes, absolutely.

Laura Vogt:
And is there going to be a difference with how students were graded or evaluated in high school and community college versus Cal?

Tiffany Reardon:
Definitely. One of the things that students find when they come to Berkeley and they encounter some of the coursework, is we don’t teach to the test. So what I mean by that is sometimes you will take a class and you will be given information and you’ll be tested on that information. At Berkeley, it’s a little bit different. At Berkeley, you’ll get some of the information, but really what you’re tested on is how you problem solve as engineers. So as engineers, that’s a very useful skill. You’ve probably heard about some of those crazy technical interview questions that are notorious out there. You probably heard about them on Reddit, how they ask these what seemingly are impossible questions. How many, I don’t know, kitchen sinks are there in Oakland? How many kitchen sinks are there in Oakland?

Tiffany Reardon:
So the answer isn’t how many kitchen sinks are there in Oakland, the answer is how do you find out. Walk me through the steps of how many kitchen sinks there are in Oakland. So as a Berkeley engineer, that’s what you’re being trained to do. And you’re being trained to think like an engineer. So whether you’re a future software engineer that’s doing testing, whether you’re a future civil engineer and you’re designing bridges, it’s all about problem solving. So we don’t teach to the test because teaching to the test is simply giving you the information and then you kind of recite it back. It’s a deeper level of learning and it’s different. It’s just different than what a lot of students have encountered in the past. And it takes some getting used to, which is why we’re really, really hoping that you take a schedule that really will contribute to your success rather than just overloading a bunch of classes. And then you not getting as much out of it.

Laura Vogt:
And I know, one of the things that I really like is once a student has registered and they know what their schedule’s going to be, they can actually learn more about who the faculty are ahead of time, right?

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely. Once you have your schedule, that’s an excellent point, I would look at the faculty’s webpages. I would look at the faculty’s webpages, I would look at their, if they have a research lab, I would look at some of the things they’ve done, and I would just look and see who they are as a person. Many of our faculty have personal webpages. That’s helpful because one, you can kind of maybe see what the expectations in the class will be. And two, you want to utilize office hours. And so the more you get to know about the faculty, I know for some students, the thought of going to a Berkeley professor’s office hour, it just seems kind of scary and intimidating. But I guarantee you not enough students utilize office hours because they might feel intimidated or scared, or they believe that if they utilize office hours, that the professor’s going to think that they’re struggling.

Tiffany Reardon:
So all students should go to office hours, not just if you’re struggling, you should go because at some point you probably will want a letter of recommendation, right? If you don’t go to office hours, how can you get that letter of recommendation? So getting to know them, maybe find out where they went to college. Maybe you have some connection with them. Maybe you are from the same hometown. Maybe they played an instrument. Maybe you play an instrument. These are people too. So just kind of humanizing that I think is really kind of takes away that intimidation factor.

Laura Vogt:
Let’s talk about the social aspect of what the students have going on. I know a lot of that has to do with student orgs and competition teams. One of the cool things about Berkeley, or Berkeley Engineering has over 70 student organizations that are engineering focused, but the campus as a whole has something over like 2000, right?

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely. Just in the college alone, I think we have about four robotics clubs. So if you’re interested in robotics, we got you, we have plenty of robotics clubs. But in terms of the social aspects, this is really important because you can join clubs. You can join clubs, you can join competition teams, but you can also do things that are outside of engineering. So for example, our most recent commencement speaker for undergrad commencement was a theater guy. So he did theater and mechanical engineering. Theater is something he was very passionate about something he loved. And so he remained involved in that. Now in his situation, he double majored in that. You don’t necessarily have to do that. But if there’s something that you’re really interested in doing, maybe you’re interested in martial arts, maybe you play an instrument, maybe you want to join the mariachi band. I’ve had some students in the mariachi band. Maybe you’re interested in a certain video game, or maybe you’re interested in a certain genre of music.

Laura Vogt:
There’s a lot of dance out there.

Tiffany Reardon:
There’s a lot of dance. There’s a ton of dance. Those are important for a number of reasons, because one, you get to continue doing things that you enjoy and you’re good at. And two, those stressful times during the semester, that just kind of gives you a break. And the research shows that if you take breaks, you will be more productive. And so by doing that, by taking a break and by doing things that you enjoy, you’ll be overall a better student. You’ll be overall, have more resources. You’ll get to know more people and you’ll have better experiences. So that social piece, make sure that as you plan your schedules, that you have something in there in that social piece.

Laura Vogt:
And is it true to say that some of the social aspect is creating a study team or study group?

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely. So not only will you meet and make friends, but also chances are they’re probably taking some of the same courses that you are taking or have taken some of the same courses that you’re taking. And if they haven’t, then surely they know someone who has. So engineers, I know you are all about efficiency, and having a social network of people, that is probably one of the most efficient things you can do. In addition, when students struggle and I meet with students sometimes who have a rough semester, probably nine times out of 10, I will ask them, “Who do you study with?” And they will say, “By myself.” You do not want to study by yourself. First of all, you’re an engineer. You have to work with people. Second of all, if you get stuck on a problem and you’re studying by yourself, then you’re stuck on a problem. So really surround yourself with people, not only socially, but also study wise. And like I said, one of the best ways to do that is to have friends and people that have similar interests than you.

Laura Vogt:
I remember a student once talking about, they had gotten a job at Boeing and they were really worried about being on a project that they didn’t necessarily know everything about. And we were like, Exactly, but you’re going to be on a team. This is part of the learning process. We want you to grow. And you’re not the only person that’s going to be working on this element of a Boeing project.”

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely. If you’re doing an internship, they don’t expect you, it’s an internship, right? They don’t expect you to know everything. They’re hiring you because of the aptitude. Can you help? Can you acquire this information? What are you capable of? Not what you’ve already done, not what you’ve, they don’t expect you to go in there and know everything. If anything, they’ve probably assembled the team based on what you bring to the table and then what other people bring to the table. So the same thing with social. And really learning to work with people is a huge skill. So that’s a skill that is much needed, whether it’s in a research lab, whether it’s in an internship or just life in general. You have to learn to work with people. And so why not have fun doing it?

Laura Vogt:
All right. So the third point that you had to think about this summer is professional development. And I know that part of that has to be putting together a resume or building a LinkedIn profile. So what are your tips for both of those?

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely. So Berkeley’s very, let’s say our engineers are very sought after. If our industry partners, if we let them, they would be contacting you now. They are chomping at the bit to recruit you for internships for next summer. I guarantee you. In fact, we actually have a career conference that starts, I think it’s the Saturday before the semester begins. That’s how eager they are. We have a number of career fairs. We have the engineering career fair, the internship fair, the STEM career fair, there’s the major specific ones, the ASCE career fair, the mechanical, the civil, there’s tons of career fairs hosted by the career center and by your individual departments.

Tiffany Reardon:
What can you do to be prepared? One, your resume. There’s a lot of beautiful templates. The career center has done an amazing job of putting together some really nice templates. So whether you’re a first year incoming fresh or a transfer student, there are some great templates that the career center has. And you can kind of plug in your information. Now you might be saying, “I don’t have anything to put on my resume.” Not true at all. Absolutely not true. I guarantee you that’s not true. And why do I guarantee you that’s not true? Because all of you filled out the UC common application. And if you look at the UC common application, it’s really kind of set up like a resume,. You have your work experience, you have your honors and awards, you have your leadership experience. You have all of that experience that you can take from that application and just put it in the resume format.

Tiffany Reardon:
Now, a lot of students will say, “Yeah, but I haven’t had any internships related to my major.” Okay, great. Not a problem. What you do have, if you’ve worked, you have skills that you bring with you. So if you have, let’s say you’re a transfer student. Maybe you were in the military. Put that down. Maybe you worked at McDonald’s while you were in high school. Beautiful. Put that down. I’ve had a number of students that worked at McDonald’s. Let me tell you, that is a hard job. I know that’s a hard job because you have to one, deal in a high, fast paced environment, you have to work with people, and you have safety procedures. So those three things sound fantastic as a future engineering intern. So plug those in and put those in your essays, put those in your resumes, because if you don’t, it’s a missed opportunity. And I guarantee you that the experiences that you’ve had thus far, even if they are not specific to engineering, they are certainly things that you bring to the table that are going to make you a wonderful candidate.

Tiffany Reardon:
Your LinkedIn profile, we actually have workshops in the fall, specifically on doing your LinkedIns. If you’re going to be in PREP and T-PREP, you’ll be working on your LinkedIns, in addition, your resume, the templates that they have at the career center. But you can do all of that stuff on your own now, even before the semester starts. Profile picture, right? We all have that one friend who takes really nice pictures. And some of the new smartphones have really fantastic cameras. So have a friend take a headshot. A headshot of you, maybe a picture that you like that looks professional and put that on your LinkedIn. And don’t forget to put that you are a Berkeley engineer. I’m so surprised at how many times students fail to put that, but it’s official. You’re a Berkeley engineer. So put that down in your LinkedIn and add me. I am on LinkedIn and I use it all the time. And my contacts are your contacts. And so that’s a great way to crowdsource your success.

Laura Vogt:
And lastly, let’s talk about a support system. What can we do over the summer to start building those or start getting ready for having those support systems?

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely. So your support system. So oftentimes students don’t realize that they already have this support system. So if you think about it, your ESS advisor, we use the term advisor a lot. I know in community college and in high school, we call them counselors, but we call them advisors here in the college. So your ESS advisor is a huge support system. Their job is to help you graduate. So, that’s what they’re there for. They’re there to help you. If you have questions about anything related to your academic plan, AP classes, classes that you’re not sure transfer over. If you want to do study abroad, anything, they’re there to support you. But they can’t do that unless you reach out to them. So make sure that you check in with them. It’s not like the dentist office. The dentist office calls you and says, “Hey, it’s time for your cleaning.” They don’t do that.

Tiffany Reardon:
So you need to be proactive because as a semester goes on, you might be saying, “Okay, I’m going to wait for an email from my ESS advisor.” No, you have to take that initiative. They do have drop in hours. I believe it’s Wednesdays. But aside from the drop in hours, make an appointment. Make appointments in advance, just check in, “Hey, I want to let you know how I’m doing. I have some questions.” That’s one support system. Secondly, if you’re an EOP, the EOP program, if you’ve gotten an email to apply to that, that’s a phenomenal resource as well. You should take advantage of that. The EOP advisors, they do a holistic kind of advising approach. And again, they’re there to support you. So that’s a resource you can take advantage of. If you’re any of the majors, for example, the M.E.T program. The M.E.T program, in addition to your ESS advisors, you actually have the folks in the business school. You have the folks, the M.E.T leadership. Chris and Don, they’re there to support you. So that’s your support system. But again, you have to reach out and you have to take that initiative.

Tiffany Reardon:
In addition, mentoring programs, there are a number of mentoring programs that the college hosts, there are a number of mentoring programs that the department hosts. Again, you have to utilize those resources, all of you, unless you’re engineering undeclared, all of you have a department that you’re affiliated with. And all of you will have a advisor in that department, the person that you’ll get emails from and newsletters from. That person, again, that person is there to support you. You have us, the Programs Team, myself, Louis, Nicole, Marvin, we’re here to support you, ESS Programs Team. In addition, if you feel that you want to kind of just talk to somebody and you’re feeling a bit stressed out, there’s counseling and psychological services. But again, your support system, knowing who your support system is one thing, but you need to utilize that support system. So knowing who they are is a first step, and you can take this summer to get to know who they are. And then once fall rolls around, utilize them because it doesn’t really help if you don’t utilize us. And we’re not going to say, “Oh, this person’s bothering me.” That’s why we’re here. We’re here to serve you and we’re here to support you.

Tiffany Reardon:
In addition to kind of the academic, social, professional, and support. Lastly, I think that you also want to be mindful of the time commitment and time management and expectations that’ll happen. So sometimes students are very ambitious and will say, “I’m going to go home every weekend. I’m going to go home every weekend and see my family.” No, you’re not. I mean, you’re not. You’re not, it’s not going to happen. That’s okay. That’s really okay. Sometimes students will say, “Oh yeah, I’m working a part-time job and I’m going to continue in the semester.” No, you’re not. So you want to be clear about those expectations. And I have said this before and I will say it again, under commit and over deliver. So if you’re going home every single weekend, or if you are working a part-time job every single weekend, that’s taking away from the academic, social, professional development and support that you have at Berkeley.

Tiffany Reardon:
So look at your calendar. We have Thanksgiving, we have the long weekends. So there are times when you can perhaps go home during the semester if you live in the state or if it’s realistic. But really make sure that you are setting yourself up for success and that you are not committing, I mean, I’ve had students that take on a lot of family responsibilities, but realistically, if you’re taking on a lot of family responsibilities and sometimes they do that because they say, “Well, I want to help my family out.” Let me tell you, by getting an engineering degree and by setting yourself up for success, you are setting yourself and your family up for success. So in the long run, you will be helping even more than you could ever imagine by simply going back home every weekend.

Tiffany Reardon:
It’s something that a lot of students struggle with and I’ve had many, many students that do that and try to have these parallel lives if you will. No, no, no. Your commitment right now is to be a Berkeley engineering student. That is your job to be a Berkeley engineering student. For those of you are commuting, and I know we have some students that are probably going to be commuting, set yourself up for success in that respect as well. There are other students that are commuting. There are other students that are commuting. Maybe you can carpool with them. There’s ways to save money as commuting as well. So, really setting yourself up for success on that note. And if you’re a commuter student, let us know, let your ESS advisor know. We can probably point you to some resources that would be helpful on that front. And I know EOP has resources available as well.

Tiffany Reardon:
And we’re back in person. We’re back in person. This is really exciting. I mean, I know we’ve been back in person for a year now, but it was kind of a hybrid approach. 2022, we are in full 100% in person. So come see us. Come see us. We’d love to see you. And we’re really excited about welcoming this incoming class. I’ve looked at a lot of your applications and we have some phenomenal folks that are coming and you have some great classmates and future colleagues. So, welcome to Berkeley.

Laura Vogt:
I think one of the things when you’re talking about families and time commitments is maybe over the summer, you can start getting used to doing some kind of time management system, whether it’s using your BCAL through Berkeley, which all the students now have access to, and start building daily schedules of, you can say, if you’re going for a walk for an hour, or you could put in times that you’re going to be eating and just get into that habit of creating a calendar.

Tiffany Reardon:
Absolutely, 100%. I do that all the time. My life literally, I have alarms constantly. You always see me with my alarms reminding me to do things. Get in the habit of doing that as well. Budgeting your time. I’ve said it before, engineers are about efficiency. Be efficient with your time. And being efficient with your time means taking breaks. Also, being efficient with your time is spending your summer as much as possible, relaxing. Celebrating. You’ve worked so hard. So if you want to spend time with your family, if you want to, maybe there’s a trip you’ve wanted to take. Maybe there’s something you’ve always wanted to do. Now’s the time to do it because next summer, the likelihood is, a lot of you will be at internships over the summer.

Tiffany Reardon:
So take this summer to kind of relax and just relish and enjoy all that you’ve worked very hard for and really pace yourself. So you’re going to have a great incoming semester. If you have any doubts, it’s very exciting. It’s very exciting. But there comes that moment where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, what am I doing? What did I get myself into?” Reach out to us. I can tell you from my own experience, I was a first generation college student. I had something called imposter syndrome, major imposter syndrome. If you find that you’re starting to feel like, “Oh my gosh, I think they made a mistake. I don’t know if I can do this,” reach out. Let me tell you, we did not make a mistake in the admissions process. We are not that nice. We admitted you because we know that you are a topnotch student and you’re going to be a topnotch engineer. So no doubt in our minds. No doubt in our minds. And if you need a reminder so you can erase those doubts, please come see us. That’s why we’re here.

Laura Vogt:
Thank you so much for being here today.

Tiffany Reardon:
Thank you. This was fun.

Laura Vogt:
Yeah, it was really nice. And I appreciate how you broke things up into those four categories of how to think about your academic, your social, your professional development, and what your support systems are. And those are what you can kind of think about over the summer, but that doesn’t mean that you’re taking all the classes or that you’re joining a bunch of things right now, but just give yourself time to learn. Thank you everyone for tuning in to the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. And I look forward to podcasting with you throughout the summer. Bye.