Posts
SLOW DOWN AND PRIORITIZE: Think about deadlines, factor them in. Not everything needs to be done now. Breathe in. Have some “You-time”. Realize that the small stuff isn’t necessary. Yes,the trash needs to be taken out eventually,but right now putting out the fire is more compelling,and frankly a little more important. You can learn from your mistakes. Breathe out. Now get back to work.
SCHEDULE: Time management and figuring what you can and can’t cram into one day will keep you from having a perpetual “balance transfer” on your daily to-do lists. Knowing that you can’t do everything,you might want to initially keeptrack of your time use and iteratively fix your idea of what you can actuallyfit in one day. I schedule in my hours for sleep because I sometimes forget and that’ll creep up on you and get you sick. Polyphasic sleep isn’t for everyone. Consistency in habits means less things to think about.
RECOGNIZE AVAILABLE RESOURCES: The people around you have often dealt with similar things as you do. Colleagues and friends are great to talk to for support. Technology can help,even if it is just a spreadsheet of the status of things to do. Professional help is available,and actually I think you can get more free walk-in therapy sessions if your life has gotten a little out of hand and you’re developing anxious problems. The Tang Center isn’t so bad a place
to start.
KEEP IN GOOD HEALTH: Mental and physical stimulation will make you a better student in general due to your having lower stress levels and generally better health. Hit the RSF, play some mentally taxing games, do the puzzles in the newspapers. Laugh hard and often,it works physiological wonders even if you’re faking it (but there are plenty of things in Berkeley to make you not have to fake it!) …Don’t do it too hard though or you can hurt yourself. Moderation!
WASH YOUR HANDS OFTEN. You’ll be less likely to get sick. And less likely to get others sick. And that’sgood for everyone. No man (or woman) is an island:even if you are considering dying alone and getting eaten by wild dogs eventually,for now you’re a grad or professional student here at Cal and interacting with enough people by virtue of coming in to work that it is really the
socially responsible thing to do. Regardless what you think about the associations of the phrase,“Just Do It,” you should just do it!
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Your Relationship with Your Spouse: Yoked to Excellence
Allison Yamanashi
When the good people at the Berkeley Graduate asked for an article, I was not shocked of course. It seemed like the least I could do to contribute a few of my experiences as a spouse of a graduate student. I should probably start by saying that my husband and I have a number of friends (lucky us!),both married and single,in the graduate programs at Cal. Thus,the comments I make here are informed by the anecdotes they have shared with me over the past few years in addition to my own experiences.
I’ll start with a shocking statement:graduate school is easier for the married couple. I know that the conventional thinking is that graduate students are single workaholics (and that’s half right), and I don’t really know all the reasons why being married seems to help (hopefully by the end of this, I’ll have conveyed a few of the important ones I’ve found thus far), nor is that meant to suggest that it’s some Herculean task for those of you who are single. I’ve just found that,for many of the couples we know on campus, being in a relationship prior to starting has been a boon. When my husband and I arrived here,there was a bit of culture shock. We’re from a small town in the Midwest, so Berkeley was naturally a big adjustment. It was nice for both of us to have someone familiar and ‘normal’ in the midst of the turmoil that accompanies the first few months of graduate school.
If you’ve been here very long,you know that the first 3 months are the worst. I don’t think this is specific to married couples at all,but the fine-tuning that occurs in this period precludes a steady schedule at home. My husband is in a hard science program, so he had to find a research project,and take classes,and attend a bunch of meetings at all hours just to get started. This was straining on both of us,and many meals and evenings were missed. But,looking back it seems that having a solid foundation at home that doesn’t exist for most single students really seemed to help us get through the hectic parts. And,as time came to make important decisions about his career, he had a ‘built-in’ confidant to help him sort through those issues and bounce ideas off of.
Once he found his lab and began a project,we began to settle into ‘The Routine’. This period has been is marked by long hours,unusual sleep habits,strange bouts of paper reading during dinner,and often consternation at why things were working yesterday but not today. I imagine that the time he spends in the laboratory is much akin to that you humanities graduate students would spend in the library,and the effect is much the same:a general distaste for the outdoors,willingness to eat standing up and drink lots of coffee where they’d never been much for hot beverages before,that sort of thing. Here being married offers extra challenges and along with the benefits. Everyone looks for companionship,and as a couple we already have found our other half. That saves both my husband and I fromhaving to date,which given his schedule would be difficult and I hear from many of my single graduate student friends there’s quite a problem finding time to build and nurture a relationship. That being said,since we are in a relationship already means that thereare extracurricular obligations (whether they be ‘dates’
for us, or group activities,outings and such),which we can’t just choose to ignore if it doesn’t fit into our schedule. The crucial things we’ve found here are communication and triage. His professional goals require certain things of him on a regular schedule, but so does our marriage. When we talk about what issues are important at work for him vs.activities for both of us,and come up with a plan to meet those goals. That means giving some things up from time to time,but hopefully you’ll find a balance that keeps both professional and personal life moving.
Of course, there are sometimes hiccups in graduate school, and being married doesn’t stop those, but it can help move them along. Many students go through a period of confusion and lack of direction after finishing a big project or qualifying exam. Being married helps address that from two angles. First,being married helps solidify long term goals. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to lose perspective by yourself,and I hope that my being there helps provide some grounding and objectivity about what he needs to do next. Sometimes just having someone to talk to can give you all the direction you require. The second is that I get to be a motivator directly. When he’s thinking about that perfect new approach to his project or wanting to take the afternoon off, I can gently remind him of the myriad reasons why he can and should put in those extra hours now for the payoff down the road.
The other place hitches come up is in the relationship itself. Graduate school is an incredible emotional and temporal investment (for both of us!) and in many ways I end up sharing my husband with his work in a way that I wouldn’t were he in a 9 to 5 job. Because of that,it’s all the more important to take some time out from our jobs and spend it on our marriage. Whether its getting out of town for the weekend, renting a DVD, taking a trip up to the Botanical Gardens,or going to a nice restaurant in the City,we make doing something together on a regular basis a necessity. It can be hard on the limited income of a graduate student, and its important to not add financial strain, but try to find some activities that are inexpensive and give you time to relax and be together as a couple. Living in a college town means there are lots of cheap events
going on all the time, so make an effort to take advantage of them.
The final thing to remember is,whether you’re married or single,graduate school will eventually end. My husband is closer to his thesis with each passing day,and then it will be on to the rest of our lives. But be careful;you can’t just be looking at the goal. While it’s true that there’s a lot to look forward to after this period is over,you should be working to enjoy it while you can. When we are all out of school,wealthy and living in the suburbs,we are not going to have a chance to walk around downtown street fairs every weekend,and a whole new set of problems are sure to crop up (home ownership – it ain’t no picnic). So enjoy what you can here while you’re here, and let the future stay there for now – we’ll all catch up with it soon enough.
When the good people at the Berkeley Graduate asked for an article, I was not shocked of course. It seemed like the least I could do to contribute a few of my experiences as a spouse of a graduate student. I should probably start by saying that my husband and I have a number of friends (lucky us!),both married and single,in the graduate programs at Cal. Thus,the comments I make here are informed by the anecdotes they have shared with me over the past few years in addition to my own experiences.
I’ll start with a shocking statement:graduate school is easier for the married couple. I know that the conventional thinking is that graduate students are single workaholics (and that’s half right), and I don’t really know all the reasons why being married seems to help (hopefully by the end of this, I’ll have conveyed a few of the important ones I’ve found thus far), nor is that meant to suggest that it’s some Herculean task for those of you who are single. I’ve just found that,for many of the couples we know on campus, being in a relationship prior to starting has been a boon. When my husband and I arrived here,there was a bit of culture shock. We’re from a small town in the Midwest, so Berkeley was naturally a big adjustment. It was nice for both of us to have someone familiar and ‘normal’ in the midst of the turmoil that accompanies the first few months of graduate school.
If you’ve been here very long,you know that the first 3 months are the worst. I don’t think this is specific to married couples at all,but the fine-tuning that occurs in this period precludes a steady schedule at home. My husband is in a hard science program, so he had to find a research project,and take classes,and attend a bunch of meetings at all hours just to get started. This was straining on both of us,and many meals and evenings were missed. But,looking back it seems that having a solid foundation at home that doesn’t exist for most single students really seemed to help us get through the hectic parts. And,as time came to make important decisions about his career, he had a ‘built-in’ confidant to help him sort through those issues and bounce ideas off of.
Once he found his lab and began a project,we began to settle into ‘The Routine’. This period has been is marked by long hours,unusual sleep habits,strange bouts of paper reading during dinner,and often consternation at why things were working yesterday but not today. I imagine that the time he spends in the laboratory is much akin to that you humanities graduate students would spend in the library,and the effect is much the same:a general distaste for the outdoors,willingness to eat standing up and drink lots of coffee where they’d never been much for hot beverages before,that sort of thing. Here being married offers extra challenges and along with the benefits. Everyone looks for companionship,and as a couple we already have found our other half. That saves both my husband and I fromhaving to date,which given his schedule would be difficult and I hear from many of my single graduate student friends there’s quite a problem finding time to build and nurture a relationship. That being said,since we are in a relationship already means that thereare extracurricular obligations (whether they be ‘dates’
for us, or group activities,outings and such),which we can’t just choose to ignore if it doesn’t fit into our schedule. The crucial things we’ve found here are communication and triage. His professional goals require certain things of him on a regular schedule, but so does our marriage. When we talk about what issues are important at work for him vs.activities for both of us,and come up with a plan to meet those goals. That means giving some things up from time to time,but hopefully you’ll find a balance that keeps both professional and personal life moving.
Of course, there are sometimes hiccups in graduate school, and being married doesn’t stop those, but it can help move them along. Many students go through a period of confusion and lack of direction after finishing a big project or qualifying exam. Being married helps address that from two angles. First,being married helps solidify long term goals. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to lose perspective by yourself,and I hope that my being there helps provide some grounding and objectivity about what he needs to do next. Sometimes just having someone to talk to can give you all the direction you require. The second is that I get to be a motivator directly. When he’s thinking about that perfect new approach to his project or wanting to take the afternoon off, I can gently remind him of the myriad reasons why he can and should put in those extra hours now for the payoff down the road.
The other place hitches come up is in the relationship itself. Graduate school is an incredible emotional and temporal investment (for both of us!) and in many ways I end up sharing my husband with his work in a way that I wouldn’t were he in a 9 to 5 job. Because of that,it’s all the more important to take some time out from our jobs and spend it on our marriage. Whether its getting out of town for the weekend, renting a DVD, taking a trip up to the Botanical Gardens,or going to a nice restaurant in the City,we make doing something together on a regular basis a necessity. It can be hard on the limited income of a graduate student, and its important to not add financial strain, but try to find some activities that are inexpensive and give you time to relax and be together as a couple. Living in a college town means there are lots of cheap events
going on all the time, so make an effort to take advantage of them.
The final thing to remember is,whether you’re married or single,graduate school will eventually end. My husband is closer to his thesis with each passing day,and then it will be on to the rest of our lives. But be careful;you can’t just be looking at the goal. While it’s true that there’s a lot to look forward to after this period is over,you should be working to enjoy it while you can. When we are all out of school,wealthy and living in the suburbs,we are not going to have a chance to walk around downtown street fairs every weekend,and a whole new set of problems are sure to crop up (home ownership – it ain’t no picnic). So enjoy what you can here while you’re here, and let the future stay there for now – we’ll all catch up with it soon enough.
Your Relationship with Your Other Kids: Graduate Student Parents
by Maya Mirsky
“Mama. Mama. Play train tracks.”
A little voice is coming from somewhere down by my elbow as I’m typing, and there’s a hand tugging on my sleeve.
“Play train tracks.”
I sigh, stop typing, pause,then turn back to my computer, only to leave it again when the little voice pipes up once more.
If this sounds like a hard way to get through grad school, it is. But it isn’t unusual. This sort of situation is normal for the hundreds of graduate students that go to UC Berkeley and parent on the side – or the other way round. And that’s really the issue. How does a parent do a decent job at parenting and still stay fully focused on their academic career?
What comes first?
While some parents may claim to do it all,any honest graduate student parent will tell you that they cannot make the same commitment to their studies that an unencumbered student can.
For one thing,Berkeley isn’t designed with families in mind. The school’s official memo on Graduate Council Student Parent Policies trumpets the fact that it updates a 1998 memo. But the update itself is dated 2003-2004. “The Graduate Council recognizes that parenting is a very time-intensive task,” it reads. Good to know. Now what?
John Schwenkler, 26, is a third-year graduate student in philosophy and has a 7-month-old son, Jack. “Be aware that it’s not the most parent-friendly place to be,” he said.“You don’t realize how much life as a graduate student is life as a single,or at least childless, graduate student,” he said. “It’s extremely hard to go to a seminar that ends at 6 p.m.,” Schwenkler said. He added that going out afterwards with friends from school to bond over a beer is even less likely to happen.
And while friendly faculty make it easier,the course schedule can’t be altered. “It is striking,the number of things we do where the timing is structured for people who don’t have a child at all, or who have a lot of childcare,” said Schwenkler.
Julia Olmstead, a classmate of mine at the Graduate School of Journalism, agrees that the environment is not particularly supportive. “They imagine you have all the time in the world,” she said.
Olmtead is working on her second master’s (she studied sustainable agriculture and plant breeding at Iowa State) and her husband is also getting his master’s at Berkeley, in public policy. Although neither works regular office hours,they have little time outside school. “I thought if we were both students we’d have flexibility,” said Olmstead.“But that hasn’t been the case.”
But even when there is time to work,many parents can’t just switch into academic mode. Schwenkler said he noticed he can’t get as engrossed in his work as he used to. “My mind has to be where my son is,not where my work is,” he said.“I just can’t get completely taken up by it.”
Where are the answers?
Katrinell Davis knows firsthand how hard a time a graduate student parent can have. Davis, who is working on her dissertation,is the mother of two boys and is also raising her brother.She said she was talking to a dean one day when it hit her that the university needed a needs assessment to find out how graduate student parents were really being supported.
“One of the issues is that nobody knows what’s going on,what resources are available to them,” she said. So she launched the Graduate Student Parent Project survey and expects to haveresults in late Januaryand early February. “I’m just basically trying to find out the degree to which the university resources help them balance family and work,” she said.
Berkeley or bust?
Branessa Kunitz, a 34-year-old mother of four children, was so disappointed in the lack of resources available that when the time came to do her master’s in higher education leadership, she turned elsewhere. She knew that she’d get in at Berkeley or Columbia or Stanford,but it was Sacramento State that she eventually chose. She finished up her masters in Higher Education Leadership in February.
“Parenting responsibilities played into those choices clearly,” she said. With her children at home,and a fiancé who was also getting his master’s,Kunitz knew she didn’t want to go nuts. “I already knew Berkeley will be demanding,” she said.
And Berkeley, like other universities,demanded full-time study.Kunitz,whose fianceé is also studying, just couldn’t afford it. So even though Kunitz, who got straight A’s as an undergrad, wasn’t happy about going to a lower-ranked institution,she made a decision. “It wasn’t feasible to go full time,” she said. “I had to be able to work.”
Olmstead can compare her graduate school parenting experiences at two schools, and says she found Iowa State a much more flexible place. She was pregnant when she was working as a researcher; when Brody was born, her advisor gave her four months off at full pay.
Who’s watching the children?
Once the commitment to graduate education has been made,one of the most important issues for any student parent is finding childcare. UC Berkeley’s Early Childhood Education Program takes in the 3-months to 7-year-old children of faculty,staff and students.Notice that students are last on the list.That’s because faculty and staff have priority.
Fees are based on a sliding scale for student families, from zero to $1000 per month for full time care,but even the full-fee program is in demand. “We have a lot of applications,” said Marina Moreida,an administrator who works with student families at the university’s daycare.“We do get a lot more than what we can serve.”
She estimates that around 180 student parents have children in the program. “We were really lucky,” said Olmstead, who son has a subsidized slot at the daycare.“One good thing about us both being students is that we’re totally broke,” she added,laughing. But her son, 2-and-a-half-year old Brody,spends more time in childcare than Olmstead would like. “He’s there nine to five, which is a huge amount of time,” she said.“I miss him.I feel like I don’t spend nearly as much time with him as I want to.”
Schwenkler doesn’t pay for childcare because his wife,who is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Notre Dame,stays home with their son.But that,too,comes at a cost.“You either pay for child care or you’re not able to work,” he said.And childcare can cost easily up to $15,000 in the Bay Area, one of the nation’s most expensive places to live.
Advice column
When I asked Schwenkler what he would tell parents thinking about starting graduate school at Berkeley, he paused.
“I wouldn’t just say don’t do it,” he said.“Be aware that most people on a program will be single or won’t have children.You need to be assertive,confident,and make a way to make it work for you.It’s been a real challenge.” He added,“You have to be part of the department as a parent.’’
Schwenkler has a fellowship that helps make ends meet. He said he’d tell parents to concentrate on finding money so at least they don’t have to worry about that. “Do the work to find out where you can get money to help you out,” he said.
Kunitz said that although she liked Berkeley,she tells other parents to think about less intense programs. “I tell them that there are other alternatives out there,” she said.
She admits that she felt awkward going to Sacramento State at first.But now she’s in the job market,she realized that it wasn’t as important as she had thought. People think a lower-ranked school is a “cop out,” Kunitz said.But she hasn’t seen any difference. ”It has not had any negative impact whatsoever.”
A balancing act
Every parent struggles with how to find a balance,but it’s a hard fight,especially in an environment where everyone expects academics to come first. The time a graduate student parent devotes to their studies is inevitably time away from their children. And time with the kids means less time to read,write and research. That’s why Davis thinks her needs assessment is so important,and not just so that she can crunch the numbers. “It’s a political effort as well,” she added.“It’s also about advocating for changes.”
“I don’t always want to be making excuses,” said Olmstead. “I’m always confused about my own priorities.I want to give it everything I can but I want to be with Brody. I’m not giving either enough.”
Kunitz understands about guilt,but she feels that in the long run, it is good for a child to see their parent succeeding in education. “As a parent, you feel guilty. ‘I can’t do this, I have to write a paper,” she said. But Kunitz,who is the first in her family to go to college, says setting an example is important,too.“I can see the impact on them already,” said Kunitz.“I got to prove to them that education pays.”
For Schwenkler, it’s clear. “Look,this is my life,this is my family,” he said. “My family comes first.”
And now I have to go play with train tracks.
“Mama. Mama. Play train tracks.”
A little voice is coming from somewhere down by my elbow as I’m typing, and there’s a hand tugging on my sleeve.
“Play train tracks.”
I sigh, stop typing, pause,then turn back to my computer, only to leave it again when the little voice pipes up once more.
If this sounds like a hard way to get through grad school, it is. But it isn’t unusual. This sort of situation is normal for the hundreds of graduate students that go to UC Berkeley and parent on the side – or the other way round. And that’s really the issue. How does a parent do a decent job at parenting and still stay fully focused on their academic career?
What comes first?
While some parents may claim to do it all,any honest graduate student parent will tell you that they cannot make the same commitment to their studies that an unencumbered student can.
For one thing,Berkeley isn’t designed with families in mind. The school’s official memo on Graduate Council Student Parent Policies trumpets the fact that it updates a 1998 memo. But the update itself is dated 2003-2004. “The Graduate Council recognizes that parenting is a very time-intensive task,” it reads. Good to know. Now what?
John Schwenkler, 26, is a third-year graduate student in philosophy and has a 7-month-old son, Jack. “Be aware that it’s not the most parent-friendly place to be,” he said.“You don’t realize how much life as a graduate student is life as a single,or at least childless, graduate student,” he said. “It’s extremely hard to go to a seminar that ends at 6 p.m.,” Schwenkler said. He added that going out afterwards with friends from school to bond over a beer is even less likely to happen.
And while friendly faculty make it easier,the course schedule can’t be altered. “It is striking,the number of things we do where the timing is structured for people who don’t have a child at all, or who have a lot of childcare,” said Schwenkler.
Julia Olmstead, a classmate of mine at the Graduate School of Journalism, agrees that the environment is not particularly supportive. “They imagine you have all the time in the world,” she said.
Olmtead is working on her second master’s (she studied sustainable agriculture and plant breeding at Iowa State) and her husband is also getting his master’s at Berkeley, in public policy. Although neither works regular office hours,they have little time outside school. “I thought if we were both students we’d have flexibility,” said Olmstead.“But that hasn’t been the case.”
But even when there is time to work,many parents can’t just switch into academic mode. Schwenkler said he noticed he can’t get as engrossed in his work as he used to. “My mind has to be where my son is,not where my work is,” he said.“I just can’t get completely taken up by it.”
Where are the answers?
Katrinell Davis knows firsthand how hard a time a graduate student parent can have. Davis, who is working on her dissertation,is the mother of two boys and is also raising her brother.She said she was talking to a dean one day when it hit her that the university needed a needs assessment to find out how graduate student parents were really being supported.
“One of the issues is that nobody knows what’s going on,what resources are available to them,” she said. So she launched the Graduate Student Parent Project survey and expects to haveresults in late Januaryand early February. “I’m just basically trying to find out the degree to which the university resources help them balance family and work,” she said.
Berkeley or bust?
Branessa Kunitz, a 34-year-old mother of four children, was so disappointed in the lack of resources available that when the time came to do her master’s in higher education leadership, she turned elsewhere. She knew that she’d get in at Berkeley or Columbia or Stanford,but it was Sacramento State that she eventually chose. She finished up her masters in Higher Education Leadership in February.
“Parenting responsibilities played into those choices clearly,” she said. With her children at home,and a fiancé who was also getting his master’s,Kunitz knew she didn’t want to go nuts. “I already knew Berkeley will be demanding,” she said.
And Berkeley, like other universities,demanded full-time study.Kunitz,whose fianceé is also studying, just couldn’t afford it. So even though Kunitz, who got straight A’s as an undergrad, wasn’t happy about going to a lower-ranked institution,she made a decision. “It wasn’t feasible to go full time,” she said. “I had to be able to work.”
Olmstead can compare her graduate school parenting experiences at two schools, and says she found Iowa State a much more flexible place. She was pregnant when she was working as a researcher; when Brody was born, her advisor gave her four months off at full pay.
Who’s watching the children?
Once the commitment to graduate education has been made,one of the most important issues for any student parent is finding childcare. UC Berkeley’s Early Childhood Education Program takes in the 3-months to 7-year-old children of faculty,staff and students.Notice that students are last on the list.That’s because faculty and staff have priority.
Fees are based on a sliding scale for student families, from zero to $1000 per month for full time care,but even the full-fee program is in demand. “We have a lot of applications,” said Marina Moreida,an administrator who works with student families at the university’s daycare.“We do get a lot more than what we can serve.”
She estimates that around 180 student parents have children in the program. “We were really lucky,” said Olmstead, who son has a subsidized slot at the daycare.“One good thing about us both being students is that we’re totally broke,” she added,laughing. But her son, 2-and-a-half-year old Brody,spends more time in childcare than Olmstead would like. “He’s there nine to five, which is a huge amount of time,” she said.“I miss him.I feel like I don’t spend nearly as much time with him as I want to.”
Schwenkler doesn’t pay for childcare because his wife,who is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Notre Dame,stays home with their son.But that,too,comes at a cost.“You either pay for child care or you’re not able to work,” he said.And childcare can cost easily up to $15,000 in the Bay Area, one of the nation’s most expensive places to live.
Advice column
When I asked Schwenkler what he would tell parents thinking about starting graduate school at Berkeley, he paused.
“I wouldn’t just say don’t do it,” he said.“Be aware that most people on a program will be single or won’t have children.You need to be assertive,confident,and make a way to make it work for you.It’s been a real challenge.” He added,“You have to be part of the department as a parent.’’
Schwenkler has a fellowship that helps make ends meet. He said he’d tell parents to concentrate on finding money so at least they don’t have to worry about that. “Do the work to find out where you can get money to help you out,” he said.
Kunitz said that although she liked Berkeley,she tells other parents to think about less intense programs. “I tell them that there are other alternatives out there,” she said.
She admits that she felt awkward going to Sacramento State at first.But now she’s in the job market,she realized that it wasn’t as important as she had thought. People think a lower-ranked school is a “cop out,” Kunitz said.But she hasn’t seen any difference. ”It has not had any negative impact whatsoever.”
A balancing act
Every parent struggles with how to find a balance,but it’s a hard fight,especially in an environment where everyone expects academics to come first. The time a graduate student parent devotes to their studies is inevitably time away from their children. And time with the kids means less time to read,write and research. That’s why Davis thinks her needs assessment is so important,and not just so that she can crunch the numbers. “It’s a political effort as well,” she added.“It’s also about advocating for changes.”
“I don’t always want to be making excuses,” said Olmstead. “I’m always confused about my own priorities.I want to give it everything I can but I want to be with Brody. I’m not giving either enough.”
Kunitz understands about guilt,but she feels that in the long run, it is good for a child to see their parent succeeding in education. “As a parent, you feel guilty. ‘I can’t do this, I have to write a paper,” she said. But Kunitz,who is the first in her family to go to college, says setting an example is important,too.“I can see the impact on them already,” said Kunitz.“I got to prove to them that education pays.”
For Schwenkler, it’s clear. “Look,this is my life,this is my family,” he said. “My family comes first.”
And now I have to go play with train tracks.
Your Relationship With Mentees: Students Dealing With Students
by Ryan Leib
Life always has its chores. As a youth,you probably took out the garbage or mowed the lawn. In college,maybe you bussed tables or shelved books in the library. You didn’t really think grad school would be different,did you? If you’re like most of the graduate students on our campus,you find yourself teaching a course that you hardly paid attention to a few years ago during your own undergraduate career. Between obligations to your research project,your post-doctoral (or other degree) plans,and your social life,it’s often hard to find the time to prep for that freshman lab course,but your students will never know,right? The problem is that most of us (excluding the oh-so-lucky education students!) have little formal training on how best to pass on our wisdom to the next generation. In fact,you probably fall into one of these archetypal categories of GSI:
The Puppeteer
You don’t see teaching as educational so much as a quest for control. Sure,you have your favorite student or two who you can trust,but most of them need to be ‘managed’. You spend most your time turning your students against each other,setting up in- class competitions and publicly posting grades. Whenever possible,you avoid interacting with the students directly,and instead choose to send mass emails and hang handwritten signs next to the whiteboard.
The Doorstop
Instructing your students is an addendum to an afterthought. You are so busy with other things
that you find yourself looking over the day’s material for the first time with an Expo marker in your hand. You hit the high points,but most of the class period feels wasted as you turn pages and say “Um” with alarming frequency. You know only a couple of their faces and none of their names – but “hey you” seems to work thus far.
The Milquetoast
Your students don’t need to learn, or work, or frankly even show up.No one quite remembers
the last time they studied for your class. You have office hours from 9-5,and bring the coffee
and doughnuts. Assignments are more of a motivational exercise,and tests should be less about
grades and more about feeling comfortable. Sure,your students don’t respect you,but they
invite you to parties on the weekends.
The Over-Analyzer
You live to teach. You read every book, review every article,attend every seminar – all in the interest of your students’ education. Unfortunately, that means you’re on the outs with your girl,
your PI is still waiting for that presentation outline,and you own class work is in the toilet. When you teach, you spend more time polling the class for ways to improve or change things up
than covering the real material.
Hopefully none of these describes you perfectly. However, not unlike those ridiculous horoscopes you read in the checkout line, there’s probably a nugget of truth in some of them (and as an added benefit/horror, they probably serve as an interesting window into my psyche,which is something I typically would like to keep closed with shades drawn). Regardless of how your personal style seems to be working out thus far, here are some handy ways to keep ahead of the curve, or at least one chapter ahead of that smart kid who sits up front.
People learn differently. No, it’s true. Since you’re a graduate student, it may not be obvious why those basic concepts that came easily for you are not getting through to your freshman. The important thing to remember is that what comes easily for some can be a real bear for others. Try mixing things up a bit,and always have a couple extra angles to approach hard subjects. This is especially helpful during those office hour sessions you should be holding (and plugging during class) to help your students stay on top of things.
It’s a part time job. As much as you’d like to slack off (or learn all there is to know about your subject), most GSIs are being paid for a 20 hour work week. Those 20 hours includes attending class sessions, grading papers and reports,holding office hours and studying up on how to be a better GSI. Spending too much less or too much more,and both you and your beloved students will suffer for it. Sure, sometimes there are light (or heavy) weeks, but the hope is that you’re still advancing towards your academic goals while helping your students meet theirs.
Have a plan. A few minutes of prep can make any interaction with your students go that much more smoothly. Know what general issues have been discussed during the last few class periods,and what likely stumbling blocks are in the new material. Make sure you can work through any assigned homework before you assign it. As far as prepping for lectures,the author has found that using notecards to plan your chalkboard layout (in scale format,no less!) does wonders.
Get feedback. If you’re not sure how you rate as a GSI, try asking. Find some students whose opinions you trust,and ask them what kinds of things you could do to improve. Alternatively,ask some of your fellow grad students to sit in on your lecture and see if they can pass along any pointers. If neither of these are a good option, you can always videotape yourself giving a lecture,and then see what you think. It’s always easier to see a problem from an objective (or approximately objective) point of view.
Students are students - not friends (nor enemies) Face it, you will like some students better than others. Maybe you’ll have common interests,or maybe they’re more charming than their compatriots. Alternatively, you might have a student who never has a good question and you feel like every minute you spend on them is wasted. Whatever the issue, you have an ethical obligation to be fair to your students. This doesn’t mean doing their work for them (that’s unethical too!) but try to be available and equitable. Maybe, after the class is over, you’ll find time to befriend some of your students,but while the grades are being assigned, aim to keep things on an instructor-student basis.
You’re not alone Almost ten thousand graduate students currently attend Cal, and many of them have teaching questions (and problems) like you do. Luckily, in addition to departmental training assistance, the GSI Teaching and Resource Center provides funding, seminars, and a whole library on the subject of being a better instructor. For details on new resources and upcoming events, see their website at gsi.berkeley.edu. Oh,and the last 15 minutes you spent reading this totally count towards this week’s 20 hours.
Life always has its chores. As a youth,you probably took out the garbage or mowed the lawn. In college,maybe you bussed tables or shelved books in the library. You didn’t really think grad school would be different,did you? If you’re like most of the graduate students on our campus,you find yourself teaching a course that you hardly paid attention to a few years ago during your own undergraduate career. Between obligations to your research project,your post-doctoral (or other degree) plans,and your social life,it’s often hard to find the time to prep for that freshman lab course,but your students will never know,right? The problem is that most of us (excluding the oh-so-lucky education students!) have little formal training on how best to pass on our wisdom to the next generation. In fact,you probably fall into one of these archetypal categories of GSI:
The Puppeteer
You don’t see teaching as educational so much as a quest for control. Sure,you have your favorite student or two who you can trust,but most of them need to be ‘managed’. You spend most your time turning your students against each other,setting up in- class competitions and publicly posting grades. Whenever possible,you avoid interacting with the students directly,and instead choose to send mass emails and hang handwritten signs next to the whiteboard.
The Doorstop
Instructing your students is an addendum to an afterthought. You are so busy with other things
that you find yourself looking over the day’s material for the first time with an Expo marker in your hand. You hit the high points,but most of the class period feels wasted as you turn pages and say “Um” with alarming frequency. You know only a couple of their faces and none of their names – but “hey you” seems to work thus far.
The Milquetoast
Your students don’t need to learn, or work, or frankly even show up.No one quite remembers
the last time they studied for your class. You have office hours from 9-5,and bring the coffee
and doughnuts. Assignments are more of a motivational exercise,and tests should be less about
grades and more about feeling comfortable. Sure,your students don’t respect you,but they
invite you to parties on the weekends.
The Over-Analyzer
You live to teach. You read every book, review every article,attend every seminar – all in the interest of your students’ education. Unfortunately, that means you’re on the outs with your girl,
your PI is still waiting for that presentation outline,and you own class work is in the toilet. When you teach, you spend more time polling the class for ways to improve or change things up
than covering the real material.
Hopefully none of these describes you perfectly. However, not unlike those ridiculous horoscopes you read in the checkout line, there’s probably a nugget of truth in some of them (and as an added benefit/horror, they probably serve as an interesting window into my psyche,which is something I typically would like to keep closed with shades drawn). Regardless of how your personal style seems to be working out thus far, here are some handy ways to keep ahead of the curve, or at least one chapter ahead of that smart kid who sits up front.
People learn differently. No, it’s true. Since you’re a graduate student, it may not be obvious why those basic concepts that came easily for you are not getting through to your freshman. The important thing to remember is that what comes easily for some can be a real bear for others. Try mixing things up a bit,and always have a couple extra angles to approach hard subjects. This is especially helpful during those office hour sessions you should be holding (and plugging during class) to help your students stay on top of things.
It’s a part time job. As much as you’d like to slack off (or learn all there is to know about your subject), most GSIs are being paid for a 20 hour work week. Those 20 hours includes attending class sessions, grading papers and reports,holding office hours and studying up on how to be a better GSI. Spending too much less or too much more,and both you and your beloved students will suffer for it. Sure, sometimes there are light (or heavy) weeks, but the hope is that you’re still advancing towards your academic goals while helping your students meet theirs.
Have a plan. A few minutes of prep can make any interaction with your students go that much more smoothly. Know what general issues have been discussed during the last few class periods,and what likely stumbling blocks are in the new material. Make sure you can work through any assigned homework before you assign it. As far as prepping for lectures,the author has found that using notecards to plan your chalkboard layout (in scale format,no less!) does wonders.
Get feedback. If you’re not sure how you rate as a GSI, try asking. Find some students whose opinions you trust,and ask them what kinds of things you could do to improve. Alternatively,ask some of your fellow grad students to sit in on your lecture and see if they can pass along any pointers. If neither of these are a good option, you can always videotape yourself giving a lecture,and then see what you think. It’s always easier to see a problem from an objective (or approximately objective) point of view.
Students are students - not friends (nor enemies) Face it, you will like some students better than others. Maybe you’ll have common interests,or maybe they’re more charming than their compatriots. Alternatively, you might have a student who never has a good question and you feel like every minute you spend on them is wasted. Whatever the issue, you have an ethical obligation to be fair to your students. This doesn’t mean doing their work for them (that’s unethical too!) but try to be available and equitable. Maybe, after the class is over, you’ll find time to befriend some of your students,but while the grades are being assigned, aim to keep things on an instructor-student basis.
You’re not alone Almost ten thousand graduate students currently attend Cal, and many of them have teaching questions (and problems) like you do. Luckily, in addition to departmental training assistance, the GSI Teaching and Resource Center provides funding, seminars, and a whole library on the subject of being a better instructor. For details on new resources and upcoming events, see their website at gsi.berkeley.edu. Oh,and the last 15 minutes you spent reading this totally count towards this week’s 20 hours.
Your Relationship With Mentors: Notes From the Winners Circle
With thanks to the DFMA Committee
The Graduate Assembly this last year gave out its 4th annual Distinguished Faculty
Mentors Award, honoring Senate and Non-Senate members of the Berkeley faculty who
have shown an outstanding commitment to developing and supporting graduate student
researchers. These were individuals who had gone above and beyond the call of duty
with respect to helping graduate students become outstanding scholars.
Not every department apparently has mentors,however for those of you who do,it is
nice to see what is out there. Perhaps one day you too will be a mentor and you’d like
to know what people beside you really appreciate or what keeps them getting up and
going to work every day. So we went through some of the nominations that led to
wins to see what people were saying about folks here on campus.
“A mentor might be supportive in guidance of students’ academic achievement, but a great mentor inspires students to explore their own interests,to understand the benefit of discipline, to keep a good balance between school and personal life, and to devote to their own belief.“
“Significant amount of research labs have a set plan to follow, and new graduate students are incorporated into the plan. Their own interests often become blurry in transition, and their efforts are spent just for the degree. This has never happened.”
“Our lab is like a big family—we share the excitement of research achieving, and we share the glorious moment of everyone’s graduation including undergraduate students.”
“As a dedicated instructor,mentor,and advisor,he has always helped us in our efforts in academic achievement and in the larger professional world of scholarly publishing and research.“
“He has taught us the academic expectations of professionals in the field as well as the appropriate conduct necessary to working with academics outside of UC Berkeley in the kind of detail and care that goes well beyond the requirements of his job as an advisor and professor.His advice and guidance with course work and research has been consistently intelligent, thorough, helpful, and prompt, and he has been regularly available,even while away on sabbatical. In a profession in which generosity is not always a rule,this has been a characteristic of his dedication to his students.We know first hand that when he says students are his work,and not just the research all scholars engage in,it is a lived truth in his case.Considering the type of attention he devotes to his students as well as to his colleagues in the field,what is surprising is that on top of this,he has had time to write very influential books and articles that have marked important trends in the profession.“
“A careful and patient listener,he demonstrated a keen ability to divine constructive future steps.”
“…Very insightful about the complex relationships between people in different institutions
and their patterns of thought they bring to their work.Because of this he is able to help
students with a very wide range of research and career interests,providing both connec-
tions to different approaches and critical reflection on research methods.In addition he
understands that students come to graduate school with a very wide range of professional
goals,and he is able to both help them structure their program to meet those goals,as well
as to reflect on them and often to change them.”
“…Offers inspiration as well as support.His passion for justice and his passion for scholarship are inseparable;he has demonstrated in countless ways that there is no contradiction between engagement in social issues and uncompromising excellence in research. He does this without the pretense that scholarship does not embody values, but rather challenges his students and colleagues to be reflexive about the ways in which their values do influence research (and other people’s values influences their research,whether they admit it or not).”
“Though he is forever tempting us with new ideas,warning us of unforeseen difficulties, and
often seems to somehow know the direction our work will take before we do, he is also
clearly committed to cultivating our independence as scholars.”
“Guided by his experiences and challenged by his questions,we find ourselves wanting to strikeout in new directions or to look at old problems in a different light.“
The Graduate Assembly this last year gave out its 4th annual Distinguished Faculty
Mentors Award, honoring Senate and Non-Senate members of the Berkeley faculty who
have shown an outstanding commitment to developing and supporting graduate student
researchers. These were individuals who had gone above and beyond the call of duty
with respect to helping graduate students become outstanding scholars.
Not every department apparently has mentors,however for those of you who do,it is
nice to see what is out there. Perhaps one day you too will be a mentor and you’d like
to know what people beside you really appreciate or what keeps them getting up and
going to work every day. So we went through some of the nominations that led to
wins to see what people were saying about folks here on campus.
“A mentor might be supportive in guidance of students’ academic achievement, but a great mentor inspires students to explore their own interests,to understand the benefit of discipline, to keep a good balance between school and personal life, and to devote to their own belief.“
“Significant amount of research labs have a set plan to follow, and new graduate students are incorporated into the plan. Their own interests often become blurry in transition, and their efforts are spent just for the degree. This has never happened.”
“Our lab is like a big family—we share the excitement of research achieving, and we share the glorious moment of everyone’s graduation including undergraduate students.”
“As a dedicated instructor,mentor,and advisor,he has always helped us in our efforts in academic achievement and in the larger professional world of scholarly publishing and research.“
“He has taught us the academic expectations of professionals in the field as well as the appropriate conduct necessary to working with academics outside of UC Berkeley in the kind of detail and care that goes well beyond the requirements of his job as an advisor and professor.His advice and guidance with course work and research has been consistently intelligent, thorough, helpful, and prompt, and he has been regularly available,even while away on sabbatical. In a profession in which generosity is not always a rule,this has been a characteristic of his dedication to his students.We know first hand that when he says students are his work,and not just the research all scholars engage in,it is a lived truth in his case.Considering the type of attention he devotes to his students as well as to his colleagues in the field,what is surprising is that on top of this,he has had time to write very influential books and articles that have marked important trends in the profession.“
“A careful and patient listener,he demonstrated a keen ability to divine constructive future steps.”
“…Very insightful about the complex relationships between people in different institutions
and their patterns of thought they bring to their work.Because of this he is able to help
students with a very wide range of research and career interests,providing both connec-
tions to different approaches and critical reflection on research methods.In addition he
understands that students come to graduate school with a very wide range of professional
goals,and he is able to both help them structure their program to meet those goals,as well
as to reflect on them and often to change them.”
“…Offers inspiration as well as support.His passion for justice and his passion for scholarship are inseparable;he has demonstrated in countless ways that there is no contradiction between engagement in social issues and uncompromising excellence in research. He does this without the pretense that scholarship does not embody values, but rather challenges his students and colleagues to be reflexive about the ways in which their values do influence research (and other people’s values influences their research,whether they admit it or not).”
“Though he is forever tempting us with new ideas,warning us of unforeseen difficulties, and
often seems to somehow know the direction our work will take before we do, he is also
clearly committed to cultivating our independence as scholars.”
“Guided by his experiences and challenged by his questions,we find ourselves wanting to strikeout in new directions or to look at old problems in a different light.“
TEACH US
by Jonathan Rheaume
Clark Kerr’s California Master Plan of Education in 1960 designated the University of California as the only state institution authorized to award PhDs. The focus on research,however,did not erase the teaching mission of the University of California.Although the teaching load was lowered,the acceptable level of quality of teaching was not.
The University of California’s Mission lists its fundamental responsibilities as teaching,research and public service. Appearing first and foremost in this list is teaching.
Graduate students at UC Berkeley are concerned about the emphasis on research at the expense of teaching.As a result,the Graduate Assembly voted teaching improvement as one of the three main focuses for the 2007-08 academic school year. The initiative is called TEACH US,which stands for Teaching Excellence At California’s Highest Universities. Advising was added to this list by friendly amendment.
The goal of TEACH US is to encourage excellence in teaching at UC.Several teaching awards already exist,but these awards do little to motivate faculty members across the board to improve teaching. At UC Berkeley,substandard teaching is tolerated as long as research quality remains high.
Ironically,most students at UC will never perform any research. The overwhelming majority of students will never publish a paper or perform any research of significance.Undergraduates and professional students makeup a large majority of students on campus.They did not come to UC to do research,and they are poorly served by policies that slight teaching for the benefit of research.
Similarly, all UC Berkeley students who pass through the Sather Gate will need advising during their educational journey,but advising does not appear in the University’s Mission.There is no mechanism to provide feedback about the quality of advising. How well advising needs are being met is in question.
While improvement in teaching and advising can be expected by increasing their weight during promotion evaluations (merit review,tenure cases,etc.),this outcome is unlikely in the near term.The TEACH US committee is considering the following near term goals:1.Making course evaluation statistics publicly accessible on the internet,2.Raising awareness of teaching quality and 3.Instituting a performance metric for advising.
Former UC BerkeleyChancellor, Robert M. Berdahl said it best:“Unless the state recognizes and supports excellence,excellence will not develop and we will all be the poorer for it.” The TEACH US initiative aims to support excellence in teaching and advising.
1- University of California's Mission.Accessed on 10/23/2007 from http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/aboutuc/mission.html.
2- RobertM.Berdahl,“The Futureof Flagship Universities,Texas A&M University Convocation, October 5,1998.Accessed on 10/23/2007 from http://cio.chance.berkeley.edu/chancellor/sp/flag-ship.htm
Clark Kerr’s California Master Plan of Education in 1960 designated the University of California as the only state institution authorized to award PhDs. The focus on research,however,did not erase the teaching mission of the University of California.Although the teaching load was lowered,the acceptable level of quality of teaching was not.
The University of California’s Mission lists its fundamental responsibilities as teaching,research and public service. Appearing first and foremost in this list is teaching.
Graduate students at UC Berkeley are concerned about the emphasis on research at the expense of teaching.As a result,the Graduate Assembly voted teaching improvement as one of the three main focuses for the 2007-08 academic school year. The initiative is called TEACH US,which stands for Teaching Excellence At California’s Highest Universities. Advising was added to this list by friendly amendment.
The goal of TEACH US is to encourage excellence in teaching at UC.Several teaching awards already exist,but these awards do little to motivate faculty members across the board to improve teaching. At UC Berkeley,substandard teaching is tolerated as long as research quality remains high.
Ironically,most students at UC will never perform any research. The overwhelming majority of students will never publish a paper or perform any research of significance.Undergraduates and professional students makeup a large majority of students on campus.They did not come to UC to do research,and they are poorly served by policies that slight teaching for the benefit of research.
Similarly, all UC Berkeley students who pass through the Sather Gate will need advising during their educational journey,but advising does not appear in the University’s Mission.There is no mechanism to provide feedback about the quality of advising. How well advising needs are being met is in question.
While improvement in teaching and advising can be expected by increasing their weight during promotion evaluations (merit review,tenure cases,etc.),this outcome is unlikely in the near term.The TEACH US committee is considering the following near term goals:1.Making course evaluation statistics publicly accessible on the internet,2.Raising awareness of teaching quality and 3.Instituting a performance metric for advising.
Former UC BerkeleyChancellor, Robert M. Berdahl said it best:“Unless the state recognizes and supports excellence,excellence will not develop and we will all be the poorer for it.” The TEACH US initiative aims to support excellence in teaching and advising.
1- University of California's Mission.Accessed on 10/23/2007 from http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/aboutuc/mission.html.
2- RobertM.Berdahl,“The Futureof Flagship Universities,Texas A&M University Convocation, October 5,1998.Accessed on 10/23/2007 from http://cio.chance.berkeley.edu/chancellor/sp/flag-ship.htm
FROM THE ASUC OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
UC Berkeley • 200 Eshleman Hall #4500,Berkeley,CA 94720-4500 • (510) 642-1431 •
www.asuc.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Monday,October 29,2007
Contact:Joshua Daniels, 510-717-1185
Shawn Kumar Jain, 415-846-3707
STUDENT GOVERNMENTS ANNOUNCE STUDENT FEE REDUCTION
Berkeley — On Monday,October 29,2007,the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) and the Graduate Assembly (GA) will announce that for the first time in UC Berkeley’s history students have successfully lobbied the administration to reduce student fees. This effort will save students more than $130,000 over the next two years.
When the student-approved Class Pass Fee referendum went into effect during the 2006-07 academic year students expected to soon receive access to a service called TransLink,which would allowstudent IDs to be used as access cards on any public transportation system in the Bay Area. However,even though the student body has been have been charged approximately $66,000 each year for the TransLink service,it is still not available to students. Last week,the University administration finally agreed to remove the fee until the service is implemented, which is thought to be at least two years away.
“When students elected me last spring,they did so under the premise that I would work to lower their student fees,and the removal of this TransLink fee is a tangible step in that direction,” said ASUC President Van Nguyen. “We must do whatever we can to make college more affordable so that higher education is accessible for all students.”
The ASUC Senate,the Delegate Assembly (the GA’s legislative body),and the Committee on Student Fees and Budget Review (CSFBR) crafted a letter to the administration requesting the temporaryreduction. Nguyen,GA President Joshua Daniels,and CSFBR Chair Chandresh Patel then personallylobbied the administration on the issue. After some initial disagreements,the administration agreed with the students and the Chancellor approved the reduction.
“This is how the student-administration relationship is supposed to operate,” said Daniels. “Students identify a problem and bring it to the administration’sattention. The administration listens,ensures that the students’ arguments are valid,and then approves the students’ request. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau,Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom,Associate Vice Chancellor Ron Coley,and Parking and Transportation Director Noel Pinto responded in exactly this way to our concerns.”
According to Candace Nisby, chief of staff to Nguyen,this is the first time that a student fee has gone down as a result of students’ lobbying efforts. “It is important for students to realize that they have the power to make change on this campus,and the ASUC is the agent through which change happens,” she said.
www.asuc.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Monday,October 29,2007
Contact:Joshua Daniels, 510-717-1185
Shawn Kumar Jain, 415-846-3707
STUDENT GOVERNMENTS ANNOUNCE STUDENT FEE REDUCTION
Berkeley — On Monday,October 29,2007,the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) and the Graduate Assembly (GA) will announce that for the first time in UC Berkeley’s history students have successfully lobbied the administration to reduce student fees. This effort will save students more than $130,000 over the next two years.
When the student-approved Class Pass Fee referendum went into effect during the 2006-07 academic year students expected to soon receive access to a service called TransLink,which would allowstudent IDs to be used as access cards on any public transportation system in the Bay Area. However,even though the student body has been have been charged approximately $66,000 each year for the TransLink service,it is still not available to students. Last week,the University administration finally agreed to remove the fee until the service is implemented, which is thought to be at least two years away.
“When students elected me last spring,they did so under the premise that I would work to lower their student fees,and the removal of this TransLink fee is a tangible step in that direction,” said ASUC President Van Nguyen. “We must do whatever we can to make college more affordable so that higher education is accessible for all students.”
The ASUC Senate,the Delegate Assembly (the GA’s legislative body),and the Committee on Student Fees and Budget Review (CSFBR) crafted a letter to the administration requesting the temporaryreduction. Nguyen,GA President Joshua Daniels,and CSFBR Chair Chandresh Patel then personallylobbied the administration on the issue. After some initial disagreements,the administration agreed with the students and the Chancellor approved the reduction.
“This is how the student-administration relationship is supposed to operate,” said Daniels. “Students identify a problem and bring it to the administration’sattention. The administration listens,ensures that the students’ arguments are valid,and then approves the students’ request. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau,Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom,Associate Vice Chancellor Ron Coley,and Parking and Transportation Director Noel Pinto responded in exactly this way to our concerns.”
According to Candace Nisby, chief of staff to Nguyen,this is the first time that a student fee has gone down as a result of students’ lobbying efforts. “It is important for students to realize that they have the power to make change on this campus,and the ASUC is the agent through which change happens,” she said.
QUICK GA NEWS!
The Graduate Assembly adopted the following three issues as its action agenda for the 2007-08 academic year,indicating the general foci of GA attention:
•access to health resources,
•reducing the cost of international student enrollment,and
•Teaching Excellence and Advising at California's Highest University System
(TEACH US).
Resolutions of note that have passed already this semester:
Directed Action Regarding the Academic Calendar of the University of California,
Berkeley: Significant Dates of Recognition for Oppressed Populations
WHEREAS we as graduate students in an institution of higher education value diversity and
attempt to be inclusive of underrepresented students;
WHEREAS the United Nations declares August 9th of every year to be International Day of the
World’s Indigenous People;
WHEREAS the State of California declares the fourth Friday of September as Native American
Day;
WHEREAS the City of Berkeley declares Indigenous People’s Day in replace of what was once
known as ‘Columbus Day’;
WHEREAS the month of November is declared by the federal government as American Indian
Heritage Month;and
WHEREAS October 11 is observed by members of the LGBTIQQ community as National
Coming Out Day;
THEREFORE,BE IT RESOLVED that the President of the Graduate Assembly shall advocate to
the campus administration of the University of California,Berkeley to recognize the above dates
onthe academic calendar.
Directed Action to Sign a Letter to Associate Vice Chancellor Ron ColeyRequesting
that the UC Berkeley Administration Temporarily Reduce the Class Pass Fee
by$1.50 per semester
WHEREAS the Class Pass fee passed via a student referendum in Spring 2005;
WHEREAS a portion of the Class Pass fee,as established in the Class Pass Fee Referendum,goes
to AC Transit,and,of that AC Transit portion,$1.00 per semester is for the specific purpose of
providing a service known as Translink (and another $.50 per semester goes to the required
Return-to-Aid);
WHEREAS the UC Berkeley Registrar has been collecting this $1.50 per semester since Fall
2006;
WHEREAS the Translink service has yet to be provided to students and,according to the
Director of Parking & Transportation,it will not be provided for at least another two years;and
WHEREAS students should not be paying for a service which they are not receiving.
THEREFORE,BE IT RESOLVED that President of the Graduate Assembly empowered to take the
necessary actions in order to persuade the UC Berkeley administration to temporarily reduce
the Class Pass fee by $1.50 per semester,which includes sending a letter to Associate Vice
Chancellor Ron Coley.
For more information about Graduate Assembly goings on, visit the GA website at ga.Berkeley.edu
•access to health resources,
•reducing the cost of international student enrollment,and
•Teaching Excellence and Advising at California's Highest University System
(TEACH US).
Resolutions of note that have passed already this semester:
Directed Action Regarding the Academic Calendar of the University of California,
Berkeley: Significant Dates of Recognition for Oppressed Populations
WHEREAS we as graduate students in an institution of higher education value diversity and
attempt to be inclusive of underrepresented students;
WHEREAS the United Nations declares August 9th of every year to be International Day of the
World’s Indigenous People;
WHEREAS the State of California declares the fourth Friday of September as Native American
Day;
WHEREAS the City of Berkeley declares Indigenous People’s Day in replace of what was once
known as ‘Columbus Day’;
WHEREAS the month of November is declared by the federal government as American Indian
Heritage Month;and
WHEREAS October 11 is observed by members of the LGBTIQQ community as National
Coming Out Day;
THEREFORE,BE IT RESOLVED that the President of the Graduate Assembly shall advocate to
the campus administration of the University of California,Berkeley to recognize the above dates
onthe academic calendar.
Directed Action to Sign a Letter to Associate Vice Chancellor Ron ColeyRequesting
that the UC Berkeley Administration Temporarily Reduce the Class Pass Fee
by$1.50 per semester
WHEREAS the Class Pass fee passed via a student referendum in Spring 2005;
WHEREAS a portion of the Class Pass fee,as established in the Class Pass Fee Referendum,goes
to AC Transit,and,of that AC Transit portion,$1.00 per semester is for the specific purpose of
providing a service known as Translink (and another $.50 per semester goes to the required
Return-to-Aid);
WHEREAS the UC Berkeley Registrar has been collecting this $1.50 per semester since Fall
2006;
WHEREAS the Translink service has yet to be provided to students and,according to the
Director of Parking & Transportation,it will not be provided for at least another two years;and
WHEREAS students should not be paying for a service which they are not receiving.
THEREFORE,BE IT RESOLVED that President of the Graduate Assembly empowered to take the
necessary actions in order to persuade the UC Berkeley administration to temporarily reduce
the Class Pass fee by $1.50 per semester,which includes sending a letter to Associate Vice
Chancellor Ron Coley.
For more information about Graduate Assembly goings on, visit the GA website at ga.Berkeley.edu
Letter from the Editor
Welcome to another issue of The Berkeley Graduate! This issue focuses on personal/professional relationships,and how we deal with our status as students, as well as sometimes wearing hats as teachers,or parents,or spouses,or singles. It should be a good read. That is the hope. That is always the hope.
Last semester,we took a good look at the Berkeley Graduate archive and noted that it is a fairly tragic thing that our older issues aren't really available to the public in the way we would like:electronic,tagged,and searchable. We are still working on that and hope to have great news for you in future issues.
However,on our way to having a nice easy to view repository of content, we have noted that maybe that is not what you want most. We wanted to make sure that you, the reader,was aware of our feedback mechanism. If you want to contact us, you can do it through the email address,berkeleygraduate@ga.berkeley.edu.
Also,being eventual tech-adopters,we have established a little web-presence on face-book, If you want to write on our anonymous wall because you’re uncomfortable emailing,that is fine too! Or if you want to be friends and have up-to-minute coverage of what we’re doing, search for “Berkeley Graduate”. It will look like the guy at the bottom of the page here.
If you would like to submit something for the Spring issue, feel free to contact us. We are pretty open-minded about submitted content and it looks like the Spring issue is going to be about our relationships with our work and the university,so things are pretty loose. We are also always
looking for reporting and copy editing talent, so if you have been having recurring dreams about being an investigatory journalist,or a yen for pulling together split infinitives, or particularly strong feelings about Oxford Commas, we would LOVE to hear from you.
As always,best wishes and keep reading!
--The Berkeley Graduate
Last semester,we took a good look at the Berkeley Graduate archive and noted that it is a fairly tragic thing that our older issues aren't really available to the public in the way we would like:electronic,tagged,and searchable. We are still working on that and hope to have great news for you in future issues.
However,on our way to having a nice easy to view repository of content, we have noted that maybe that is not what you want most. We wanted to make sure that you, the reader,was aware of our feedback mechanism. If you want to contact us, you can do it through the email address,berkeleygraduate@ga.berkeley.edu.
Also,being eventual tech-adopters,we have established a little web-presence on face-book, If you want to write on our anonymous wall because you’re uncomfortable emailing,that is fine too! Or if you want to be friends and have up-to-minute coverage of what we’re doing, search for “Berkeley Graduate”. It will look like the guy at the bottom of the page here.
If you would like to submit something for the Spring issue, feel free to contact us. We are pretty open-minded about submitted content and it looks like the Spring issue is going to be about our relationships with our work and the university,so things are pretty loose. We are also always
looking for reporting and copy editing talent, so if you have been having recurring dreams about being an investigatory journalist,or a yen for pulling together split infinitives, or particularly strong feelings about Oxford Commas, we would LOVE to hear from you.
As always,best wishes and keep reading!
--The Berkeley Graduate
Saturday, August 4, 2007
In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Bears: Discount Culture
When I think of culture at Cal, my first thoughts go to the Petri-dish of a lawn of sporulating grossness that I made by inoculating sugar-free jello with the growth from my labmate's coffee pot. For someone who professes to love the elixer of that bean so much,one would imagine that his carafe wouldn't have gotten to the point where I could take colony samples off it. But I digress. Millions of bacteria can't be wrong. Or can they? I love sugar-free jello anyway--it's way cheaper than McConkey's agar,even if I don't get to make any conclusions on lactose metabolism. I'll stop before your collective dorkmeters end up smoldering on the floor.If anthrax taught me nothing else, it's that a little biology is a dangerous thing.
Anyhow,I think the important thing to remember while engaged in the pursuit of your advanced degree is that there is life outside of the lab. This is a concept that is for some difficult to accept,but it is true. You can plug away at your studies 110 hours a week,but if you don't take the time to do a little cultural decompression once in a while,you're setting yourself up to develop a close personal relationship with the good people of GlaxoSmithKline (Tums),Johnson and Johnson (Mylanta),Novartis (Maalox), and Pfizer (Rolaids,Zantac,…and Viagra,but that is neither here nor there). And these are my friends,so I would suggest you get your own.
Of course,you might be thinking,“Culture is expensive and I am POOR!”. Fair enough. Thankfully, there is lots of culture on the cheap in the bay area. With your student I.D. (put that on your first things to get list if you haven't gotten it already), and your hopefully simultaneously acquired Class Pass (opening to you the gateway that is the AC Transit festival of free buses),you have a whole great area to explore. Sometimes riding the bus and people watching is all the culture and entertainment I need. However, with an ID,you can walk into the Berkeley Art and Anthropology Museums for cheap as free! Also,the campanile is accessible,ASUC Superb concerts and such,and most athletic events. Your wallet is still fat. The Pacific Film Archive offers free movies sometimes (usually the beginnings of the months),so that's certainly something to check out.
Introverted? Agoraphobic? Might I suggest that you use the card's second functionality: Library Card. While you might be used to looking for things in the library or libraries devoted to your field,perhaps a book on something you stumbled upon in the news or while poking around on the internets. The stacks offer that warm confined feeling that you don't get so much in Art museums,while there's a lower risk of social interaction. Heh heh heh. Seriously though--some of the best chairs on campus are hidden in libraries. Therearelunch poetry readings sometimes in the Morrison library, there's the dinosaur over by the biosciences library (which is one of the first things I show visiting guests),and of course,most of them have books that surely someone would find interesting. And,the buildings areoften climate controlled. Hot. (Or not,when that is
the preferable way to be.) And maybe if you're not introverted,you could meet people interested in the same topics as you? I'm sure you can think these things through. After all,you're here,so you've surpassed some initial screening. Probably.
If you have the opportunity,classes outside of your department are occasionally tempting,and often covered by your department,so that's pretty cool. Classes down at the ASUC Art Studio are discounted with your ID,so if you want to learn to craft in some way,that's a regular inoculation of non-work option. Free departmental seminars are great too!
Some people incorporate food as part of a culture. And you have a plethora of options here in Berkeley. If your having saved money on entertainment has not sufficiently sated your desire for cheapness,Mel's, EZ Stop and Fenton's will discount your food if you flash your I.D. I think the candy store by the BART station too,but that might involve some sort of trickery. If you want to shift up in price range,remember that Berkeley is the hometown of the development of what is considered “California Cuisine”, so there are high-end options. Perhaps when I graduate I will try such things. But feel free to experiment. Depending on your focus,experimentation may be what getting your degree is all about.
Anyhow,I think the important thing to remember while engaged in the pursuit of your advanced degree is that there is life outside of the lab. This is a concept that is for some difficult to accept,but it is true. You can plug away at your studies 110 hours a week,but if you don't take the time to do a little cultural decompression once in a while,you're setting yourself up to develop a close personal relationship with the good people of GlaxoSmithKline (Tums),Johnson and Johnson (Mylanta),Novartis (Maalox), and Pfizer (Rolaids,Zantac,…and Viagra,but that is neither here nor there). And these are my friends,so I would suggest you get your own.
Of course,you might be thinking,“Culture is expensive and I am POOR!”. Fair enough. Thankfully, there is lots of culture on the cheap in the bay area. With your student I.D. (put that on your first things to get list if you haven't gotten it already), and your hopefully simultaneously acquired Class Pass (opening to you the gateway that is the AC Transit festival of free buses),you have a whole great area to explore. Sometimes riding the bus and people watching is all the culture and entertainment I need. However, with an ID,you can walk into the Berkeley Art and Anthropology Museums for cheap as free! Also,the campanile is accessible,ASUC Superb concerts and such,and most athletic events. Your wallet is still fat. The Pacific Film Archive offers free movies sometimes (usually the beginnings of the months),so that's certainly something to check out.
Introverted? Agoraphobic? Might I suggest that you use the card's second functionality: Library Card. While you might be used to looking for things in the library or libraries devoted to your field,perhaps a book on something you stumbled upon in the news or while poking around on the internets. The stacks offer that warm confined feeling that you don't get so much in Art museums,while there's a lower risk of social interaction. Heh heh heh. Seriously though--some of the best chairs on campus are hidden in libraries. Therearelunch poetry readings sometimes in the Morrison library, there's the dinosaur over by the biosciences library (which is one of the first things I show visiting guests),and of course,most of them have books that surely someone would find interesting. And,the buildings areoften climate controlled. Hot. (Or not,when that is
the preferable way to be.) And maybe if you're not introverted,you could meet people interested in the same topics as you? I'm sure you can think these things through. After all,you're here,so you've surpassed some initial screening. Probably.
If you have the opportunity,classes outside of your department are occasionally tempting,and often covered by your department,so that's pretty cool. Classes down at the ASUC Art Studio are discounted with your ID,so if you want to learn to craft in some way,that's a regular inoculation of non-work option. Free departmental seminars are great too!
Some people incorporate food as part of a culture. And you have a plethora of options here in Berkeley. If your having saved money on entertainment has not sufficiently sated your desire for cheapness,Mel's, EZ Stop and Fenton's will discount your food if you flash your I.D. I think the candy store by the BART station too,but that might involve some sort of trickery. If you want to shift up in price range,remember that Berkeley is the hometown of the development of what is considered “California Cuisine”, so there are high-end options. Perhaps when I graduate I will try such things. But feel free to experiment. Depending on your focus,experimentation may be what getting your degree is all about.
Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" as pertain to the state of being a graduate student at UC Berkeley
While Abe Maslow may not be the most cited researcher in psychology, some of his work I find reallyinforms not really so much how to prioritize as a student here in Berkeley (since that in many ways takes care of itself) or in general,but how to be effective in the long run.
Basically, Maslow noticed that some needs are greater than others and made a hierarchy of the basics—physiologicals,the intakes and outputs of one’s physical person are at the bottom of the hierarchy because if those needs aren’t met it is biologically dangerous.
Depending on what you are used to,graduate school may be an increase in workload which will have a concomitant increase in stress which can interrupt sleeping and eating patterns. My colleague and I used to joke that there is sleep,academics,and social interaction and you can only really have 2 out of the 3. The fact of the matter is that with some time management and a willingness to get up earlyand work efficiently one can have 3 of the 3. Looking a professors with families can be inspiring in as much as you can see that these things are possible but it does require a readiness to socialize with the right people who will also have your best interests in their priorities. But the take home message is that taking care of your body is key if you’re expecting your higher order functions to work.
Next up is the safety and security needs. I think dealing with these is almost like adaptive testing: your first couple decisions are key and after that you can only shift your results within a pre-established region. I actuallyhaven’t moved around since initially moving into Berkeley and I lucked into a living situation with housemates who I trusted and a nice landlord who was friendly enough with the neighborhood that I felt vaguely safe when he was around. I know better than to walk alone in a non-vigilant manner at night and I certainly will shamelessly hound my current housemates about locking the doors though,because,as one of my old labmates used to say,“those bars aren’t in the windows for decoration.” I can’t realistically change my neighborhood within the time frame that I would love to feel safe in,but what I can do is establish patterns. If I am on campus after 9PM during the school year I take the door to door lines,and after 3AM I will call the owl line,also provided free by UC Parking and Transit. The Campus Safety Officers have been great in all my interactions with them. My one complaint would be about the gap between the limits in which one can apply for a campus parking pass and
the outer limit of safety shuttle coverage,but I live 4 blocks from what would be a perfect situation,if I wanted to pay that little bit more in rent. Basically I’m trading the establishment of savings for future financial safety for current feelings of occasional safety. I’m okay with that but you might not be.These are the trade-offs. But research your housing situation.
The third tier is the more social stuff that one feels a longing for after one feels safe and biologically sated. Feeling lonely or socially anxious is something that the local community can help with. There are plethora of graduate student organizations and one shouldn’t feel like organizations that are mostly undergraduates are necessarily exclusive. If you have an interest in the Brazilian art of dance fighting there’s a community for that. If you want to play video-games with peers there are groups that do that too. A non-negligible number of students showup to the bay area without prior friends or relations locally. Meeting people will happen through your department,certainly, but if you want to avoid talking about work all the time,making some non-departmental connections is key too. If you’re having problems meeting folks…there’s the gym, there’s public transit,you could even show up to GA meetings. My parents,who were both
international students used to go to grocery stores to meet people (and learn English). There’s opportunity everywhere.
The final level of basic or deficit needs involves respect,both from others and for yourself. The respect of others you can deal with by publishing.I think gaining respect as a graduate student is not necessarily something that ought to be conceptually new or different than what you know about gaining respect as a person in the rest of your life.
Dealing with self-esteem is probably the same. If you work hard to be achieve mastery of your area of study and become competent,confidence should follow. Low self-esteem can lead to some problems that can be dealt with over at the Tang Center (getting that monkey off your back sometimes is a chemical problem),however for more middling situations,there are options for confidence development through workshops in the teaching or career centers on campus.
If you don’t notice that you’re lacking in any of the previous areas,well, you’re doing well enough to survive,either based on your own preliminary work on maintaining yourself as a healthy individual,or on your instincts. These are what you have to take care of first so you can focus on the top of the pyramid, where self-actualization and self-transcendence are where thriving is. See, Maslow studied more than monkeys,he studied the histories of the best and the brightest. And,as you’re a graduate student,these probably apply to you more than most. This area is where…drive to be the best is. Not just drive, really. This is where the need and capacity to solve problems and resist pressures. Once you’ve dealt with the basics you can change your negative qualities and reallyflourish with…well with Gemeinschaftsgefühl. Those Germans have words for everything!
I don’t know how much of dealing with the need to live up to potential is something you can actively do as opposed to something you will naturally be inclined to do,(I’m not in the philosophy department,I imagine they have more answers on this,) but I think this is where your work as a scholar lies. I don’t know. If you want advice with certainty backing it…ask a professor. They’re usually past this phase of doubt. Or they can fake it. That might be something you need to learn too. Good luck!
Basically, Maslow noticed that some needs are greater than others and made a hierarchy of the basics—physiologicals,the intakes and outputs of one’s physical person are at the bottom of the hierarchy because if those needs aren’t met it is biologically dangerous.
Depending on what you are used to,graduate school may be an increase in workload which will have a concomitant increase in stress which can interrupt sleeping and eating patterns. My colleague and I used to joke that there is sleep,academics,and social interaction and you can only really have 2 out of the 3. The fact of the matter is that with some time management and a willingness to get up earlyand work efficiently one can have 3 of the 3. Looking a professors with families can be inspiring in as much as you can see that these things are possible but it does require a readiness to socialize with the right people who will also have your best interests in their priorities. But the take home message is that taking care of your body is key if you’re expecting your higher order functions to work.
Next up is the safety and security needs. I think dealing with these is almost like adaptive testing: your first couple decisions are key and after that you can only shift your results within a pre-established region. I actuallyhaven’t moved around since initially moving into Berkeley and I lucked into a living situation with housemates who I trusted and a nice landlord who was friendly enough with the neighborhood that I felt vaguely safe when he was around. I know better than to walk alone in a non-vigilant manner at night and I certainly will shamelessly hound my current housemates about locking the doors though,because,as one of my old labmates used to say,“those bars aren’t in the windows for decoration.” I can’t realistically change my neighborhood within the time frame that I would love to feel safe in,but what I can do is establish patterns. If I am on campus after 9PM during the school year I take the door to door lines,and after 3AM I will call the owl line,also provided free by UC Parking and Transit. The Campus Safety Officers have been great in all my interactions with them. My one complaint would be about the gap between the limits in which one can apply for a campus parking pass and
the outer limit of safety shuttle coverage,but I live 4 blocks from what would be a perfect situation,if I wanted to pay that little bit more in rent. Basically I’m trading the establishment of savings for future financial safety for current feelings of occasional safety. I’m okay with that but you might not be.These are the trade-offs. But research your housing situation.
The third tier is the more social stuff that one feels a longing for after one feels safe and biologically sated. Feeling lonely or socially anxious is something that the local community can help with. There are plethora of graduate student organizations and one shouldn’t feel like organizations that are mostly undergraduates are necessarily exclusive. If you have an interest in the Brazilian art of dance fighting there’s a community for that. If you want to play video-games with peers there are groups that do that too. A non-negligible number of students showup to the bay area without prior friends or relations locally. Meeting people will happen through your department,certainly, but if you want to avoid talking about work all the time,making some non-departmental connections is key too. If you’re having problems meeting folks…there’s the gym, there’s public transit,you could even show up to GA meetings. My parents,who were both
international students used to go to grocery stores to meet people (and learn English). There’s opportunity everywhere.
The final level of basic or deficit needs involves respect,both from others and for yourself. The respect of others you can deal with by publishing.I think gaining respect as a graduate student is not necessarily something that ought to be conceptually new or different than what you know about gaining respect as a person in the rest of your life.
Dealing with self-esteem is probably the same. If you work hard to be achieve mastery of your area of study and become competent,confidence should follow. Low self-esteem can lead to some problems that can be dealt with over at the Tang Center (getting that monkey off your back sometimes is a chemical problem),however for more middling situations,there are options for confidence development through workshops in the teaching or career centers on campus.
If you don’t notice that you’re lacking in any of the previous areas,well, you’re doing well enough to survive,either based on your own preliminary work on maintaining yourself as a healthy individual,or on your instincts. These are what you have to take care of first so you can focus on the top of the pyramid, where self-actualization and self-transcendence are where thriving is. See, Maslow studied more than monkeys,he studied the histories of the best and the brightest. And,as you’re a graduate student,these probably apply to you more than most. This area is where…drive to be the best is. Not just drive, really. This is where the need and capacity to solve problems and resist pressures. Once you’ve dealt with the basics you can change your negative qualities and reallyflourish with…well with Gemeinschaftsgefühl. Those Germans have words for everything!
I don’t know how much of dealing with the need to live up to potential is something you can actively do as opposed to something you will naturally be inclined to do,(I’m not in the philosophy department,I imagine they have more answers on this,) but I think this is where your work as a scholar lies. I don’t know. If you want advice with certainty backing it…ask a professor. They’re usually past this phase of doubt. Or they can fake it. That might be something you need to learn too. Good luck!
I Can’t Think About Orientation Without Thinking of Orienteering
I can’t think about orientation without thinking of orienteering. Not that I anticipate you’ll be doing a lot of running around with a map and a compass (I would say that a fair percentage of graduate students have very little idea of what’s going on in buildings oncampus outside of their department,so maybe that would be a great activity…) but I think that getting your bearings with respect to Berkeley might help.
As you’ve gotten here,you’re probably aware that to the South are Oakland and Emeryville. Directly to the West is the San Francisco Bay,and on the other side of that is the Pacific Ocean. To the North is Albany and Kensington. East of Berkeley are the hills,the ridge of which is the county line between Berkeley’s Alameda County and Contra Costa County. If you have registered to vote,you will likely be called for Jury Duty and if you are a local that would be in Alameda County and consequently in Oakland or Hayward. The courthouses in Oakland are easier to reach,but if you are called to serve in Hayward you get mail from the “Hayward Hall of Justice” which I always associate with the Super Friends,although I have never made a super friend at jury duty. I did meet a grad student in Physics who I went out with,but that ended awkwardly and I probably shouldn’t talk about it. In any case,water is to the west, hills are to the east.
Besides its Super Friends association,you might associate Hayward with its eponymous fault, which was featured in the mid-Eighties Bond movie “A View to a Kill” (the last one with Roger Moore),and it surely appears in countless science texts.Tom Wolfe used it as a plot device once,too. While my love of geography doesn’t creep too much into geology, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this fault runs through campus, as that could help you orient yourself too. In addition to causing parts of Memorial Stadium (where the football is played,but also a good place to run around and climb stairs and such) to creep a little over a foot in the past 80-some years,it is responsible for the occasional pants-staining terror of many a lab-manager on campus,what with the shaking and the bouncing that occurs everyonce in a while. If you’re inside,you should probably knowyour orientation with respect to stairwells and door- ways.
THEY’RE A GREAT PLACE TO DUCK AND COVER!
As long as we’re discussing things on campus, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to orient yourself to the
library system. There are something like 30 libraries on campus. Lucky for you in this day and age, they’re all accessible through Pathfinder,the online catalog searching program, so you don’t necessarily have to walk to the 29 locations where what you are actively looking for is not located. Not that you won’t find interesting things that way. Maybe you would stumble upon the
book that cracks open your deep seeded love and preternatural talent for ventriloquism. I guess you can still look these things up,but it’s much more…efficient. Anyhow,that would all be found via lib.Berkeley.edu.
If you do not have a computer or easy access to one,there are computer labs on campus: in the basements of Dwinelle and Evans, VLSB,Moffitt Library,Tan Hall,Wheeler hall, and,if you have an OCF account,Heller Lounge in MLK. I know that the OCF usually gets a plug in here for having classes in things every once in a while,but I feel it is worthwhile to reiterate that they do provide some excellent services and one should visit ocf.Berkeley.edu for more details.
Getting back to orientation,Berkeley is a place full of foot and bikepaths both on and off campus. There is good public transit via BART and the buses (which are an excellent deal at the price of nothing with your magical student ID card). AC Transit actually connects with a variety of other service providers so that you can actually get pretty far for pretty cheap. With your ID card,you could hop 2 buses and make your way all the way down to Stanford if you wanted to for 4 dollars. Intercollegiate rivalry at its cheapest!
There are plenty of interesting local food, and sports and musical things that occur locally though. If you are not enthralled by Cal Adventures (www.oski.org),you can go climbing in the Indian Rock Park Community, or, if you’re feeling a different kind of spiritual,there are over 100 places of worship in Berkeley alone. From African-Methodist-Episcopalian to Zoroastrian:you’re covered! I had made a map of the churches and such,looking for a correlation with liquor stores (there are much fewer of them than I would have imagined, but still enough to lead to some disorientation!) but studying the culture of the city and the dynamics of it’s economy and the trade-offs feels a little too much like work. Anomalies in price gradients are interesting;there is currently a 22 cent per gallon difference between Eastern and Western University Avenue gas stations (!), but those won’t help you find your way home. I would suggest exploration,it’s the best way to get to know a place.
As you’ve gotten here,you’re probably aware that to the South are Oakland and Emeryville. Directly to the West is the San Francisco Bay,and on the other side of that is the Pacific Ocean. To the North is Albany and Kensington. East of Berkeley are the hills,the ridge of which is the county line between Berkeley’s Alameda County and Contra Costa County. If you have registered to vote,you will likely be called for Jury Duty and if you are a local that would be in Alameda County and consequently in Oakland or Hayward. The courthouses in Oakland are easier to reach,but if you are called to serve in Hayward you get mail from the “Hayward Hall of Justice” which I always associate with the Super Friends,although I have never made a super friend at jury duty. I did meet a grad student in Physics who I went out with,but that ended awkwardly and I probably shouldn’t talk about it. In any case,water is to the west, hills are to the east.
Besides its Super Friends association,you might associate Hayward with its eponymous fault, which was featured in the mid-Eighties Bond movie “A View to a Kill” (the last one with Roger Moore),and it surely appears in countless science texts.Tom Wolfe used it as a plot device once,too. While my love of geography doesn’t creep too much into geology, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this fault runs through campus, as that could help you orient yourself too. In addition to causing parts of Memorial Stadium (where the football is played,but also a good place to run around and climb stairs and such) to creep a little over a foot in the past 80-some years,it is responsible for the occasional pants-staining terror of many a lab-manager on campus,what with the shaking and the bouncing that occurs everyonce in a while. If you’re inside,you should probably knowyour orientation with respect to stairwells and door- ways.
THEY’RE A GREAT PLACE TO DUCK AND COVER!
As long as we’re discussing things on campus, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to orient yourself to the
library system. There are something like 30 libraries on campus. Lucky for you in this day and age, they’re all accessible through Pathfinder,the online catalog searching program, so you don’t necessarily have to walk to the 29 locations where what you are actively looking for is not located. Not that you won’t find interesting things that way. Maybe you would stumble upon the
book that cracks open your deep seeded love and preternatural talent for ventriloquism. I guess you can still look these things up,but it’s much more…efficient. Anyhow,that would all be found via lib.Berkeley.edu.
If you do not have a computer or easy access to one,there are computer labs on campus: in the basements of Dwinelle and Evans, VLSB,Moffitt Library,Tan Hall,Wheeler hall, and,if you have an OCF account,Heller Lounge in MLK. I know that the OCF usually gets a plug in here for having classes in things every once in a while,but I feel it is worthwhile to reiterate that they do provide some excellent services and one should visit ocf.Berkeley.edu for more details.
Getting back to orientation,Berkeley is a place full of foot and bikepaths both on and off campus. There is good public transit via BART and the buses (which are an excellent deal at the price of nothing with your magical student ID card). AC Transit actually connects with a variety of other service providers so that you can actually get pretty far for pretty cheap. With your ID card,you could hop 2 buses and make your way all the way down to Stanford if you wanted to for 4 dollars. Intercollegiate rivalry at its cheapest!
There are plenty of interesting local food, and sports and musical things that occur locally though. If you are not enthralled by Cal Adventures (www.oski.org),you can go climbing in the Indian Rock Park Community, or, if you’re feeling a different kind of spiritual,there are over 100 places of worship in Berkeley alone. From African-Methodist-Episcopalian to Zoroastrian:you’re covered! I had made a map of the churches and such,looking for a correlation with liquor stores (there are much fewer of them than I would have imagined, but still enough to lead to some disorientation!) but studying the culture of the city and the dynamics of it’s economy and the trade-offs feels a little too much like work. Anomalies in price gradients are interesting;there is currently a 22 cent per gallon difference between Eastern and Western University Avenue gas stations (!), but those won’t help you find your way home. I would suggest exploration,it’s the best way to get to know a place.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being…a Graduate Student.
First things first,and take this to be a general rule: DON’T PANIC.
(I don’t mean to confuse Kundera and Addams in your mind.)
(I don’t mean to confuse Kundera and Addams in your mind.)
You are here because, somewhere along the line, you impressed enough of the right people to the point that they vouched for your levels of motivation,critical thinking, communication skills, or research ethics sufficient to answer any questions as to whether or not you were deserving. You might see a peer forget this and voice an immediate feeling of inadequacy, or maybe notice their forgetting this manifesting as an empty melancholy in a few years—an angst about being out of place and not knowing what one is “supposed to do” as a graduate student. This note is as much for those looking to reassess their situation as it is for those who are new and maybe not sure what is going on,so if nothing else,remember that you got here for a reason.
So, after all that, we get to the point: what is it to be a graduate student?
In most cases, graduate students are paid to attend and contribute to the university: paid, especially if in the process they are doing research,and/or teaching. The overall educational goals for you are to “create” knowledge and extend the field (outwardly), as well as for you to to develop skills: critical and synthetic abilities that ought to help you in the future that you choose.
You show up to campus and what you do know, you will further develop,and what you don’t know, you will learn. This learning may involve some classes you’ll likely have to take anyway. Figuring out your department’s requirements is essentially phase 1. It’s easier than collecting underpants. The initial classes taking period of your time as a graduate student is also a good time to read papers in your field and study the methodology and challenges or opportunities that you’ll spend the next couple years analyzing. This will be assisted usually by an advisor or investigator of your choosing whose expectations areas important to figure out as those of your department. Arguably that’s where the “real” learning is.
Unlike most jobs, graduate students go through a process of picking an advisor or group. Think about it like renting out your skills. The good news about this is that you are picking your manger, and an “academic family”. If you want a distant advisor, those exist; if you want someone who will provide you with constant pressure, there are plenty of those too. Tenants come in all kinds. Other students in your department will be an invaluable resource for making this kind of selection, particularly in telling you how they deal with the workload and desires of their bosses. Priorities vary,but taking a quick look at the 4C’s (Concentration, Character, Confidence and Cash) will often be at the very least a good way to limit the 4P’s (Putrid projects, Personality clashes, Presumptions, and Prostitution). You’re looking for a project you feel passion about, pleasant personalities in the people you will be dealing with for the next 2 to n years, with open communications about expectations and,ideally,financial support. You’re getting paid to think about a topic for a while, you might as well enjoy thinking about it.
Your advisor will often have specific desires of you (often along the lines of “x papers in y years”,or “build this by next week.”). These vary based on field and boss and mood and planetary alignment. However,I think that there are some standard desires that the professoriate have, namely that you manage your time in an effective, efficient, and diligent manner. I have a policy of always trying to have something new to say when you see your advisor. The “something” means "I’ve been effective", the “always” and “new” imply that "I’ve been efficient", and the fact that he sees me means that I’m at least diligent enough to cross paths with him in a regular fashion.
Now, slightly further down the road are proficiency exams. When these are,with respect to the amount of research toward graduation you have done, varies depending on departments. In most cases,a committee of faculty will attempt to assess the breadth and depth of your comprehension of fundamentals in your field. By gauging your command of the practical aspects of your study area, they can figure out your ability to design and produce dissertation quality work,so this exam will help you to target your future activities and experiments for you to get or continue to get publishable results to garner you and your boss and the institution with visibility and grant money. That being said,if you’re reading this,you are new and the main point of bringing exams up is to remind to that you can tailor your classes to help you to be ready and really, the readiness is all. Good luck!
TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL
Each semester we see students fill out evaluations about their instructors, maybe even give the input that instructors might have needed to be effective,which the instructors then only receive too late to be useful to that class. That may be acceptable if you're going to teach the same class for years and years and need only to tweak your approach a little,but if you're new to teaching and aren't going to be doing it every semester for your time here,this approach for helping you improve is a little ineffectual.
We decided to take action. We found a captive audience and asked them what works.
Here’s the gems of the results:
The best GSIs were:
-Prepared and knowledgeable about the material being covered
-Seemingly empathetic/approachable outside of the classroom.
-Explained things in simple term/held study sessions
-Asked for and implemented feedback
-Used simple and funny analogies to help us understand
-Often stayed beyond required office hours to help
-Patient in the face of complete and utter lack of comprehension
-Organized,informative and efficient:ready for common misunderstandings
-Capable of using every answer to make progress toward explaining the big picture
My worst GSI:
-Seemed hurried,impatient,and indifferent to whether we understood or not
-Used the same mode of explanation in the face of confusion
-Held sessions that felt lacking in purpose,structure or points.
-Washaughty,showed personal bias,,tended toward monotones
What works:
-Visuals
-Complex explanations don’tworkifnotsupplementedw/ pictures/graphs/media
-Using twoor three different ways to explain the same material so it sticks
Ways for GSIs to improve:
-Prepare more
-Try not to be nervous
-Be patient
-Remember what it was liketo be an undergrad
-Try not to show when you think a question is stupid
We decided to take action. We found a captive audience and asked them what works.
Here’s the gems of the results:
The best GSIs were:
-Prepared and knowledgeable about the material being covered
-Seemingly empathetic/approachable outside of the classroom.
-Explained things in simple term/held study sessions
-Asked for and implemented feedback
-Used simple and funny analogies to help us understand
-Often stayed beyond required office hours to help
-Patient in the face of complete and utter lack of comprehension
-Organized,informative and efficient:ready for common misunderstandings
-Capable of using every answer to make progress toward explaining the big picture
My worst GSI:
-Seemed hurried,impatient,and indifferent to whether we understood or not
-Used the same mode of explanation in the face of confusion
-Held sessions that felt lacking in purpose,structure or points.
-Washaughty,showed personal bias,,tended toward monotones
What works:
-Visuals
-Complex explanations don’tworkifnotsupplementedw/ pictures/graphs/media
-Using twoor three different ways to explain the same material so it sticks
Ways for GSIs to improve:
-Prepare more
-Try not to be nervous
-Be patient
-Remember what it was liketo be an undergrad
-Try not to show when you think a question is stupid
Previous Advice Distillate
Unfortunately, we at the Berkeley Graduate sometimes have a surplus of advice relative to the amount of space and time we have to dispense it. In an attempt to ensure that we do get wiser with every year,it would seem to be important that we make sure to take a look back at previous advice to note what is still important.
Here were some notes from previous lists of useful activities for students:
1.Buy a plant (that matches your level of horticultural experience). Plants are physical proof of growth—something any graduate student desperately needs.
2.Start swimming. It is good for ones health,allows one to interact with non-academics,and forces one to shower. On-campus pools (Strawberry Creek Rec Center, Golden Bear,Hearst Gym & Spieker) are free with an RSF Membership ($10/Semester)
3.Build social and professional relationships. This will guard against isolation as a support network, help you write a better dissertation,and (the right conversations) may save you research time.
4. Don’t talk to people about an exam right after you take it. It will not change how you’ve done. Everyone feels insecure or inadequate at some point during their schooling. Some people are just better at hiding it.
5. Relax, don’t worry so much and enjoy being passionate about something. Everyone finds a home eventually. Odds are you will not be able to read everything assigned. Learn howto read selectively and not feel guilty about it.
6. Take classes outside of your field if you have the chance;there are gems hidden all over this campus.
7. You will learn to be more independent and self-motivating. Don’t over rely on positive reinforcement:trust your own instincts about your work,but remain open to constructive criticism.
8.Be mindful of your budget. The sooner you figureout if things like income tax has been withheld,the easier things will be come tax season.
9.Respect your mental health. Especially if you’re concerned about isolation, depression, anxiety or your well being, stop by the Tang Center.
10. Remember that if you disappoint your boss,that feeling will be just a blip in his or her day that he or she will get over a lot faster than you would if you disappointed yourself. Nobody cares about you and your degree as much as you do. Follow your gut and do your best.
Here were some notes from previous lists of useful activities for students:
1.Buy a plant (that matches your level of horticultural experience). Plants are physical proof of growth—something any graduate student desperately needs.
2.Start swimming. It is good for ones health,allows one to interact with non-academics,and forces one to shower. On-campus pools (Strawberry Creek Rec Center, Golden Bear,Hearst Gym & Spieker) are free with an RSF Membership ($10/Semester)
3.Build social and professional relationships. This will guard against isolation as a support network, help you write a better dissertation,and (the right conversations) may save you research time.
4. Don’t talk to people about an exam right after you take it. It will not change how you’ve done. Everyone feels insecure or inadequate at some point during their schooling. Some people are just better at hiding it.
5. Relax, don’t worry so much and enjoy being passionate about something. Everyone finds a home eventually. Odds are you will not be able to read everything assigned. Learn howto read selectively and not feel guilty about it.
6. Take classes outside of your field if you have the chance;there are gems hidden all over this campus.
7. You will learn to be more independent and self-motivating. Don’t over rely on positive reinforcement:trust your own instincts about your work,but remain open to constructive criticism.
8.Be mindful of your budget. The sooner you figureout if things like income tax has been withheld,the easier things will be come tax season.
9.Respect your mental health. Especially if you’re concerned about isolation, depression, anxiety or your well being, stop by the Tang Center.
10. Remember that if you disappoint your boss,that feeling will be just a blip in his or her day that he or she will get over a lot faster than you would if you disappointed yourself. Nobody cares about you and your degree as much as you do. Follow your gut and do your best.
Surviving and Thriving as a Graduate or Professional Student at UC Berkeley
In the spirit of this publication being an interesting guide for advising new and continuing students, the following pages include some consultative input as to what some graduate students wish that they had known when they began their studies here. This is pretty much the same advice that the Berkeley Graduate has given scores of graduate students before you,and there have been few complaints so it will be said again almost verbatim.
Now a part of the system of regents, chancellors, provosts, deans, staff, professors, administrative assistants,and so on;as a graduate or professional student (perhaps as an instructor or researcher),you have become another cringing head of the great beast that is the University of California,and specifically Berkeley. Not all of these heads necessarily know what the others are doing,but each has the power to bite you if you aren’t mindful of policies. This awareness is a responsibility you have (to yourself) to ensure that you’re getting paid if you ought to be,fulfilling degree requirements, and generally thriving here while dealing with as little red tape as possible.
You also now have some powers:maybe they include control of some undergraduates’ grades; maybe they include the ability to really expand the body of knowledge in the field you’re in, maybe you’ll find yourself capable of adding volume to the nagging voice that turns student concern into university policy. In any case,just as the editors have had to resist the inappropriate impulse to subtitle pictures with captions such as “The International House:It’s not just for pancakes anymore”, you must do your best to be fair, responsible, and reasonable with your power.
As far as things you can feel comfortable taking advantage of,few people would reject the offer of extra storage space for a plethora of large digital files.If you’re leaning away from having a gmail account or the like, and would prefer to become part of a community,check out the Open Computing Facility (see www.OCF.berkeley.edu).Your free membership garners you 10 MB of email memory,120 MB of webspace, and access to a UNIX Shell Account where you can keep another 200 MB of files:all you have to do is fill out the membership forms. The OCF also cosponsers programs that can offer free chances to learn things you might not already know.
A less free (but still fiscally cromulent) membership could be in the Cal RecClub (see http://calbears.berkeley.edu/calrecclub/). While this involves paying the student membership fee (Only $10 per semester thanks to a great victory of student lobbying); you are paying for access to an assortment of facilities,programs,and classes that (once you are no longer a registered student here) otherwise cost over $48 per month. As far as cost-benefit analysis,while you are out $10 (and there is a distinct possibility that you might run into a student,peer,or labmate in an awkward state of undress or perspiratory dampitude), surely there will never be quite as cheap a time to invest in your physical and mental health.If you pay for water at your residence,you can think of it as an investment in a place where you can take a shower;and so,if you do nothing else with your membership,you've broken even at ~60 visits, less if you take longer showers. Additionally,(if you want to go down the “it’s an investment in my health”-path of justification,) fitness tends to correlate to wellness. Occasional exercise is less of an ordeal
than having to deal with the Tang Center: because,even with “insurance”, it is much safer to not be reliant on the university’s health services. As of earlier this year, a membership at this gym will actually also let you into any of the other UC gyms for free,so you can even exorcise your sweaty demons in other places.
You have 168 hours a week to do all sorts of things. Work hard,but recognize that the number of actual hours put into a task does not always have a 1:1 correlation with the caliber of work,nor the overall perceived productivity. Work smarter, don’t be afraid to ask for help,and read the rest of this publication.
Best wishes,
The Berkeley Graduate
Now a part of the system of regents, chancellors, provosts, deans, staff, professors, administrative assistants,and so on;as a graduate or professional student (perhaps as an instructor or researcher),you have become another cringing head of the great beast that is the University of California,and specifically Berkeley. Not all of these heads necessarily know what the others are doing,but each has the power to bite you if you aren’t mindful of policies. This awareness is a responsibility you have (to yourself) to ensure that you’re getting paid if you ought to be,fulfilling degree requirements, and generally thriving here while dealing with as little red tape as possible.
You also now have some powers:maybe they include control of some undergraduates’ grades; maybe they include the ability to really expand the body of knowledge in the field you’re in, maybe you’ll find yourself capable of adding volume to the nagging voice that turns student concern into university policy. In any case,just as the editors have had to resist the inappropriate impulse to subtitle pictures with captions such as “The International House:It’s not just for pancakes anymore”, you must do your best to be fair, responsible, and reasonable with your power.
As far as things you can feel comfortable taking advantage of,few people would reject the offer of extra storage space for a plethora of large digital files.If you’re leaning away from having a gmail account or the like, and would prefer to become part of a community,check out the Open Computing Facility (see www.OCF.berkeley.edu).Your free membership garners you 10 MB of email memory,120 MB of webspace, and access to a UNIX Shell Account where you can keep another 200 MB of files:all you have to do is fill out the membership forms. The OCF also cosponsers programs that can offer free chances to learn things you might not already know.
A less free (but still fiscally cromulent) membership could be in the Cal RecClub (see http://calbears.berkeley.edu/calrecclub/). While this involves paying the student membership fee (Only $10 per semester thanks to a great victory of student lobbying); you are paying for access to an assortment of facilities,programs,and classes that (once you are no longer a registered student here) otherwise cost over $48 per month. As far as cost-benefit analysis,while you are out $10 (and there is a distinct possibility that you might run into a student,peer,or labmate in an awkward state of undress or perspiratory dampitude), surely there will never be quite as cheap a time to invest in your physical and mental health.If you pay for water at your residence,you can think of it as an investment in a place where you can take a shower;and so,if you do nothing else with your membership,you've broken even at ~60 visits, less if you take longer showers. Additionally,(if you want to go down the “it’s an investment in my health”-path of justification,) fitness tends to correlate to wellness. Occasional exercise is less of an ordeal
than having to deal with the Tang Center: because,even with “insurance”, it is much safer to not be reliant on the university’s health services. As of earlier this year, a membership at this gym will actually also let you into any of the other UC gyms for free,so you can even exorcise your sweaty demons in other places.
You have 168 hours a week to do all sorts of things. Work hard,but recognize that the number of actual hours put into a task does not always have a 1:1 correlation with the caliber of work,nor the overall perceived productivity. Work smarter, don’t be afraid to ask for help,and read the rest of this publication.
Best wishes,
The Berkeley Graduate
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