ESS 705: Transfer first-year experience

Laura Vogt:
Hello, thank you for joining us on this week’s The Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley engineer. My name is Laura Vogt, I’m the associate director for marketing and Communications for the College of Engineering. And this past week I interviewed two junior transfer students about their first year at UC Berkeley. And we’ll play the interviews with Edrees Saied and Joy Larson back to back. So first up is Edrees, thank you so much for being here today. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for having me on here. My name is Edrees Saied, like as you said, and I am an EECS, electrical engineering and computer science. And my previous community college was College of Alameda, so it’s not too far away from campus. I also work at the Berkeley IT team on campus as a student technician and I love to play basketball.

Laura Vogt:
Well thank you again so much for being here today and being willing to come on and share your experiences. So right now our transfer students started their Golden Bear advising last week and they’re planning their first semester courses. So what was it like planning your first semester and did you have problems figuring it out? Were you worried about the schedule and what you were going to be taking?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, yeah. When I transferred in it was kind of a hectic time. It was still in fall ’21 and that was still the online era. And back in that time, the EES advisor for EECS was also leaving and I didn’t get a chance to meet with an ESS advisor at that time. So I was kind of enrolling on with classes on my own and kind of navigating the Golden Bear advising. And I actually made a mistake at that time. I was unfamiliar with the course structure and I enrolled into three techs, which is kind of not recommended for first transfer. And so because I wasn’t familiar with the course structure, not familiar with these classes and how hard they were, it was kind of pretty hard to navigate and understand what I really needed. But I started to get more familiar with it over time.

Laura Vogt:
So was there anything that you did to help you make you more familiar with it after that first initial, not the greatest of experience?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, luckily after that semester we got appointed another ESS advisor and so I just kept meeting with them and just trying to find out if I’m on the right track. And I just been consistently meeting with them over the semester. Also, there’s these scheduled plans that get posted for Berkeley in EECS to which courses you should take and what the overall plan looks like in the next two years as you finish transferring. So I’ve just been closely monitoring that and making sure I’m getting things on track.

Laura Vogt:
So what was registration day like for you? Because I know all new transfer students register on the same day. So were you worried about what the process was going to be like and getting into classes? Did you have trouble getting into classes?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, I’ve heard a bunch of stories from people registering and saying, “Oh I didn’t get in,” and I’ve had a couple friends and they have their same registration date but they have different registration times and so that was a little confusing to me and I thought that’s kind of scary why they have different times. Some is earlier, some is later. So I was always monitoring the time making sure I’m on the minute and I’m enrolling at the minute and I have everything in my shopping cart. It’s almost like I’m trying to buy shoes or clothing from online or something like that. So it was kind of a stressful time because I was really unfamiliar with it at the time. It was a little stressful, but I guess I was probably over stressing it because classes don’t fill up at the exact same minute. So something to be aware of.

Laura Vogt:
Did you have a lot of different options? So if a class was filled to take something else, were you ready to start putting in other options?

Edrees Saied:
For CS classes it’s kind of hard because the EECS department I feel doesn’t have enough CS classes. So there’s a limited amount of backup plans really you can have, there are some good classes you can take, but sometimes you’re not really qualified to even take those classes. You don’t have the qualified prerequisites. So worst case scenario, you might have to take some general ed classes to fill in those gaps. There are a lot of general ed classes that you can take to fill in instead of taking a tech classes. But it’s also tough too because as an EECS student you also have to have two tech classes and to be qualified as an engineering student. So that’s pretty tough. So it is limited but there are some options.

Laura Vogt:
Well that’s good. What did you find was the biggest challenge acclimating to Berkeley Engineering from your community college?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, I think it’s finding friends I think and getting active because like I said in fall ’21, we were still online so everything, I was kind of disassociated from people and when we joined the Zoom call, I remember when I was taking EECS 16A, there was about a thousand students in the Zoom call, but I didn’t know a single one of them because I never attended office hours in person and everything was online. So in community college everything was in person because that was before COVID. And so I found making friends was a lot easier and it was less challenging and less intimidating because there’s not a lot of people in community college. So everything was more closely in intact. And then also getting active because when you’re online you don’t know much about campus at all or much about the events that are happening on campus. So I feel like I wasn’t even a really a Berkeley student, I was kind of just taking the Berkeley classes.

Laura Vogt:
So when you got past that point, was there anything that you tried to do so that you could meet people in person?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah. I just forced myself to come to campus sometimes just to be there and just sometimes I might see people just studying with me in the library and might just meet people there or I might just, if I try to find in-person office hours and try to make it work as possible to try to come in to those in-person office hours. Because sometimes my schedule was tough too, so I would just try my best to come in person, meet the TAs, meet the people who are in office hours, possibly send an email to the professor just to see what’s going on and if I can meet them too to talk to them. Just trying to make the most of about the experience that way.

Laura Vogt:
So it sounds like it’s something that you need to do even if you’re in person in a class that you need to try to make that time to go to the library, go to in-person office hours.

Edrees Saied:
That is definitely true because yeah, staying online the whole time, it is kind of a waste.

Laura Vogt:
So what campus resource did you find the most helpful or what resource have you used the most?

Edrees Saied:
I think it’s got to be the office hours and just meeting the TAs. At first I was kind of scared to go to the office hours cause I feel like sometimes I didn’t even know what my questions were. I didn’t even know how to really ask the questions and whether I’m smart enough to come to office hours or really talk about this material. So I felt kind of intimidated. But I think meeting the TAs, also talking to the professor about different things. Not just even the material but just things in career and also advice to keep in mind as a Berkeley student. So mostly office hours and just the TAs and professors.

Laura Vogt:
And how did you end up managing your time? Because you were saying that you had a lot of stuff going on and trying to make those office hours work. So did you use time management tools or how did you make that work?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, so in the beginning of the semester I kept a piece of paper for each one of my classes and then in that piece of paper I just outlined the whole class syllabus. So the lecture times, the office hour times, discussion times, everything important about the class. And then I’ll like hang it up on my wall just so I can see it every day when I go into my room just so I can just be aware, just remind myself every day, okay, I have this, I don’t forget anything.

And then second thing, I keep a Google document of my to-do list that I have for today. And I just outline everything that I do in the day. I’ll say, I’ll wake up at this time, eat breakfast at this time, do this at this time to sleep at this time, just so I know it’s going on in the day and I don’t forget anything. So I make that the night before and then at the end of the day I look over the checklist and see what did I accomplish and what did I miss? And just try to accommodate that and just keep making it for the following days. So that’s basically what I did.

Laura Vogt:
I’d the idea that you actually have something up on a wall that you can walk in and see.

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, because I know I’m going to forget some things and I just want to be in the environment at all times because it’s very, very easy to miss some things and you got to pay the consequences for it.

Laura Vogt:
So how did you end up making or joining any study groups?

Edrees Saied:
Just being in office hours a lot because when you’re in office hours you’re going to have to ask people questions. And I think a key to success, especially in Berkeley engineering, is you’re going to have to talk to people, not just TAs, not just professors, but also students. Because the TAs they have their hands full already with the long office hours queue. And so then you’re going to have to ask the next person that’s next to you. So I think just because we meet people often in office hours, I meet the same people, I have the same faces very often. So just meeting them and then getting to know them and then just studying from there, we can, because I can exchange numbers with them, I can talk to them online, just message them on Discord or get their number and then from there we can even meet outside of office hours.

Laura Vogt:
And how did you get involved with any student organizations? Did you do something to research what was available or?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, one of the things I felt bad about is I wasn’t as active in clubs organizations because I just felt like I was already overwhelmed and stressed with the material and just with the classes and keeping track with them that I feel like I didn’t have time for clubs and organizations, but I did end up taking an a part-time job, the Berkeley IT job. And so that was my one way of getting involved on campus. And then that also helped me find more friends too because it kind of connected me with the faculty because we work with faculty and staff, so I got to meet a lot more people that way.

Laura Vogt:
Did you ever get involved in research on campus?

Edrees Saied:
No, not really. I’m not sure. I tried, I think in the beginning I was like, “Maybe I’ll do research when I’m later down when I have a lot more courses on my belt.” And then when I started taking more courses, I was like, “Ah I don’t think research is my thing.” And then I did do a research internship before I transferred and it was with Berkeley postdocs and Berkeley PhD students. And I found research wasn’t kind of my thing and I didn’t kind of like it too much, so I didn’t put a priority on it when I was in school.

Laura Vogt:
Have you done any internships that you found out about through school or through the college?

Edrees Saied:
I actually didn’t get a chance to land one. I remember in the fall I was in the recruiting phase as many other students were and I was trying to send out a bunch of applications and I got a few in interviews, but I kind of didn’t do so well on each of them because I did kind of bad on the coding interview parts. So my coding skills weren’t as good as I hoped they would be. So now in this summer I’m doing a lot more of that just kind of refining my coding skills and going on lead code as other people know it and just practicing on that platform and then doing my own side projects for resume building.

Laura Vogt:
And do you have one more semester left?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, so I’m graduating in December.

Laura Vogt:
Do have another round of things to go through and try to find a job then. So that’s good that you’re spending the summer seeing what you needed to boost up on.

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, and I’m hopeful it’s going to be a little more successful semester, especially because it’s my last and everything’s a lot less stressful that year, that semester.

Laura Vogt:
And so do you have any suggestions of things that students could do over the summer to be better prepared for their first semester at Berkeley?

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, I think I would try to get, what I think I hoped I should have did is what I wish I would’ve did is be more involved with the programs and events that are on campus, prior to transferring. Because I know there were a lot of events during my time and sometimes there’s meetups with people for the Golden Bear orientations because you meet friends with Bear and then they keep scheduling events. But I didn’t attend any of them because I didn’t feel as comfortable meeting new people at Berkeley.

And I know there’s a lot of people also in my same shoes too, but I would just advise them, just go out there and force themselves to go meet some people because when you meet more people, you feel more comfortable with taking the intimidating classes. And you put a study group as I say, and I feel like I always do better with the study group. I used to try to do things alone and that never works. I had to learn that the hard way. When I do things alone, I always pay the consequences for it. So I would say just try to find some programs. And I know there’s programs like T prep and that’s something that’s really good because you also get networks and connections with a lot of people who are working at Berkeley. And so that’s really helpful.

Laura Vogt:
Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you’d like to add?

Edrees Saied:
I think I also recommend students to be in touch with their career counselors a lot because I think it’s very important that you start early as you transferring to be aware of what you should be doing to build up your resume from the beginning. Because you could be working on some other side projects while you’re at school, while you’re taking classes and that could really help so you don’t have to save it to the summer like me. So it’s very good to start in the beginning also be in touch with your ESS advisor a lot more often because I remember when we got appointed an ESS advisor, I met with them three to four times a semester. Just checking in with them, is everything okay? What are my current ideas for the next semester? What should I be taking? What are the best classes that can optimize my performance? Stuff like that. And it’s always because like I said, don’t try to do everything alone. You have a whole bunch of people at Berkeley try to just build this in a network as big as possible.

Laura Vogt:
That’s amazing. I am a big proponent of the advisors and SS as well, and I like the idea that if you have a question, even if they don’t have the answer, they know a little bit more about where to find an answer for you if you need it,

Edrees Saied:
Right. Yeah. And I remember I got in touch with also the career counselor at the Berkeley Career Center, and they were showing me all these resources that I never knew about and I was like, “Wow, that’s so awesome. Yeah, I definitely got to tell the people who are coming in as a transfer students to know this stuff too.”

Laura Vogt:
Yeah, the career center, they actually have in-person appointments in ESS on Wednesdays, and I believe that they’re going to be doing that into next semester as well. So if you’re not able to make it down to the career center, which is on the other side of campus, you can still come into the engineering side and get that appointment too. Well, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your experiences.

Edrees Saied:
Yeah, thank you so much.

Laura Vogt:
Hi Joy. Thank you so much for being on the podcast with us today. Can you tell us about yourself?

Joy Larson:
Thank you, Laura. Thank you for having me. Sure. My name is Joy Larson. My major is nuclear engineering. I transferred from Allen Hancock Community College, which is on the central coast of California. When I was there, I wasn’t a part of any organizations or clubs for a long time until probably my third year. So I was at community college for four years. So my third year I joined a chess club and I joined Alpha Gamma Sigma, the honors club, and those just opened my eyes to what I had been missing. I was missing that community. So I’m very glad I did that. And then when I transferred to Berkeley, I joined both of the nuclear engineering clubs on campus, which are American Nuclear Society and nuclear is clean energy. And I would say a fun fact about me is I grew up in a beekeeping family.

Laura Vogt:
Nice. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate your time. So right now, the transfer students just started doing Golden Bear advising and they’re planning out their first semester courses. So what was it like for you planning out your first semester?

Joy Larson:
Oh, okay. So it was pretty overwhelming because I was so busy trying to find housing. I was also taking two summer classes, so I was really busy and I felt kind of overwhelmed by all of the different Berkeley tasks. So what happened, what kind of settled my concerns was Andrea, my advisor, she sent this really helpful email with all this information. And so I pretty much just clung onto her. I followed everything she said, she sent this nuclear engineering guide, this class guide. And so that’s what I did. I was overwhelmed and I just decided, you know what? I’m just going to lean on as many resources as possible. Andrea knows what she’s doing. So I just followed what she advised I take and that was it.

Laura Vogt:
So what was actual registration day for you? Were you really worried about getting into courses or anything?

Joy Larson:
Yeah, I was worried, but when the time came, I signed up for my classes and I guess my worst fear occurred where one of my major specific nuclear engineering classes, I was put on the wait list. So I was like, oh no, how is this possible? Why am I on the wait list? But again, I tried to keep an open dialogue with my advisor, so I sent her an email. I said, “Hey, I got put on the wait list for one of my major specific courses.” And she says, “Oh, no problem.” And she told someone and they just expanded the class. So everything turned out okay in the end.

Laura Vogt:
Oh good. Well, I’m really glad you were able to have that open communication then when your advisor.

Joy Larson:
Yeah, yeah.

Laura Vogt:
What did you find was the biggest challenge acclimating to Berkeley engineering from your community college?

Joy Larson:
I feel like the biggest challenge was just how big Berkeley is compared to a community college. And so I felt very alienated from everyone and that’s just compounded also by being a transfer student. So that was a really big challenge of mine. When I went to Berkeley, I felt like there was so much distance between me and the faculty, me and the fellow students. For example, at community college usually, usually at least in my community college, you have a lot of contact with your professor, but at Berkeley it split between GSIs and the professor. So I didn’t feel like I had that constant communication with them. And then also a lot of people who are freshmen when they go to Berkeley, they already have their friend groups established. So I would definitely say the biggest challenge was simply overcoming that feeling of alienation from everyone else.

Laura Vogt:
So how did you work once you were there to develop a relationship with your peers?

Joy Larson:
The first semester it kind of put everything into perspective. I realized that I wasn’t as happy as I could be, so it took me that time to kind of discover what I needed to do. And then after that happened, I went out of my way. So I would sit down to next to people. I would talk to people in the hallway, I would make sure I go to office hours as much as possible, even if I was shy, which I’m more of an introverted person, so it’s hard sometimes, but I really had to make it a conscious effort. Sometimes it just falls into your lap when you’re at community college because it’s smaller, but here you really have to make a conscious effort to do it. You have to be thinking, “Okay, today I’m going to talk to a person, I don’t know who, but I’m going to talk to a person.” So I did that and it really did help.

Laura Vogt:
And how did you create your study groups? Did you have to do the same thing where you just had to keep just putting yourself out there to meet people?

Joy Larson:
Not necessarily. So once you get the momentum started, you maybe have a lab partner for example, and then they have friends and then oh, maybe they have a friend in your class that happened with me. I had a friend who was not in nuclear engineering and then come to find out she has a friend who’s also in there. So I think just to get started, you need to put in that extra effort. But once you start making a friend group, it just naturally goes from there.

Laura Vogt:
And so how did you find yourself managing your time? Because trying to create these friend groups, I know you’ve trying to do all your homework and do the research and things along that. So how did you manage your time?

Joy Larson:
Yeah, that was very difficult because when you’re going to community college, at least for me, I took my time at community college, I graduated in four years. So there isn’t that expectation at community college to get out at a set time. I guess it’s up to you whenever you want to get out, but when you transfer there’s kind of this more rigid expectation you’re going to get out in four semesters and five semesters. So yeah, it’s important to be able to manage your time to do everything you need to do.

My first semester it was kind of chaotic. I didn’t know, I was figuring things out, but now what I did was I made sure that on e-courses calendar, I set up all of my class times because there’s like discussions that weren’t at community college, these extra things and then club and stuff. So I just made sure whenever there was an event that was coming, I just put in my calendar so I didn’t have that taking up mental space. What else? Oh, this is the biggest thing I think with my time management, my first semester after my classes I would just go home, which is terrible.

I was tired, and I just want to go home. But there’s a lot of distractions at home. And it also just further contributed to that sense of alienation from everyone else, like the community around me. And so last semester, my second semester, I decided I was going to stay on campus as long as possible if I wanted to take a break, sure, you can take a break, go sit out on a bench, go lay down on a couch. Berkeley has all kinds of different couches and seats for resting.

So that was a big change that I made is just staying on campus. And guess what? You’ll eventually get bored and you will study and seeing everyone else study as well will also propel you toward that productive mindset. So that was how I managed my time. I just made use of the Berkeley calendar. I made use of the environment, designing my environment, staying on campus, and also accountability. So making sure that you set up study times with other people because they will hold you accountable. Like, “Hey, are we going?” And you’re like, “Oh, I don’t really feel like it.” They’re like, “No, we’re going to do this.”

Laura Vogt:
I think I need that. Just in life in general. People cheering, cheering for you to go out and do something. So what did you find was the best campus resource that you use the most often?

Joy Larson:
I use the transfer center a lot. It’s a really, really nice resource. I’ve been to many different libraries on Berkeley, on the Berkeley campus. And after seeing all the different resources out there, I decided that the transfer center, at least personally has the best environment for focusing nice tables, nice seats. So I use the transfer center all the time to study and then also just ask questions. You’re surrounded by fellow transfer students as well. So yeah, transfer center, definitely go there.

Laura Vogt:
And you were saying earlier that you had a lot of stress around finding housing and getting the life part of going to college set up. So do you have any tips for finding housing or organizing your summer ahead of time?

Joy Larson:
Early. Do it early. So I applied for on-campus housing, but I didn’t get it. Before I knew I didn’t get in I started looking because I was slightly suspicious. I don’t know. So I started looking early, probably May, June, and at that point, if you search early, there’s going to be more options for you. They’re not all taken up once everyone realizes they didn’t get housing and there’s a flood of people looking. So yeah, get on it early. I personally used Craigslist. I use Craigslist for a lot of things and that seemed to work out well. I scheduled a bunch of different viewings of houses and I just took a weekend and I went there and I looked at them and I found a place that I wanted. So everything worked out in the end by just doing it early and then using any sort of platform that works for you.

Laura Vogt:
That’s good. And you had talked about you’re in the two nuclear engineering organizations on campus. So how did you decide that those were the ones that you wanted to join? Did you investigate any others?

Joy Larson:
Yeah, so in the very beginning, during orientation week, my department had the club speak. So that’s how I learned about them is my nuclear engineering department had the nuclear engineering club come in and talk about their club. And so I became knowledgeable. Then I was like, “Sure, I want to join this.” And then the other nuclear engineering club came a little later. They actually are a newish club. Started a couple semesters ago and they were associated with ANS. So it was just a natural progression into those. I did walk around, I look at other clubs, I looked at a music club that kind of interested me, but I was so busy and I was already a part of those other clubs that I was like, “You know what, I’m just going to focus on something that’s related directly to my major.” Although I do think it’s good to diversify and do fun things that aren’t related to your course load.

Laura Vogt:
Excellent. So did you do anything with the career services that are available and are you interning this summer?

Joy Larson:
I was told about the career services during orientation, so I knew they were there, but I never did get around to going there. I probably should have honestly. But I pretty much just did my own research on resumes and applying places and how to do an interview, which was again, I could have done that at the career services. It would’ve probably been faster than to watch a bunch of random YouTube videos. I applied to probably seven places. Some of them never responded. Some of them rejected me at the applicant stage. And then I got probably two or three interviews at places and finally one of them, one interview I was accepted. So that’s just to show that it’s really a numbers game. Don’t feel bad if a person never gets back or a company, it never gets to the interview stage.

That’s all normal. You just make sure you apply to as many places as possible. And so the places that I applied to were around Berkeley, like Lawrence, Livermore, places that I’d heard from professors. And then ironically, the place that I actually got accepted to was out of state and was, I literally just looked up on Google, “Nuclear engineering internships.” That’s what I looked up and I just applied to the places that came up that I thought fit my goals. So it just goes to show that maybe you end up somewhere that you didn’t think you would end up and just to keep an open mind to whatever happens.

Laura Vogt:
Well, so that’s pretty nice that you’re also getting to kind of explore outside of California then.

Joy Larson:
Yeah, for sure. I’m very, very happy about this internship. It’s been really, really nice.Laura Vogt:
If nothing else it’s much different weather.

Joy Larson:
Yes, very humid and a lot of insects, like mutant mosquitoes.

Laura Vogt:
So if you could go back and do one thing differently your first semester, what would it be?

Joy Larson:
I would’ve immersed myself more into the culture. I would’ve not gone home as much. I would’ve tried to involve myself more with my peers just because I felt very lonely my first semester and that was totally on me. I could have gone out more, but I just didn’t because I wasn’t know that was necessary because at community college, friendships just kind of naturally happened because it was much smaller. So I would’ve made more of a conscious effort to immerse myself into the community if I changed something.

Laura Vogt:
And is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you would like to add?

Joy Larson:
Yes, I just wanted to mention, I’m sure people will hear this from their advisors, but I wanted to mention that the engineering department allows engineering students to take a fifth semester. So I think I’m going to take that extra semester. No need to feel ultra stressed with these heavy course loads. If you want to take an extra fifth semester, I just want to throw that out there. That it is possible.

Laura Vogt:
Yeah, that’s specifically for transfer students.

Joy Larson:
Right.

Laura Vogt:
So it’s also kind of nice because that’ll give you another summer if you wanted to try to see if you could get a different type of internship or try something different.

Joy Larson:
Exactly. Which is what I plan on doing.

Laura Vogt:
Very nice. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us today.

Joy Larson:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this.

Laura Vogt:
And thank you to everyone for tuning in to The Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley engineer. We’ll be back next week with information on changing majors such as like are you able to change your major, what the requirements are and more. So thank you.