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.