Posts
by Allison Yamanashi
Growing up around my father’s laboratories as an inquisitive young girl, I learned from a early age that invention was something of a family hobby. My dad was quite the innovator, and while I could write a whole article telling you about the devices he developed and techniques he pioneered, I don’t have to do that. Why? Because many of his best innovations, the ones that make everything from MRI scans to brain surgeries that are preformed today faster, better and safer than they were 10 or 20 years ago, can be found in patents and licensed products throughout the world today. By making sure his best ideas left his laboratory, and with the support of both academic and industrial investment, his inventions made their way into the hospitals where they were needed. It was his great gift to science, and one that I hope to be able to replicate through my own endeavors in the future.
With that background, you would think I would know everything there is about the patent process; the ins and outs of getting your idea from inside the ol’ noggin and onto the paper, the testing required in the lab, and finally sending it over to the patent office. But I must admit, probably like many graduate students, I had very little idea of how one turns that great idea into a better reality. The Berkeley Graduate commissioned me to find out some of the juicier details of the process here at Cal, and I hope to pass on some of the more important points to help make sure your innovations and great ideas make it out into the world at large.
Buried deep in its battery of committees, offices and divisions, Cal has set aside a specialized branch that will help you make the transition from mere scientist to accomplished inventor. As the flagship of the University of California system, Berkeley has a great track record of getting our new technologies through the patent office and onto the market, and it’s a point of pride from the small scale applications, such as within the UC system, to even the national level. Along with 4 other California universities, Berkeley is foundational in 2/3 of all biotechnology start-ups in California, and boasts the fastest growth in spin-off companies as of 2001. Along with Caltech, Stanford, MIT and Wisconsin, Inc. Magazine named Cal as one of the “Five Universities you can do business with.” Now, it’s important to put this in to context: there are obviously a number of fantastic research institutions that didn’t make the list – so what sets Cal apart?
Some Quick Facts on Berkeley Start-ups & Intellectual Property Guidelines
History. 25% of all UC-affiliated start-up ventures begin from faculty and graduate students at Cal. Those numbers include not only affiliates of all ten University of California campuses, but also the three national labs under UC direction.
Investments/capital support. Cal reports one of the most impressive lists of venture capital investors of any major university. That consistent and direct financial support means that people with the funds to support the development of your newest technological innovation are already used to working with Cal, and know what to expect from your research. Also, it means that they’re already looking at Cal’s newest scientific advancements, just waiting for the right one to come along. You might have investors already for that new project, and not even know it.
Experience. In 1990, Berkeley opened its Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) to liaise between researchers, the United States Patent Office and the commercial sector. At the start of 2004, this office was incorporated within the broader Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA) office, along with the Industry Alliances Office (IAO). Between these two branches, the IPIRA deals with both getting your new developments off the ground and into production as well as guiding industry interest to the ongoing research for their application.
Every new project starts with a proposal. This includes a full disclosure of what you plan to do, as well as any related grants and outside funding the project will receive. These proposals may include transfer of technologies to or from industry sources, as well as special forms to help you manage the specifics of your research. The IPIRA helps you protect your ideas while managing critical documentation, such as forms for a number of UC institutional review organizations. So if you need to test your new analytical technology on human subjects or the like, they can help make sure you have the right forms and right setup to ease the review process. These disclosures may seem like a headache, but taking care of them before you get started means your that much more less likely to have to start over halfway down the road to a big discovery.
Once you’ve run your experiments and you’ve got that amazing new biotech advancement ready to go, the IPIRA will help you analyze your technologies options. By first sending them a written disclosure and then, if appropriate, registering with either patents or copyrights, you can ensure your idea is well vetted before you show it to the community at large. But, who owns it and who gets the benefit of all your hard work?
Unless stipulated in your outside grant or contract work, any new technology you patent that you developed in facilities owned by the University ultimately belongs to the University. However, that shouldn’t dissuade you from continuing in you research because there are a few great benefits that you should know about. First, 35% of all royalties associated with the sale or licensing of your new invention are yours to keep. An additional 15% can be applied back into your future research. All of these distributions are handled through the Office of Technological Licensing, so it saves you the frustration of managing those big piles of money you expect from your patent. Therefore, if your idea takes off, you’re free to worry about which new car you want to buy and you have a healthy sum to throw at your next world-changing project.
And finally, as I mentioned earlier in the chart on the previous page, the Industry Alliances Office within the IPIRA is already looking out for you. By disclosing your newest projects to their office, they will enter into a database appropriate references and keywords for what you’re working on. Then, when investors or other interested parties would like to know more, they contact the IAO, get some basic details, and the match is already made.
It’s hard out there for a graduate student; with the day-to-day grind of research, conferences and journals its hard to keep perspective on what’s going on outside. With the IPIRA’s help, your research can make a difference and not just in your career or your pocketbook. By taking the time to get turn your ideas and research into products and services, you’ll have that much more of an impact on the community at large.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Nobody Ever Says “I Wanna Be A Junkie When I Grow Up!”
by Ryan Leib
Initially, I debated on whether or not to invent some kind of ‘killer’ hook paragraph for this article. Telling you the real story behind the article, as I have obviously chosen to do here, would be (I hope) deeply enthralling, however my ‘geek would be showing,’ as they say. Then I remembered that I’m a graduate student, and, most likely, so are you. Crisis averted.
When the call came for articles late last year, I asked the generally open minded people at The Berkeley Graduate if they would, in the name of research, subsidize a monthly subscription to World of Warcraft (ostensibly so I could ‘learn more’ about a stimulating simulated environment that, if my RSS feed is to be believed, not only serves as a model of free market consumerism but also is capable of swallowing professional careers whole). A deeply interesting topic, I believed, considering that most of us are looking to have one of those careers soon. I submitted my usual proposal documents [Editor’s Note: In the form of post it notes], a few recommendations from friends [Editor’s Note: A picture of an “identical twin brother” doesn’t count], and so forth, hoping that my dreams of taming wild Azeroth would soon come true. Alas, that was not in the available software package from Anthony Hall; and for what it’s worth, I thought “But I can be a wizard when I grow up!” was a thoroughly compelling argument in favor of that arrangement. [Editor’s Note: Ryan was offered a saving throw on the decision, it’s not the management’s fault he didn’t have a suitable icosahedron hand—we thought he was an Eagle Scout: whatever happened to being prepared?]
This left me with a fair amount of time for soul searching (as I couldn’t farm Molten Core) and in my lonely thoughts came a small stirring voice, asking, ‘why didn’t I get my dream job?’ I promised myself then and there that if I’m ever going to make this virtual dream a virtual reality (which I think is a phrase I so enjoy typing that this entire paragraph was devised just to contain it), I need to get one of two things: a second job to cover the exorbitant increase to my meager cost of living, or a better pitch the next time The Berkeley Graduate asks for articles. Luckily, those musings led like night into day to an excellent subject for this semester’s article: The UC Career Center.
Now I know what you’re thinking, dear reader (actually, I’m just postulating; telepathy is reserved for humanities students), you have one of the following impressions regarding the Career Center:
i.) Isn’t that for the undergrads or people on the way out (not me!)
ii.) I guess it could be useful, but isn’t it a long walk? and/or
iii.) What is this Career Center of which you speak?
And frankly, between the typical unawareness of the outside world we suffer here as denizens of the ivory tower and their lack of a good viral marketing campaign, I can’t really blame you. So, I hope you don’t mind terribly that I’ve decided to unwrap this delicious little morsel for you (because if I ever do get WoW, I’m surely going to need a job to keep paying those subscription fees) and feed you the information you need most as you’re looking to graduate.
So, let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Like most campus organizations, a quick glance at their materials reveals that many of their student fee supported services do indeed focus on undergraduates. No surprises there, as getting all those wee ones out the door and on the market is certainly within their vast purview and keeps Sproul plaza considerably less crowded in the summers. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t offer a wide variety of services for those of us with our own peculiar set of needs. With the diligence of the special type of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that graduate students acquire around the time of their qualifying exams at my disposal, and the help of my mighty internet sleuthing abilities, I have been able to coax vital intelligence for you, the graduate student, from the Career Center’s materials and have distilled the choice bits for you into 2000 words or less. What a bargain!
The first thing that you should realize is that your career has already started. I know, wild isn’t it? I remember when I stumbled away from commencement ceremonies a few years back, that fake blank diploma in my hand and I said to myself, “huh, I guess in six to eight weeks when they finalize my grades I’ll be a chemist.” Maybe you had a similar realization; in any case, remember, anything you do now will only serve to benefit your future development.
The career center offers a lot of services to help you right now. In particular, there is a whole division over there that is devoted to the aspiring GSI-of-the-year types to ease the agony of those teaching positions in which most of us find ourselves obligatory participants. I’m afraid I’m not going to say more on this subject. At some time in the not so distant past, I wrote a fine piece about pedagogy for the Berkeley Graduate, so if developing yourself into a better instructor is your goal in reading this article, stop now. Please direct yourself post haste to our back issues department; I’m certain they will be able to find it for you.
If, on the other hand, you’re more interested in what happens after graduate school, then we’ve still got you covered. For, as is implicit with the title of their office, the other major goal of the Career Center is to serve as a single stop shop to ease your inevitable exit. Indeed, it is the peculiar plight of the graduate student to take on an indefinite term of service that is equal parts long hours, short pay and hard work with a dash of no long-term job certainty. As one of my coworkers was saying this morning, “we work and work but at the end of it, you’re out on your own”. Quite a dramatic departure from climbing the corporate ladder; the graduate student’s ladder ends in a diving board.
But the inevitable leap doesn’t have to be a rapid descent into the icy, shark-infested water of unemployment if you plan ahead now. If you learn nothing else from me today, know that the Career Center serves as the University’s lightning rod for all those academic and industry human resources departments looking for new brilliant hires such as yourself to fill out their ranks. While certainly your advisor and department can and may help you find that perfect job through recommendations and personal connections, when a company calls to look for newly graduated students to fill those vital positions, the Careers office is who picks up the phone. At specific times of year, the center sponsors and helps organize on campus career fairs for over 500 major firms that can give you those vital first looks at a potential employer, and a feel for the job market of which you are about to become a part. The center also orchestrates over 15,000 on-campus interviews every year; and there are only about 9,000 grad students, so we should all get at least one, right?
Many of us haven’t spent much time outside of the walls of the academy, and finding yourself in an industrial position interview can be a rude awaking. To help prepare you for these new experiences, the Career Center has a series of seminars, workshops and presentations to help prepare you for the market. Whether it’s mock interviews, writing your CV, putting together a good portfolio or even what socks to wear, there is a group activity specially designed for you, and having their input can be a great help.
Perhaps you already are ready for those interviews. And then, you have gone on that interview, but your potential employer would like another letter of recommendation. But your recommender of choice is on a beach in Fiji, drinking mai tais and doesn’t answer your calls (and just think, mai tais were invented here in Oakland! What a waste of a trip!). Well, if you start now, that never needs to be a problem. The Career Center can help through their Letter Service. By having your recommenders submit their letters through the Career Center, they will send out copies to any potential employer without your having to go back and ask yet again for that same letter. On top of that, the Center keeps the letters on file for a few years, in the case that the first foray into the working world isn’t right for you, and you need to make a change.
But maybe you know you don’t want that academic position, and the industrial jobs that you know about don’t sound like the right fit for you. If you find yourself in this position, a great place to start is with their vast resource library on alternative jobs for people with your skills. Through online inventories as well as career consultation and advisement, hopefully the right job is just a couple hours of searching away. And once you find it, you’re already where you need to be to start sending out your applications and getting that dream job.
‘But Ryan,’ you say, ‘I’m just beginning this graduate student gig. I have many years left in the salt mines. Why should I start now?’ Well, if the reasons I already pointed out above weren’t enough to convince you your career started yesterday, I’ll appeal to your wallet. During your last semester on campus, it’s likely in many departments that you will be placed on Filing Fee. For the uninitiated, let me quote the Grad Division site: “Filing Fee puts you on withdrawal status, which means you are not allowed to use University facilities, and student loans may become due.” Not only do you lose access to the gym at exceptionally low student membership rates, and the clocks start ticking on all of your loans, but all those free services of the Career Center are gone or come with a price-tag. So get your appointment right now, dear readers, before it’s too late.
If you need some specific advice, or don’t have a clue where to begin, perhaps a private consultation is for you. These can be set up directly through the website or call the number at the end of this article. They can help you with all parts of the career building process, from finding what you want to do to negotiating proper compensation for your immense battery of skills. If you choose to avail yourself of private consultations, I will gladly receive 10% finder’s fee for directing you to these services – just drop a check in The Berkeley Graduate’s box at Anthony Hall; I’m sure it will find its way to me.
A note to my loyal readers: For more detailed information about the services provided by the UC Career Center in planning your job search, please go to career.berkeley.edu or call 510-642-1716 to set up your appointment with the career office today.
Initially, I debated on whether or not to invent some kind of ‘killer’ hook paragraph for this article. Telling you the real story behind the article, as I have obviously chosen to do here, would be (I hope) deeply enthralling, however my ‘geek would be showing,’ as they say. Then I remembered that I’m a graduate student, and, most likely, so are you. Crisis averted.
When the call came for articles late last year, I asked the generally open minded people at The Berkeley Graduate if they would, in the name of research, subsidize a monthly subscription to World of Warcraft (ostensibly so I could ‘learn more’ about a stimulating simulated environment that, if my RSS feed is to be believed, not only serves as a model of free market consumerism but also is capable of swallowing professional careers whole). A deeply interesting topic, I believed, considering that most of us are looking to have one of those careers soon. I submitted my usual proposal documents [Editor’s Note: In the form of post it notes], a few recommendations from friends [Editor’s Note: A picture of an “identical twin brother” doesn’t count], and so forth, hoping that my dreams of taming wild Azeroth would soon come true. Alas, that was not in the available software package from Anthony Hall; and for what it’s worth, I thought “But I can be a wizard when I grow up!” was a thoroughly compelling argument in favor of that arrangement. [Editor’s Note: Ryan was offered a saving throw on the decision, it’s not the management’s fault he didn’t have a suitable icosahedron hand—we thought he was an Eagle Scout: whatever happened to being prepared?]
This left me with a fair amount of time for soul searching (as I couldn’t farm Molten Core) and in my lonely thoughts came a small stirring voice, asking, ‘why didn’t I get my dream job?’ I promised myself then and there that if I’m ever going to make this virtual dream a virtual reality (which I think is a phrase I so enjoy typing that this entire paragraph was devised just to contain it), I need to get one of two things: a second job to cover the exorbitant increase to my meager cost of living, or a better pitch the next time The Berkeley Graduate asks for articles. Luckily, those musings led like night into day to an excellent subject for this semester’s article: The UC Career Center.
Now I know what you’re thinking, dear reader (actually, I’m just postulating; telepathy is reserved for humanities students), you have one of the following impressions regarding the Career Center:
i.) Isn’t that for the undergrads or people on the way out (not me!)
ii.) I guess it could be useful, but isn’t it a long walk? and/or
iii.) What is this Career Center of which you speak?
And frankly, between the typical unawareness of the outside world we suffer here as denizens of the ivory tower and their lack of a good viral marketing campaign, I can’t really blame you. So, I hope you don’t mind terribly that I’ve decided to unwrap this delicious little morsel for you (because if I ever do get WoW, I’m surely going to need a job to keep paying those subscription fees) and feed you the information you need most as you’re looking to graduate.
So, let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Like most campus organizations, a quick glance at their materials reveals that many of their student fee supported services do indeed focus on undergraduates. No surprises there, as getting all those wee ones out the door and on the market is certainly within their vast purview and keeps Sproul plaza considerably less crowded in the summers. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t offer a wide variety of services for those of us with our own peculiar set of needs. With the diligence of the special type of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that graduate students acquire around the time of their qualifying exams at my disposal, and the help of my mighty internet sleuthing abilities, I have been able to coax vital intelligence for you, the graduate student, from the Career Center’s materials and have distilled the choice bits for you into 2000 words or less. What a bargain!
The first thing that you should realize is that your career has already started. I know, wild isn’t it? I remember when I stumbled away from commencement ceremonies a few years back, that fake blank diploma in my hand and I said to myself, “huh, I guess in six to eight weeks when they finalize my grades I’ll be a chemist.” Maybe you had a similar realization; in any case, remember, anything you do now will only serve to benefit your future development.
The career center offers a lot of services to help you right now. In particular, there is a whole division over there that is devoted to the aspiring GSI-of-the-year types to ease the agony of those teaching positions in which most of us find ourselves obligatory participants. I’m afraid I’m not going to say more on this subject. At some time in the not so distant past, I wrote a fine piece about pedagogy for the Berkeley Graduate, so if developing yourself into a better instructor is your goal in reading this article, stop now. Please direct yourself post haste to our back issues department; I’m certain they will be able to find it for you.
If, on the other hand, you’re more interested in what happens after graduate school, then we’ve still got you covered. For, as is implicit with the title of their office, the other major goal of the Career Center is to serve as a single stop shop to ease your inevitable exit. Indeed, it is the peculiar plight of the graduate student to take on an indefinite term of service that is equal parts long hours, short pay and hard work with a dash of no long-term job certainty. As one of my coworkers was saying this morning, “we work and work but at the end of it, you’re out on your own”. Quite a dramatic departure from climbing the corporate ladder; the graduate student’s ladder ends in a diving board.
But the inevitable leap doesn’t have to be a rapid descent into the icy, shark-infested water of unemployment if you plan ahead now. If you learn nothing else from me today, know that the Career Center serves as the University’s lightning rod for all those academic and industry human resources departments looking for new brilliant hires such as yourself to fill out their ranks. While certainly your advisor and department can and may help you find that perfect job through recommendations and personal connections, when a company calls to look for newly graduated students to fill those vital positions, the Careers office is who picks up the phone. At specific times of year, the center sponsors and helps organize on campus career fairs for over 500 major firms that can give you those vital first looks at a potential employer, and a feel for the job market of which you are about to become a part. The center also orchestrates over 15,000 on-campus interviews every year; and there are only about 9,000 grad students, so we should all get at least one, right?
Many of us haven’t spent much time outside of the walls of the academy, and finding yourself in an industrial position interview can be a rude awaking. To help prepare you for these new experiences, the Career Center has a series of seminars, workshops and presentations to help prepare you for the market. Whether it’s mock interviews, writing your CV, putting together a good portfolio or even what socks to wear, there is a group activity specially designed for you, and having their input can be a great help.
Perhaps you already are ready for those interviews. And then, you have gone on that interview, but your potential employer would like another letter of recommendation. But your recommender of choice is on a beach in Fiji, drinking mai tais and doesn’t answer your calls (and just think, mai tais were invented here in Oakland! What a waste of a trip!). Well, if you start now, that never needs to be a problem. The Career Center can help through their Letter Service. By having your recommenders submit their letters through the Career Center, they will send out copies to any potential employer without your having to go back and ask yet again for that same letter. On top of that, the Center keeps the letters on file for a few years, in the case that the first foray into the working world isn’t right for you, and you need to make a change.
But maybe you know you don’t want that academic position, and the industrial jobs that you know about don’t sound like the right fit for you. If you find yourself in this position, a great place to start is with their vast resource library on alternative jobs for people with your skills. Through online inventories as well as career consultation and advisement, hopefully the right job is just a couple hours of searching away. And once you find it, you’re already where you need to be to start sending out your applications and getting that dream job.
‘But Ryan,’ you say, ‘I’m just beginning this graduate student gig. I have many years left in the salt mines. Why should I start now?’ Well, if the reasons I already pointed out above weren’t enough to convince you your career started yesterday, I’ll appeal to your wallet. During your last semester on campus, it’s likely in many departments that you will be placed on Filing Fee. For the uninitiated, let me quote the Grad Division site: “Filing Fee puts you on withdrawal status, which means you are not allowed to use University facilities, and student loans may become due.” Not only do you lose access to the gym at exceptionally low student membership rates, and the clocks start ticking on all of your loans, but all those free services of the Career Center are gone or come with a price-tag. So get your appointment right now, dear readers, before it’s too late.
If you need some specific advice, or don’t have a clue where to begin, perhaps a private consultation is for you. These can be set up directly through the website or call the number at the end of this article. They can help you with all parts of the career building process, from finding what you want to do to negotiating proper compensation for your immense battery of skills. If you choose to avail yourself of private consultations, I will gladly receive 10% finder’s fee for directing you to these services – just drop a check in The Berkeley Graduate’s box at Anthony Hall; I’m sure it will find its way to me.
A note to my loyal readers: For more detailed information about the services provided by the UC Career Center in planning your job search, please go to career.berkeley.edu or call 510-642-1716 to set up your appointment with the career office today.
An Interview with Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu: 11 Questions from The Berkeley Graduate
TBG: Where are you from?
Lupe Niumeitolu: I’m from multiple places and I claim many of them as home. I was born in Nuku’alofa, Tonga. Tonga is an archipelago located in the South Pacific neighboring the islands of Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand. I was raised in Tonga, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawai’i and Utah. The Bay Area is my newest home. Interestingly, the Bay Area hosts the largest Tongan diasporic community here in the U.S. It’s truly a blessing to be part of the Tongan community here in the Bay Area and to create research on our lives.
What did you study as an undergrad/earlier in your career?
I started off my undergraduate as an art student pursuing a BFA in painting but circumstances led me to the Social Sciences where I graduated with my BA at the University of Utah. I did an MA in American Studies with an emphasis in History at Purdue University. After grad school, I moved to San Francisco and taught courses at City College of San Francisco and I was also very fortunate to be part of an international theatre and performance troupe in San Francisco called Dhaiatribe. I also worked as a consultant on Pacific Islander issues to school districts and non-profit organizations and I produced and co-hosted a bi-weekly radio program called “Education is Powerful” broadcasted on Radio Tonga, San Francisco. I believe that my education in and outside of academia was invaluable in preparing me for the PhD program in Ethnic Studies here at Cal.
What's the focus of your work?
I’m most interested in American history. My research focuses on examining the lives of Tongans in the United States. More specifically, my work analyzes the historical and cultural productions of Tongan American femininities and masculinities. Tongan peoples’ histories here in the U.S. are part of American history.
How did you become interested in your field?
I was born and raised in the Pacific. I was ten years old before my family migrated to the U.S. My love for the arts and for pursuing knowledge and subsequently connecting this knowledge to creating tangible changes that can ensure the sustenance of my family and communities was cultivated during my childhood in the Pacific. The violent histories of Western colonization in the Pacific taught me that epistemologies were strategic and they had direct implications on the lives of my family and communities. Our histories, as Pacific Islanders’, have shown us that our very survival is dependent on our knowing.
What were your aspirations when you were younger?
The arts are highly valued in Pacific cultures. In fact, the artistic imagination and artistic practices are integrated into of our daily lives. When my family migrated to the United States, I became influenced by the work of many artists and scholars, especially the work of people of color like poets, Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisneros and Janice Mirikitani. At first sight, I fell in love with the work of painters, Jean-Michel Basquait, Jose Clemente Orozco and Juana Alicia. The themes of social resistance and liberation that resonated in their artwork defined my new life in the diasporas and these themes profoundly influenced me and my siblings and we chose to emulate these amazing people.
How has your work been seen in the community at large?
It’s truly humbling to receive both praises and criticism for my academic and community work. A few years ago, I presented a paper at the Pacific History Association Conference at Australia’s National University. My work was met with praises by most of the scholars in attendance. However, a senior scholar, one of the experts in my field, stood up and publicly contested some of my arguments. Although, this was a difficult moment for me, I’m grateful to this senior scholar for “calling me out” on some of the weaknesses of my arguments because this ultimately offered me an opportunity to grow. Today, this senior scholar is one of my most trusted mentors.
This past year, it was also a great pleasure for me to be an invited speaker at higher education community events here in California and throughout the U.S. I consider it a blessing to meet youths and their parents and to hear their stories of struggle and survival in this country; their courage inspires me to complete my education and to be accountable to these communities. A few months ago, I conducted a lecture on Tongan American women at the Dept. of International Development, Community & Environment at Clark University in Worchester, Massachusetts. Shortly afterwards, I presented this same lecture at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference in Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts and upon returning to the Bay Area, I presented this lecture at the Global Fund for Women in San Francisco. Presenting my research at these diverse spaces has given me the opportunity to network and to receive feedback on my work. I’m very grateful for these opportunities to learn.
What's the best part of your work?
The most rewarding part of my work to me is knowing that my work, in a small way, is part of a process of creating changes that benefit the lives of people that I love. Last year, I had the opportunity to testify to law makers in Washington DC and I also testified to the State Assembly in Sacramento in support of new legislation that would benefit Tongan and Pacific Islander communities here in California and nationally. I worked alongside activists, community leaders and lawmakers in this process. The opportunities to work with these diverse peoples greatly enriched and expanded my research and conversely, my research also played a role in the process of creating policy changes. As I mentioned before, research is not an apolitical endeavor and it has very real consequences on the lives of people. I think that it’s important for graduate students to not be naïve about our role in the world.
Career-wise, where would you like to end up?
I believe that I can’t answer this question with a single answer. It’s my hope to continue to be an artist and a scholar and to be part of many artistic and scholarly communities here in the U.S and internationally. I also hope to work with other art curators to curate and to organize Pacific Islander art exhibitions like I have done in the past. Lastly, it’s my goal to be a professor and researcher of Pacific Islander Studies.
What has your experience in Berkeley been like?
I’m very humbled to be here and I’m indebted to my professors and colleagues in the Ethnic Studies Dept. Their support has given me the strength to take risks in my work and to push myself in very positive ways. Moreover, I also feel honored be part of a movement of Pacific Islander scholars that are working to establish a Pacific Islander Studies program at this university; these women and men are truly visionary in their work and objectives.
What advice do you have for students who might be interested in your field?
I don’t believe that the only viable route for artists is art school. I believe that developing artistic skills and cultivating the artistic imagination takes place in multiple spaces that is both inside and outside of academia. Perhaps the most important journey that every artist has to take is to “leave home” or abandon spaces of comfort and safety and to remap a life that is rooted in spiritual beliefs and commitments.
What's the most important part of your day?
I’m often a scardey-cat. My many fears sometimes hold me back. I’m often afraid that I might fail miserably at the projects that I attempt. The most important part of my day is when I attempt to do the thing that I’m most afraid of. Some days, this means leaving my front door. I’m still alive and terrible things didn’t happen so I think I’ll keep working through this fear.
Lupe Niumeitolu: I’m from multiple places and I claim many of them as home. I was born in Nuku’alofa, Tonga. Tonga is an archipelago located in the South Pacific neighboring the islands of Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand. I was raised in Tonga, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawai’i and Utah. The Bay Area is my newest home. Interestingly, the Bay Area hosts the largest Tongan diasporic community here in the U.S. It’s truly a blessing to be part of the Tongan community here in the Bay Area and to create research on our lives.
What did you study as an undergrad/earlier in your career?
I started off my undergraduate as an art student pursuing a BFA in painting but circumstances led me to the Social Sciences where I graduated with my BA at the University of Utah. I did an MA in American Studies with an emphasis in History at Purdue University. After grad school, I moved to San Francisco and taught courses at City College of San Francisco and I was also very fortunate to be part of an international theatre and performance troupe in San Francisco called Dhaiatribe. I also worked as a consultant on Pacific Islander issues to school districts and non-profit organizations and I produced and co-hosted a bi-weekly radio program called “Education is Powerful” broadcasted on Radio Tonga, San Francisco. I believe that my education in and outside of academia was invaluable in preparing me for the PhD program in Ethnic Studies here at Cal.
What's the focus of your work?
I’m most interested in American history. My research focuses on examining the lives of Tongans in the United States. More specifically, my work analyzes the historical and cultural productions of Tongan American femininities and masculinities. Tongan peoples’ histories here in the U.S. are part of American history.
How did you become interested in your field?
I was born and raised in the Pacific. I was ten years old before my family migrated to the U.S. My love for the arts and for pursuing knowledge and subsequently connecting this knowledge to creating tangible changes that can ensure the sustenance of my family and communities was cultivated during my childhood in the Pacific. The violent histories of Western colonization in the Pacific taught me that epistemologies were strategic and they had direct implications on the lives of my family and communities. Our histories, as Pacific Islanders’, have shown us that our very survival is dependent on our knowing.
What were your aspirations when you were younger?
The arts are highly valued in Pacific cultures. In fact, the artistic imagination and artistic practices are integrated into of our daily lives. When my family migrated to the United States, I became influenced by the work of many artists and scholars, especially the work of people of color like poets, Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisneros and Janice Mirikitani. At first sight, I fell in love with the work of painters, Jean-Michel Basquait, Jose Clemente Orozco and Juana Alicia. The themes of social resistance and liberation that resonated in their artwork defined my new life in the diasporas and these themes profoundly influenced me and my siblings and we chose to emulate these amazing people.
How has your work been seen in the community at large?
It’s truly humbling to receive both praises and criticism for my academic and community work. A few years ago, I presented a paper at the Pacific History Association Conference at Australia’s National University. My work was met with praises by most of the scholars in attendance. However, a senior scholar, one of the experts in my field, stood up and publicly contested some of my arguments. Although, this was a difficult moment for me, I’m grateful to this senior scholar for “calling me out” on some of the weaknesses of my arguments because this ultimately offered me an opportunity to grow. Today, this senior scholar is one of my most trusted mentors.
This past year, it was also a great pleasure for me to be an invited speaker at higher education community events here in California and throughout the U.S. I consider it a blessing to meet youths and their parents and to hear their stories of struggle and survival in this country; their courage inspires me to complete my education and to be accountable to these communities. A few months ago, I conducted a lecture on Tongan American women at the Dept. of International Development, Community & Environment at Clark University in Worchester, Massachusetts. Shortly afterwards, I presented this same lecture at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference in Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts and upon returning to the Bay Area, I presented this lecture at the Global Fund for Women in San Francisco. Presenting my research at these diverse spaces has given me the opportunity to network and to receive feedback on my work. I’m very grateful for these opportunities to learn.
What's the best part of your work?
The most rewarding part of my work to me is knowing that my work, in a small way, is part of a process of creating changes that benefit the lives of people that I love. Last year, I had the opportunity to testify to law makers in Washington DC and I also testified to the State Assembly in Sacramento in support of new legislation that would benefit Tongan and Pacific Islander communities here in California and nationally. I worked alongside activists, community leaders and lawmakers in this process. The opportunities to work with these diverse peoples greatly enriched and expanded my research and conversely, my research also played a role in the process of creating policy changes. As I mentioned before, research is not an apolitical endeavor and it has very real consequences on the lives of people. I think that it’s important for graduate students to not be naïve about our role in the world.
Career-wise, where would you like to end up?
I believe that I can’t answer this question with a single answer. It’s my hope to continue to be an artist and a scholar and to be part of many artistic and scholarly communities here in the U.S and internationally. I also hope to work with other art curators to curate and to organize Pacific Islander art exhibitions like I have done in the past. Lastly, it’s my goal to be a professor and researcher of Pacific Islander Studies.
What has your experience in Berkeley been like?
I’m very humbled to be here and I’m indebted to my professors and colleagues in the Ethnic Studies Dept. Their support has given me the strength to take risks in my work and to push myself in very positive ways. Moreover, I also feel honored be part of a movement of Pacific Islander scholars that are working to establish a Pacific Islander Studies program at this university; these women and men are truly visionary in their work and objectives.
What advice do you have for students who might be interested in your field?
I don’t believe that the only viable route for artists is art school. I believe that developing artistic skills and cultivating the artistic imagination takes place in multiple spaces that is both inside and outside of academia. Perhaps the most important journey that every artist has to take is to “leave home” or abandon spaces of comfort and safety and to remap a life that is rooted in spiritual beliefs and commitments.
What's the most important part of your day?
I’m often a scardey-cat. My many fears sometimes hold me back. I’m often afraid that I might fail miserably at the projects that I attempt. The most important part of my day is when I attempt to do the thing that I’m most afraid of. Some days, this means leaving my front door. I’m still alive and terrible things didn’t happen so I think I’ll keep working through this fear.
Community Researching
by: Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu
Surrounded by the vast Pacific Ocean and located in the heart of the South Pacific triangle, the Tongan archipelago neighbors the islands of New Zealand, Samoa and Fiji. Tongan migrations to the United States began at the end of WWII and it proliferated after 1965. In a recent entry on Tongans Americans included in the Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnicity, I wrote about Tongan migrations to the United States. Tongan Americans represent a relatively small group in the United States: according to the 2000 Census, there were 36,836 Tongans or part Tongans in the U.S. This is about 0.01 percent of the U.S. population.
I have been given the opportunity to discuss the growing diaspora of Tongans relocating to locations in industrialized countries like the U.S. as migration overseas has become common in Tongan life. More than half the population of the islands lives abroad in industrialized countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and here. In fact, four in ten Tongans live here in the United States, a country viewed as the preferred and most prestigious destination.
I want to highlight Tongan migrations to the United States because I am interested in examining some of the issues that might instigate and shape these migrations. Moreover, I am interested in contextualizing Tongan peoples’ intimate relationship to the institutions here like U.S. nationalism and Mormonism, for this unlikely pairing preceeds Tongan migrations here.
Before proceeding with this research, I want to acknowledge the important work on Tongans in the United States conducted by earlier Tongan Studies pioneers. I am especially grateful to Tamar Gordon’s because her research on the intimate relationship between Tongans and the U.S.-based Mormon Church has helped me in developing this research. Gordon reveals the prodigious role of the Mormon Church in shaping Tongan migrations and subsequently also shaping Tongan culture here in the diaspora. She asserts, “ [Tonga] has the distinction of being the most successful foreign mission field for the Mormon Church.”
Statistics documenting the growth of the Mormon Church in the year 2005 reveal that one out of every two Tongans living in the islands of Tonga is Mormon. It is imperative to note that the growing rate of Tongan migrations to the United States correlates to the high rates of Tongan conversions into the Mormon Church. Tongans are also the fastest growing Pacific Islander-American population, as the population nearly doubled in each of the last three national censes. The inextricable connection between the high rate of Tongan conversions to Mormonism and to rising Tongan migrations should not be easily dismissed as “natural” and in accordance to the linear process of progress and enlightenment” as some have proclaimed. I believe that interrogating this phenomenon and untangling the power nexus that “naturalizes” and therefore invisibilizes these relationships are challenges that should be a priority for Tongan Studies scholars because of the salient histories on Tongan culture, Tongan subjectivities, and the metaphysical qualities of being Tongan that this excavation can yield.
Interrogating the intimate relationships between the U.S-based institution, Mormonism to Tongan people and Tonganness is one of the objectives of my research. Interestingly, the unsettling and profound intimacy between Tongans and Mormonism was the subject of a Disney blockbuster film, The Other Side of Heaven, nationally released in 2002. The film is based on a memoir, published in 1993 by the Mormon Church leader John H. Groberg, entitled In the Eye of the Storm. The memoir chronicles Groberg’s experiences as a Mormon missionary in the Tongan islands during 1954-1957.
It is my intention, in my most recent research, to critically examine the production of Tongan manhood in the 20th and 21st centuries. I will examine the image of the Tongan male character Feki in the Disney blockbuster film, The Other Side of Heaven. In the popular film, Feki embodies the trope of “side-kick” to the American male missionary, John H. Groberg.
Feki is a severely racialized, gendered and subsequently sexualized image that is politically efficacious and advantageous for the formation and proliferation of colonialisms. My research reveals that Feki is a historical product that is produced by intersecting and contemporaneous histories of colonialisms constituted through Tongan and U.S. nationalisms, Mormonism and the desires of global capital markets. My analysis will reveal that Feki is not a contemporary colonial invention but rather, his image follows in the historical trajectory of colonial imagery from the past that marked Cap. James Cook’s third voyage to the Tongan islands in the late 18th century and this image reemerged during the U.S. occupation of the Tongan islands during WWII. Like the colonial imagery of the past, Feki’s role is to meant to allay and silence Tongan people’s robust histories of resistance against colonialisms and the proliferation of neo liberalism.
This work also will contexualize the visual technologies deployed in the film to produce Feki and Tonganness. I will analyze the visual language of the film and illuminate the ways that the film inscribes Feki’s masculinity as gendered, sexualized and racialized, while it simultaneously centers Groberg’s masculinity as superior and inevitable. Lastly, I will show that the film delineates Feki as the quintessential Tongan man. I will show that this preferred image of Tongan masculinity constituted through White fear and sexual anxieties is a systemic response as well as a political maneuver aimed to contain and discipline the imagined images of Tongan hypermasculinity and to continue the proliferation of colonialisms.
Surrounded by the vast Pacific Ocean and located in the heart of the South Pacific triangle, the Tongan archipelago neighbors the islands of New Zealand, Samoa and Fiji. Tongan migrations to the United States began at the end of WWII and it proliferated after 1965. In a recent entry on Tongans Americans included in the Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnicity, I wrote about Tongan migrations to the United States. Tongan Americans represent a relatively small group in the United States: according to the 2000 Census, there were 36,836 Tongans or part Tongans in the U.S. This is about 0.01 percent of the U.S. population.
I have been given the opportunity to discuss the growing diaspora of Tongans relocating to locations in industrialized countries like the U.S. as migration overseas has become common in Tongan life. More than half the population of the islands lives abroad in industrialized countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and here. In fact, four in ten Tongans live here in the United States, a country viewed as the preferred and most prestigious destination.
I want to highlight Tongan migrations to the United States because I am interested in examining some of the issues that might instigate and shape these migrations. Moreover, I am interested in contextualizing Tongan peoples’ intimate relationship to the institutions here like U.S. nationalism and Mormonism, for this unlikely pairing preceeds Tongan migrations here.
Before proceeding with this research, I want to acknowledge the important work on Tongans in the United States conducted by earlier Tongan Studies pioneers. I am especially grateful to Tamar Gordon’s because her research on the intimate relationship between Tongans and the U.S.-based Mormon Church has helped me in developing this research. Gordon reveals the prodigious role of the Mormon Church in shaping Tongan migrations and subsequently also shaping Tongan culture here in the diaspora. She asserts, “ [Tonga] has the distinction of being the most successful foreign mission field for the Mormon Church.”
Statistics documenting the growth of the Mormon Church in the year 2005 reveal that one out of every two Tongans living in the islands of Tonga is Mormon. It is imperative to note that the growing rate of Tongan migrations to the United States correlates to the high rates of Tongan conversions into the Mormon Church. Tongans are also the fastest growing Pacific Islander-American population, as the population nearly doubled in each of the last three national censes. The inextricable connection between the high rate of Tongan conversions to Mormonism and to rising Tongan migrations should not be easily dismissed as “natural” and in accordance to the linear process of progress and enlightenment” as some have proclaimed. I believe that interrogating this phenomenon and untangling the power nexus that “naturalizes” and therefore invisibilizes these relationships are challenges that should be a priority for Tongan Studies scholars because of the salient histories on Tongan culture, Tongan subjectivities, and the metaphysical qualities of being Tongan that this excavation can yield.
Interrogating the intimate relationships between the U.S-based institution, Mormonism to Tongan people and Tonganness is one of the objectives of my research. Interestingly, the unsettling and profound intimacy between Tongans and Mormonism was the subject of a Disney blockbuster film, The Other Side of Heaven, nationally released in 2002. The film is based on a memoir, published in 1993 by the Mormon Church leader John H. Groberg, entitled In the Eye of the Storm. The memoir chronicles Groberg’s experiences as a Mormon missionary in the Tongan islands during 1954-1957.
It is my intention, in my most recent research, to critically examine the production of Tongan manhood in the 20th and 21st centuries. I will examine the image of the Tongan male character Feki in the Disney blockbuster film, The Other Side of Heaven. In the popular film, Feki embodies the trope of “side-kick” to the American male missionary, John H. Groberg.
Feki is a severely racialized, gendered and subsequently sexualized image that is politically efficacious and advantageous for the formation and proliferation of colonialisms. My research reveals that Feki is a historical product that is produced by intersecting and contemporaneous histories of colonialisms constituted through Tongan and U.S. nationalisms, Mormonism and the desires of global capital markets. My analysis will reveal that Feki is not a contemporary colonial invention but rather, his image follows in the historical trajectory of colonial imagery from the past that marked Cap. James Cook’s third voyage to the Tongan islands in the late 18th century and this image reemerged during the U.S. occupation of the Tongan islands during WWII. Like the colonial imagery of the past, Feki’s role is to meant to allay and silence Tongan people’s robust histories of resistance against colonialisms and the proliferation of neo liberalism.
This work also will contexualize the visual technologies deployed in the film to produce Feki and Tonganness. I will analyze the visual language of the film and illuminate the ways that the film inscribes Feki’s masculinity as gendered, sexualized and racialized, while it simultaneously centers Groberg’s masculinity as superior and inevitable. Lastly, I will show that the film delineates Feki as the quintessential Tongan man. I will show that this preferred image of Tongan masculinity constituted through White fear and sexual anxieties is a systemic response as well as a political maneuver aimed to contain and discipline the imagined images of Tongan hypermasculinity and to continue the proliferation of colonialisms.
An Interview with Christopher Yopp: 11 Questions from The Berkeley Graduate
TBG:.Where are you from?
Christopher Yopp: I was born in Miami, FL but went to high school in Tucson, Arizona and Haifa, Israel. Ethnically, I’ve got a bit of Irish and Native American in me, but unfortunately don’t have as strong a connection to my roots as I would like.
What did you study as an undergrad/earlier in your career?
I double majored in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Asian History at Cornell University. At first I was solely going for my MCB so I could move into research to fulfill a personal obligation to my mother who died of cancer, however, I fell in love with the Japanese culture after being exposed to the famed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa and I decided I wanted to also learn more able Asian cultures. I was originally planning on getting a PhD in MCB, but my interest took me to Japan and Asia for a couple of years instead. When I finally came back, I spent the next year taking care of my grandfather, who was dying of Parkinson’s disease. My interactions with doctors and the health care system raised my interest in public health and set me on my path to getting a MPH in Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley.
What's the focus of your current work?
I am currently working on HPV and cervical cancer in Ethiopia. I spent the last summer in a rural hospital in Western Ethiopia working on determining the HPV strain types that were responsible for the cases of terminal cervical cancer. The health disparities there are truly astounding, and it is devastating to see a disease that is preventable be ignored in the face of other “sexier” diseases. Now I am working to bringing HPV vaccines to those same populations.
How did you become interested in your field?
I have had a lot of personal experiences that have lead me down this path. My family and friends have had their share of diseases and improper care. Specifically, my mother passed away of cervical cancer when I was young. I grew up in an impoverished situation and proper surveillance was not a priority. Knowing that she died of something 100% preventable has propelled me into public health research and now medical school. I was 14 years old and had been dealing with my mother’s death for over a year when a teacher informed me about a program at University of Southern California. This program was meant to inform younger high school students about research positions in cancer. I applied, made it in, and my life has never been the same. I really enjoyed the work I did on Parkinson’s disease at the University of Arizona some years ago, but haven’t felt truly fulfilled until my most recent work in HPV.
What were your aspirations when you were younger?
Every year when the Wizard of Oz would come on I would be reminded that I wanted to become a scientist. I used to tell my friends that I would go into genetics so that I could finally make one of those flying monkeys. I don’t know where along the way I went wrong.
How has your work been seen in the community at large? I don’t think it has been seen all that much. Malaria, AIDS, and TB are the Big Three in developing countries and it is difficult to bring other diseases into the spotlight. It can almost be seen as an “Orphan Disease” in the developing world.
What's the best part of your work? Public health is meant to affect large populations and it is extremely rewarding to see initiatives that can help and improve the lives of people be implemented. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually been able to do that yet, but I’m working on it. I have started to become involved in the Suitcase clinic. They do some wonderful things for the local homeless community and I hope I can contribute to their project.
Career-wise, where would you like to end up? I’m looking at med school right now, so I’d like to be involved in small-scale international medical initiatives that can push forward some programs that will make a difference. I need some more training, but I’m getting there!
What has your experience in Berkeley been like? I have loved being here! The relative openness of the student body and professors has been refreshing and the beautiful weather hasn’t hurt. I lived here for a year before starting my graduate degree and I knew what I was getting into. However, I have come to enjoy the city more and more. The connections I made on campus these last two years have added to my quality of life in ways I’m sure I won’t understand until I leave Berkeley. I have seen the neighborhoods become more and more gentrified. Also, the campus itself is slowly losing funding, and I fear that it will lose that edge that makes it such a cutting-edge institution. Specifically, Public Health has lost its building and is now spread throughout campus. This is disturbing, considering the large need for public health officials in California. I have been involved in the Student Health Advisory Committee at the Tang center and am happy to say that the administration is taking student input to heart and have pushed forward some changes that have made access much easier. There has been a big push by the Graduate Assembly and also some initiative within the Tang center. They legitimately want to offer the best services they can. I’d like to see more money invested in the campus and better input from both the Academia and Grad students as to how to use the money.
What advice do you have for students who might be interested in your career path? It is a worthwhile career path, but it is filled with many frustrating pitfalls.
What's the most important part of your day? Breakfast. I also work out at the RSF most days, I have a garden I like to putter around in and I rock climb when I have the time.
Christopher Yopp: I was born in Miami, FL but went to high school in Tucson, Arizona and Haifa, Israel. Ethnically, I’ve got a bit of Irish and Native American in me, but unfortunately don’t have as strong a connection to my roots as I would like.
What did you study as an undergrad/earlier in your career?
I double majored in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Asian History at Cornell University. At first I was solely going for my MCB so I could move into research to fulfill a personal obligation to my mother who died of cancer, however, I fell in love with the Japanese culture after being exposed to the famed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa and I decided I wanted to also learn more able Asian cultures. I was originally planning on getting a PhD in MCB, but my interest took me to Japan and Asia for a couple of years instead. When I finally came back, I spent the next year taking care of my grandfather, who was dying of Parkinson’s disease. My interactions with doctors and the health care system raised my interest in public health and set me on my path to getting a MPH in Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley.
What's the focus of your current work?
I am currently working on HPV and cervical cancer in Ethiopia. I spent the last summer in a rural hospital in Western Ethiopia working on determining the HPV strain types that were responsible for the cases of terminal cervical cancer. The health disparities there are truly astounding, and it is devastating to see a disease that is preventable be ignored in the face of other “sexier” diseases. Now I am working to bringing HPV vaccines to those same populations.
How did you become interested in your field?
I have had a lot of personal experiences that have lead me down this path. My family and friends have had their share of diseases and improper care. Specifically, my mother passed away of cervical cancer when I was young. I grew up in an impoverished situation and proper surveillance was not a priority. Knowing that she died of something 100% preventable has propelled me into public health research and now medical school. I was 14 years old and had been dealing with my mother’s death for over a year when a teacher informed me about a program at University of Southern California. This program was meant to inform younger high school students about research positions in cancer. I applied, made it in, and my life has never been the same. I really enjoyed the work I did on Parkinson’s disease at the University of Arizona some years ago, but haven’t felt truly fulfilled until my most recent work in HPV.
What were your aspirations when you were younger?
Every year when the Wizard of Oz would come on I would be reminded that I wanted to become a scientist. I used to tell my friends that I would go into genetics so that I could finally make one of those flying monkeys. I don’t know where along the way I went wrong.
How has your work been seen in the community at large? I don’t think it has been seen all that much. Malaria, AIDS, and TB are the Big Three in developing countries and it is difficult to bring other diseases into the spotlight. It can almost be seen as an “Orphan Disease” in the developing world.
What's the best part of your work? Public health is meant to affect large populations and it is extremely rewarding to see initiatives that can help and improve the lives of people be implemented. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually been able to do that yet, but I’m working on it. I have started to become involved in the Suitcase clinic. They do some wonderful things for the local homeless community and I hope I can contribute to their project.
Career-wise, where would you like to end up? I’m looking at med school right now, so I’d like to be involved in small-scale international medical initiatives that can push forward some programs that will make a difference. I need some more training, but I’m getting there!
What has your experience in Berkeley been like? I have loved being here! The relative openness of the student body and professors has been refreshing and the beautiful weather hasn’t hurt. I lived here for a year before starting my graduate degree and I knew what I was getting into. However, I have come to enjoy the city more and more. The connections I made on campus these last two years have added to my quality of life in ways I’m sure I won’t understand until I leave Berkeley. I have seen the neighborhoods become more and more gentrified. Also, the campus itself is slowly losing funding, and I fear that it will lose that edge that makes it such a cutting-edge institution. Specifically, Public Health has lost its building and is now spread throughout campus. This is disturbing, considering the large need for public health officials in California. I have been involved in the Student Health Advisory Committee at the Tang center and am happy to say that the administration is taking student input to heart and have pushed forward some changes that have made access much easier. There has been a big push by the Graduate Assembly and also some initiative within the Tang center. They legitimately want to offer the best services they can. I’d like to see more money invested in the campus and better input from both the Academia and Grad students as to how to use the money.
What advice do you have for students who might be interested in your career path? It is a worthwhile career path, but it is filled with many frustrating pitfalls.
What's the most important part of your day? Breakfast. I also work out at the RSF most days, I have a garden I like to putter around in and I rock climb when I have the time.
The Changing State of Public Health
by Christopher Yopp, MPH
This month, a few lamp-posts in downtown London have been padded in order to prevent people from running into them and physically injuring themselves. This has become a large problem recently because of the increase in text messaging via cellular phone while walking. This “Safe Text” street, also known on most maps as Brick Lane, is now a little bit safer for those who cannot be bothered to look up while walking. Some may say natural selection should be allowed to run its course, while others, mainly those who have run into these poles, commend public health officials on their foresight and genius.
Perhaps this kind of public safety intervention is what is called to mind when one hears mention of the field of Public Health. Maybe some people instead associate the concept with visions of an irate Ralph Nader ranting about seatbelts.
In any case, Public Health is an attempt to improve the well-being of a community by studying and managing the risks that affect it. Public health officials try to prevent, rather than have to treat, diseases through surveillance of threats and the promotion of healthy behaviors. The World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Thus, a public health official’s ultimate goal is to create and sustain an environment where everyone is able to be healthy.
The anti-smoking campaign of recent years is an ideal example of this goal; decreasing environmental tobacco smoke has led to a decrease not only in lung-related diseases in not only ex-smokers, but in non-smokers as well. Overall, this campaign has been seen as an effective public health intervention.
However, critics of Public Health, both at the professional and amateur levels, have a different opinion. One critic, a good friend of mine, describes Public Health as “a bunch of obnoxious nonsense, where people are always telling me what I can and cannot do. One week I should eat truckloads of broccoli to prevent getting cancer, and the next, [eating] broccoli is a small step below bathing in plutonium.” Although not very eloquent, my friend does have a point as far as layperson perspective on the proclamations of the discipline.
Public Health, like most every field, always finds itself refining its expressed interpretations of the statistics and trends for what behaviors are “best” for the population. For example, Saturated fats were the worst fats until research identified transfats to be the most deleterious fat, just like the Argentinian Eoraptor was the “oldest dinosaur” before Madagascar’s Prosauropods were dug up. One doesn’t dismiss Paleontology as “pseudoscience” just because new discoveries are made and our understanding of the world concomitantly gets a little update. Where these fields differ, however, is that Public Health news releases and research bulletins often take on the tone of a commandment, and public health officials become “The Smoking Police”, telling people again and again what they already know: Thou shalt not smoke, lest you die of emphysema!
It is easy to understand how this “father knows best” attitude can creep into the field of Public Health. As an observer , it is disheartening to witness people who know all the risk factors to avoid, and yet, still engage in unhealthy behaviors.
Consider this: well over a third of all deaths in the United States can be attributed to a limited number of largely preventable behaviors and exposures, including smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity, and alcohol consumption. That means one out of three deaths that occur in the United States can be averted. Yes, everyone will eventually die, but who doesn’t want another 20 years? This kind of data, along with the knowledge of what interventions can be put into place to change these figures, evokes a certain amount of passion in people in the public health business. Everyone deserves to live a long, healthy life. Personally, I plan to live out my last few days in an Old Folks Home, and I could certainly use some company; from what I understand, it can get fairly lonely.
Unfortunately, this passion often stirs up a certain amount of self-righteousness and, dare I say, arrogance. It is part of a Public Health official’s required background to know what is best to maintain the health of the public (and be able to be continuously updating that knowledge) and, obviously, the public should take heed of their best interests. Regrettably, many public health initiatives do not take the opinions of their target population into account. How often do public health officials consult you about your health concerns or inquire how a given health problem in the community should be addressed? More often than not, a simple public health advisory, outlining the risk factors for a particular disease, is issued and that is all. Public Health officials, as your advocates for better health, sometimes have a difficult time listening to your concerns and what you believe are the most pressing issues.
This is particularly evident in cases within the developing world. Many doctors and public health officials have taken a “Field of Dreams” approach to public health in developing nations. That is, “if we provide it, then they will use it.” Back in the 1960’s to the early 80’s, the Food and Agricultural Organization recognized that years of famine and drought in Uganda had resulted in an impoverished populace. Being good intentioned global citizens, Public Health officials decided to follow a precept attributed to everyone from Native Americans to Africans, “Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, but teach him how to fish and he will eat all his life.” The officials believed the best way to address the problem of malnutrition in Uganda was to give Ugandan farmers the equipment that would improve their ability to farm for themselves and reach sustainability.
Millions of dollars were spent shipping brand new tractors for the Ugandans to use on their farms. These tractors were allocated to the best farms in hopes that they, the hardest working farmers, would best take advantage of this technology. This was a grand gesture, but unfortunately short sighted. The public health officials forgot one of the fundamental parts of that phrase. They forgot to properly teach the farmers how to use the tractors and the equally important how to fix them when they broke down. Furthermore the parts necessary for fixing and the gas and oil required for operation of the tractors were not provided. On top of that, the cultural differences with respect to attitudes toward technology were not taken into account, as many of the farmers were reluctant to leave the old ways behind and refused to touch the tractors that had been delivered to their fields. As a result, the tractors rusted in the fields, and farmers went back to using oxen and hoes.
That is not to say that this type of intervention isn’t necessary and useful. Indeed this top down approach can be very effective in the case of national emergencies. Imagine a large natural disaster in the Deep South that destroys infrastructure and leads to great need. Fresh water, food, and housing will have to be provided to a large population. You would want a well-coordinated organization to come in who can successfully manage and direct the humanitarian effort in a timely and effective way. And you would want to make sure that organization is not just FEMA. However, when you want to develop a long-lasting program that will effect change for years to come, you must work hand-in-hand with the target community.
Public health is shifting, and officials are learning from past mistakes. Health organizations, like the Alameda County Health Department and non-profit Kaiser Permanente, are moving into the communities, forming coalitions within them, and working with community leaders to create infrastructures that can sustain beneficial changes. Here at UC Berkeley, a professor was interested in establishing an anti-smoking campaign in a local neighborhood. Instead of just posting no-smoking signs around the neighborhood, she decided to consult with neighborhood residents. When she asked them what their concerns were, she found that while smoking was an issue, they were really concerned about curtailing speeding down their residential streets.
As a result of this conversation, researchers at the university worked with these people to create the infrastructure necessary to work towards their needs. The neighborhood group worked for a year and managed to get the city to install the speed bumps. All the while, this professor slowly moved out of the picture, giving them the mandate to determine their own path. A year after this success, the same organization is still active, completely autonomous, and has recently taken on an anti-smoking campaign. This is a good example of how to create long-lasting change, and this is the direction that Public Health is moving.
Public Health has a long way to go. There are still massive disparities among minorities, and the issues that are most important to individuals in a community are not always addressed. But officials are trying to listen. So the next time you run into lamp-post, let your local public health official know. Maybe we will pad a pole for you too.
This month, a few lamp-posts in downtown London have been padded in order to prevent people from running into them and physically injuring themselves. This has become a large problem recently because of the increase in text messaging via cellular phone while walking. This “Safe Text” street, also known on most maps as Brick Lane, is now a little bit safer for those who cannot be bothered to look up while walking. Some may say natural selection should be allowed to run its course, while others, mainly those who have run into these poles, commend public health officials on their foresight and genius.
Perhaps this kind of public safety intervention is what is called to mind when one hears mention of the field of Public Health. Maybe some people instead associate the concept with visions of an irate Ralph Nader ranting about seatbelts.
In any case, Public Health is an attempt to improve the well-being of a community by studying and managing the risks that affect it. Public health officials try to prevent, rather than have to treat, diseases through surveillance of threats and the promotion of healthy behaviors. The World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Thus, a public health official’s ultimate goal is to create and sustain an environment where everyone is able to be healthy.
The anti-smoking campaign of recent years is an ideal example of this goal; decreasing environmental tobacco smoke has led to a decrease not only in lung-related diseases in not only ex-smokers, but in non-smokers as well. Overall, this campaign has been seen as an effective public health intervention.
However, critics of Public Health, both at the professional and amateur levels, have a different opinion. One critic, a good friend of mine, describes Public Health as “a bunch of obnoxious nonsense, where people are always telling me what I can and cannot do. One week I should eat truckloads of broccoli to prevent getting cancer, and the next, [eating] broccoli is a small step below bathing in plutonium.” Although not very eloquent, my friend does have a point as far as layperson perspective on the proclamations of the discipline.
Public Health, like most every field, always finds itself refining its expressed interpretations of the statistics and trends for what behaviors are “best” for the population. For example, Saturated fats were the worst fats until research identified transfats to be the most deleterious fat, just like the Argentinian Eoraptor was the “oldest dinosaur” before Madagascar’s Prosauropods were dug up. One doesn’t dismiss Paleontology as “pseudoscience” just because new discoveries are made and our understanding of the world concomitantly gets a little update. Where these fields differ, however, is that Public Health news releases and research bulletins often take on the tone of a commandment, and public health officials become “The Smoking Police”, telling people again and again what they already know: Thou shalt not smoke, lest you die of emphysema!
It is easy to understand how this “father knows best” attitude can creep into the field of Public Health. As an observer , it is disheartening to witness people who know all the risk factors to avoid, and yet, still engage in unhealthy behaviors.
Consider this: well over a third of all deaths in the United States can be attributed to a limited number of largely preventable behaviors and exposures, including smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity, and alcohol consumption. That means one out of three deaths that occur in the United States can be averted. Yes, everyone will eventually die, but who doesn’t want another 20 years? This kind of data, along with the knowledge of what interventions can be put into place to change these figures, evokes a certain amount of passion in people in the public health business. Everyone deserves to live a long, healthy life. Personally, I plan to live out my last few days in an Old Folks Home, and I could certainly use some company; from what I understand, it can get fairly lonely.
Unfortunately, this passion often stirs up a certain amount of self-righteousness and, dare I say, arrogance. It is part of a Public Health official’s required background to know what is best to maintain the health of the public (and be able to be continuously updating that knowledge) and, obviously, the public should take heed of their best interests. Regrettably, many public health initiatives do not take the opinions of their target population into account. How often do public health officials consult you about your health concerns or inquire how a given health problem in the community should be addressed? More often than not, a simple public health advisory, outlining the risk factors for a particular disease, is issued and that is all. Public Health officials, as your advocates for better health, sometimes have a difficult time listening to your concerns and what you believe are the most pressing issues.
This is particularly evident in cases within the developing world. Many doctors and public health officials have taken a “Field of Dreams” approach to public health in developing nations. That is, “if we provide it, then they will use it.” Back in the 1960’s to the early 80’s, the Food and Agricultural Organization recognized that years of famine and drought in Uganda had resulted in an impoverished populace. Being good intentioned global citizens, Public Health officials decided to follow a precept attributed to everyone from Native Americans to Africans, “Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, but teach him how to fish and he will eat all his life.” The officials believed the best way to address the problem of malnutrition in Uganda was to give Ugandan farmers the equipment that would improve their ability to farm for themselves and reach sustainability.
Millions of dollars were spent shipping brand new tractors for the Ugandans to use on their farms. These tractors were allocated to the best farms in hopes that they, the hardest working farmers, would best take advantage of this technology. This was a grand gesture, but unfortunately short sighted. The public health officials forgot one of the fundamental parts of that phrase. They forgot to properly teach the farmers how to use the tractors and the equally important how to fix them when they broke down. Furthermore the parts necessary for fixing and the gas and oil required for operation of the tractors were not provided. On top of that, the cultural differences with respect to attitudes toward technology were not taken into account, as many of the farmers were reluctant to leave the old ways behind and refused to touch the tractors that had been delivered to their fields. As a result, the tractors rusted in the fields, and farmers went back to using oxen and hoes.
That is not to say that this type of intervention isn’t necessary and useful. Indeed this top down approach can be very effective in the case of national emergencies. Imagine a large natural disaster in the Deep South that destroys infrastructure and leads to great need. Fresh water, food, and housing will have to be provided to a large population. You would want a well-coordinated organization to come in who can successfully manage and direct the humanitarian effort in a timely and effective way. And you would want to make sure that organization is not just FEMA. However, when you want to develop a long-lasting program that will effect change for years to come, you must work hand-in-hand with the target community.
Public health is shifting, and officials are learning from past mistakes. Health organizations, like the Alameda County Health Department and non-profit Kaiser Permanente, are moving into the communities, forming coalitions within them, and working with community leaders to create infrastructures that can sustain beneficial changes. Here at UC Berkeley, a professor was interested in establishing an anti-smoking campaign in a local neighborhood. Instead of just posting no-smoking signs around the neighborhood, she decided to consult with neighborhood residents. When she asked them what their concerns were, she found that while smoking was an issue, they were really concerned about curtailing speeding down their residential streets.
As a result of this conversation, researchers at the university worked with these people to create the infrastructure necessary to work towards their needs. The neighborhood group worked for a year and managed to get the city to install the speed bumps. All the while, this professor slowly moved out of the picture, giving them the mandate to determine their own path. A year after this success, the same organization is still active, completely autonomous, and has recently taken on an anti-smoking campaign. This is a good example of how to create long-lasting change, and this is the direction that Public Health is moving.
Public Health has a long way to go. There are still massive disparities among minorities, and the issues that are most important to individuals in a community are not always addressed. But officials are trying to listen. So the next time you run into lamp-post, let your local public health official know. Maybe we will pad a pole for you too.
An Interview with Niels Hoven: 11 Questions from The Berkeley Graduate
TBG:.Where are you from?
Niels Hoven: Silver spring, MD
What did you study as an undergrad/earlier in your career?
Electrical engineering, at Rice University
What's the focus of your work?
It's tough to say. In the past year I've been a dating coach, public speaker, promotional model, hair model, toy designer, blogger, copywriter, salesman, and now professional writer. I think the focus of my work is unconstrained possibility.
How did you become interested in your field?
I said yes to every unusual opportunity that crossed my path.
What were your aspirations when you were younger?
When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut. A few shuttle mishaps later, I no longer have such a burning desire, but I do continue to value unique opportunities very highly.
How has your work been seen in the community at large?
My mom just tells people I'm a programmer.
What's the best part of your work?
Making a positive impact on other people's lives. Changing entire branches of family trees for the better.
Career-wise, where would you like to end up?
Working for myself with a completely flexible schedule made possible by a vast stream of passive income.
What has your experience in Berkeley been like?
A positive experience that I wouldn't care to repeat.
What advice do you have for students who might be interested in your career path?
My advice for students following my career path is know why you're going to graduate school before you arrive. If you know exactly why you want the degree, that knowledge will get you through the dark times. I was given that exact piece of advice before I came, didn't listen, and sure enough, dropped out three years later.
What's the most important part of your day?
Time spent with friends.
Niels Hoven: Silver spring, MD
What did you study as an undergrad/earlier in your career?
Electrical engineering, at Rice University
What's the focus of your work?
It's tough to say. In the past year I've been a dating coach, public speaker, promotional model, hair model, toy designer, blogger, copywriter, salesman, and now professional writer. I think the focus of my work is unconstrained possibility.
How did you become interested in your field?
I said yes to every unusual opportunity that crossed my path.
What were your aspirations when you were younger?
When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut. A few shuttle mishaps later, I no longer have such a burning desire, but I do continue to value unique opportunities very highly.
How has your work been seen in the community at large?
My mom just tells people I'm a programmer.
What's the best part of your work?
Making a positive impact on other people's lives. Changing entire branches of family trees for the better.
Career-wise, where would you like to end up?
Working for myself with a completely flexible schedule made possible by a vast stream of passive income.
What has your experience in Berkeley been like?
A positive experience that I wouldn't care to repeat.
What advice do you have for students who might be interested in your career path?
My advice for students following my career path is know why you're going to graduate school before you arrive. If you know exactly why you want the degree, that knowledge will get you through the dark times. I was given that exact piece of advice before I came, didn't listen, and sure enough, dropped out three years later.
What's the most important part of your day?
Time spent with friends.
Why I Left Grad School
by Niels Hoven
I dropped out of Berkeley on a Wednesday. I remember, because the electrical engineering graduate social hour is on a Wednesday, and I figured that as long as I was going to go through the unpleasantness of formally withdrawing, I may as well get some free food out of it.
I've always excelled academically. I completed algebra in third grade, passed the AP calculus test in eighth grade, and graduated from college in four years with both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. I arrived at Berkeley excited and anticipating an extraordinary academic experience.
However, my first year at Berkeley was more than I bargained for. I felt overwhelmed by the work, intimidated by brilliant classmates, and suspected none of the professors cared whether I was there or not. I wasn’t alone though. According to the mental health survey that year*, 67% of Berkeley grad students felt hopeless at some point in the past twelve months. 10% of Berkeley grad students had seriously contemplated suicide. In other words, look around your classroom of 30 students. 3 of them are thinking about killing themselves. About 1 in 200 will actually attempt it.
So it blew my mind on visit day when the prospectives arrived and all my friends started telling them how great Berkeley was. Who are you people? Weren’t you telling me yesterday about how your fever just dropped below a hundred after you went four days without sleep to make a conference deadline that probably didn’t even matter? Didn’t we talk last week about how incredible it was that I was the only person in our class who managed to maintain any outside hobbies besides research and classwork? And wasn’t I failing because of it?
It didn’t make any sense. Prospective students arrive and all of a sudden everyone loves their advisor, the research is fascinating, and you can’t beat the weather.
And then I read a study on cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance theory states that people are troubled by inconsistency between their beliefs and actions, which motivates behavior to restore consistency. In 1959, Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith had participants engage in a mind-numbingly boring “experiment” for an hour, turning pegs on a board around and around. They then told the participants that they needed them to brief the next subject, and to please tell the subject that the experiment was interesting. Half the participants were given $20 for this, the other half were given $1.
Afterwards, the original participants were interviewed and asked how much they enjoyed the experiment. The participants given $20 said the experiment was boring, as expected. But the participants given $1 said it was kinda fun! One measly dollar was not enough to justify the lie they told and the time they wasted. Instead, they reduced their dissonance by rationalizing that they really enjoyed the experiment.
Festinger and Carlsmith would have a field day with graduate school. A bunch of grad students are miserable for a year. They’re paid a pittance. But they stay anyway. It makes no sense for them to stay. Forced to explain themselves to a prospective student, cognitive dissonance sets in. “Oh, I guess I actually love it here!” they think. Oh, cognitive dissonance, you keep academia in business.
But it's more than just cognitive dissonance. Before arriving at Berkeley, I breezed through every academic venture set in front of me. I saw any uncompleted task as a personal failure and bundled academic success into my identity. Leaving a degree before finishing it would force me to reconsider how I valued myself as a person.
But is dropping out really failing? Bill Gates dropped out of college. So did Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Ted Turner was expelled. And Richard Branson, now worth about eight billion dollars, didn't even finish high school.
Perhaps the question isn't "Should I drop out?"
but rather, "Why didn't I do it years earlier?"
Admittedly, these are exceptional cases. But anyone who has been accepted to grad school at Berkeley is inherently an exceptional case as well. And as a good friend pointed out to me, if you expect to distinguish yourself in this world, at some point you'll have to make a choice that no one else would have made.
Leaving a degree program isn't failure. It's simply another path which too often is ignored.
Why is that? Why does graduate school create such tunnel vision in students?
In research, there's no finish line. No matter how much work you've done, there's always another question to be answered or another proof to be written. Professors are at work at 11 PM on a Friday night because they love their research and there's nowhere else they'd rather be. Sometimes they forget that not everyone shares those same values.
Working 90+ hours in a week was not unusual for me. To make my first conference deadline I stopped sleeping more than three hours at a stretch in order to throw my body clock out of whack and work more hours in a day. Constant stress was the norm. My blood pressure jumped twenty points and my daily routine was gritting my teeth, tucking my head, and forcing myself to focus on only my most imminent deadline. Between classes, research, and teaching I couldn't allow myself to look more than a few days into the future for fear of losing hope.
In that environment, considering other options was a luxury I couldn't afford. The possibility of a better option out there when I was putting myself through all this pain would make it impossible to go on.
I sometimes wonder if that's why my friends from graduate school have drifted away from me since my departure.
It's a terrible Catch-22. Grad school makes people depressed because they feel like they don't have any options, and they can't consider any other options because it makes them too depressed. What to do?
My solution came in an appropriately unexpected form, as solutions tend to do. From a pool of 25,000 applicants, I was chosen as one of the 8 nerdiest guys in the United States of America and given a place on the cast of the reality TV show “Beauty and the Geek”. Interestingly, one of my classmates had been cast on the show the year before. Apparently there's something about the Berkeley EECS graduate program that really appeals to “Beauty and the Geek’s” producers.
Disclaimer: Ask your doctor if reality TV appearances are right for you. Individual results may vary.
I arrived for the filming with a pile of textbooks in my bag. Missing a single day of class at Berkeley sometimes left me trying to catch up for weeks; I couldn't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't work for a month.
As it turned out, it wasn't my choice. The producers imposed a blanket ban on phone, internet, TV – and books. It was like I had been plucked out of my normal existence for an entire month. I was being filmed twenty-four hours a day, but all of a sudden I was able to relax. And I was happy! I can say without exaggerating that, after three years of graduate school, I'd forgotten what those emotions felt like.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I needed that month of forced vacation to be able to step back from my life and reexamine it from the outside. A real vacation, not just a winter break spent frantically cramming for prelims or a family reunion spent feeling guilty for not reading the textbook in my suitcase. That vacation allowed me to distance myself from my work and consider whether I was still on the right track.
A forced vacation was the first contribution to the perfect storm that led to my leaving Berkeley. The second piece of the puzzle arrived with my internship.
Once the show wrapped, I headed straight to New York for an internship with Philips Research. I'd had plenty of internships before, every summer from tenth grade onward. None of them had been completely satisfying, but each time I assumed, "Well, I just don't have enough education yet. Once I reach the next degree level I'll get more interesting work."
The internship at Philips was essentially the job I would have taken once I finished my Ph.D. I can't imagine a more supportive, flexible environment, with nearly complete freedom for whatever topics of research I wanted to pursue. The position paid well, there was plenty of academic freedom, my boss was supportive, and my coworkers were friendly. But for some reason, I still dreaded coming to work every day.
I struggled with this for a while and finally called my college roommate to talk. We talked about all the time and effort I'd put toward my Ph.D. We talked about pain and sacrifice, and then he asked me the best question of all time: "Is there anyone in your office that you can look at and say, 'Wow, I hope I end up like him'?"
And there wasn't. I looked around at my coworkers, and no one I’ve met in that world or academia really has the sort of lifestyle that I envy. If I don’t have any role models in my line of work, perhaps I’m in the wrong line of work?
For me, that was an enormous red flag. This was the job I would have after graduating, and it led straight to a lifestyle I didn't want.
And so, three years into my program, I decided to leave my Ph.D.
I didn't know what I would do next, but that's not a bad thing at all. Leaving graduate school to pursue a particular job or a specific business idea would have left me second guessing my decision in the likely event that the job turned out to be unfulfilling or the idea went under.
Instead, I left because I knew I was on the wrong path, and that knowledge kept me going during the search for the right one.
The most difficult part of the process was breaking the news to my advisor and to my mom. I talked to my advisor first. I'm not sure what that says about my priorities.
My advisor was incredibly supportive and agreed that taking a break from grad school is a good option for me now. He told me that life was too short to finish a Ph.D. just for the sake of finishing a Ph.D. Plus, I’m still young. Life doesn’t have to follow a linear path.
Having such a compassionate advisor actually made me want to stay longer.
The conversation with my mom was equally nerve wracking. As the son of an Asian mother who had come to this country for her own education, I knew my mom had been looking forward to telling her friends about "my son, the doctor."
I didn't want to make the call. I remember feeling nervous as I stood alone in the courtyard of Cory Hall, waiting for my mom to pick up her phone. I rushed through the words as I told her I was leaving Berkeley, and then I was quiet. My mom understood, though.
"I've been watching you for a while," she said, "and it looks like you've been floundering. I think this really is the best thing for you right now."
I exhaled and a sense of relief washed over me. It was an amazing feeling to know that my mom understood so much more about me than I expected.
And with a newfound lightness lingering in my shoulders, I walked to my last social hour as an electrical engineering graduate student
I dropped out of Berkeley on a Wednesday. I remember, because the electrical engineering graduate social hour is on a Wednesday, and I figured that as long as I was going to go through the unpleasantness of formally withdrawing, I may as well get some free food out of it.
I've always excelled academically. I completed algebra in third grade, passed the AP calculus test in eighth grade, and graduated from college in four years with both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. I arrived at Berkeley excited and anticipating an extraordinary academic experience.
However, my first year at Berkeley was more than I bargained for. I felt overwhelmed by the work, intimidated by brilliant classmates, and suspected none of the professors cared whether I was there or not. I wasn’t alone though. According to the mental health survey that year*, 67% of Berkeley grad students felt hopeless at some point in the past twelve months. 10% of Berkeley grad students had seriously contemplated suicide. In other words, look around your classroom of 30 students. 3 of them are thinking about killing themselves. About 1 in 200 will actually attempt it.
So it blew my mind on visit day when the prospectives arrived and all my friends started telling them how great Berkeley was. Who are you people? Weren’t you telling me yesterday about how your fever just dropped below a hundred after you went four days without sleep to make a conference deadline that probably didn’t even matter? Didn’t we talk last week about how incredible it was that I was the only person in our class who managed to maintain any outside hobbies besides research and classwork? And wasn’t I failing because of it?
It didn’t make any sense. Prospective students arrive and all of a sudden everyone loves their advisor, the research is fascinating, and you can’t beat the weather.
And then I read a study on cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance theory states that people are troubled by inconsistency between their beliefs and actions, which motivates behavior to restore consistency. In 1959, Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith had participants engage in a mind-numbingly boring “experiment” for an hour, turning pegs on a board around and around. They then told the participants that they needed them to brief the next subject, and to please tell the subject that the experiment was interesting. Half the participants were given $20 for this, the other half were given $1.
Afterwards, the original participants were interviewed and asked how much they enjoyed the experiment. The participants given $20 said the experiment was boring, as expected. But the participants given $1 said it was kinda fun! One measly dollar was not enough to justify the lie they told and the time they wasted. Instead, they reduced their dissonance by rationalizing that they really enjoyed the experiment.
Festinger and Carlsmith would have a field day with graduate school. A bunch of grad students are miserable for a year. They’re paid a pittance. But they stay anyway. It makes no sense for them to stay. Forced to explain themselves to a prospective student, cognitive dissonance sets in. “Oh, I guess I actually love it here!” they think. Oh, cognitive dissonance, you keep academia in business.
But it's more than just cognitive dissonance. Before arriving at Berkeley, I breezed through every academic venture set in front of me. I saw any uncompleted task as a personal failure and bundled academic success into my identity. Leaving a degree before finishing it would force me to reconsider how I valued myself as a person.
But is dropping out really failing? Bill Gates dropped out of college. So did Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Ted Turner was expelled. And Richard Branson, now worth about eight billion dollars, didn't even finish high school.
Perhaps the question isn't "Should I drop out?"
but rather, "Why didn't I do it years earlier?"
Admittedly, these are exceptional cases. But anyone who has been accepted to grad school at Berkeley is inherently an exceptional case as well. And as a good friend pointed out to me, if you expect to distinguish yourself in this world, at some point you'll have to make a choice that no one else would have made.
Leaving a degree program isn't failure. It's simply another path which too often is ignored.
Why is that? Why does graduate school create such tunnel vision in students?
In research, there's no finish line. No matter how much work you've done, there's always another question to be answered or another proof to be written. Professors are at work at 11 PM on a Friday night because they love their research and there's nowhere else they'd rather be. Sometimes they forget that not everyone shares those same values.
Working 90+ hours in a week was not unusual for me. To make my first conference deadline I stopped sleeping more than three hours at a stretch in order to throw my body clock out of whack and work more hours in a day. Constant stress was the norm. My blood pressure jumped twenty points and my daily routine was gritting my teeth, tucking my head, and forcing myself to focus on only my most imminent deadline. Between classes, research, and teaching I couldn't allow myself to look more than a few days into the future for fear of losing hope.
In that environment, considering other options was a luxury I couldn't afford. The possibility of a better option out there when I was putting myself through all this pain would make it impossible to go on.
I sometimes wonder if that's why my friends from graduate school have drifted away from me since my departure.
It's a terrible Catch-22. Grad school makes people depressed because they feel like they don't have any options, and they can't consider any other options because it makes them too depressed. What to do?
My solution came in an appropriately unexpected form, as solutions tend to do. From a pool of 25,000 applicants, I was chosen as one of the 8 nerdiest guys in the United States of America and given a place on the cast of the reality TV show “Beauty and the Geek”. Interestingly, one of my classmates had been cast on the show the year before. Apparently there's something about the Berkeley EECS graduate program that really appeals to “Beauty and the Geek’s” producers.
Disclaimer: Ask your doctor if reality TV appearances are right for you. Individual results may vary.
I arrived for the filming with a pile of textbooks in my bag. Missing a single day of class at Berkeley sometimes left me trying to catch up for weeks; I couldn't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't work for a month.
As it turned out, it wasn't my choice. The producers imposed a blanket ban on phone, internet, TV – and books. It was like I had been plucked out of my normal existence for an entire month. I was being filmed twenty-four hours a day, but all of a sudden I was able to relax. And I was happy! I can say without exaggerating that, after three years of graduate school, I'd forgotten what those emotions felt like.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I needed that month of forced vacation to be able to step back from my life and reexamine it from the outside. A real vacation, not just a winter break spent frantically cramming for prelims or a family reunion spent feeling guilty for not reading the textbook in my suitcase. That vacation allowed me to distance myself from my work and consider whether I was still on the right track.
A forced vacation was the first contribution to the perfect storm that led to my leaving Berkeley. The second piece of the puzzle arrived with my internship.
Once the show wrapped, I headed straight to New York for an internship with Philips Research. I'd had plenty of internships before, every summer from tenth grade onward. None of them had been completely satisfying, but each time I assumed, "Well, I just don't have enough education yet. Once I reach the next degree level I'll get more interesting work."
The internship at Philips was essentially the job I would have taken once I finished my Ph.D. I can't imagine a more supportive, flexible environment, with nearly complete freedom for whatever topics of research I wanted to pursue. The position paid well, there was plenty of academic freedom, my boss was supportive, and my coworkers were friendly. But for some reason, I still dreaded coming to work every day.
I struggled with this for a while and finally called my college roommate to talk. We talked about all the time and effort I'd put toward my Ph.D. We talked about pain and sacrifice, and then he asked me the best question of all time: "Is there anyone in your office that you can look at and say, 'Wow, I hope I end up like him'?"
And there wasn't. I looked around at my coworkers, and no one I’ve met in that world or academia really has the sort of lifestyle that I envy. If I don’t have any role models in my line of work, perhaps I’m in the wrong line of work?
For me, that was an enormous red flag. This was the job I would have after graduating, and it led straight to a lifestyle I didn't want.
And so, three years into my program, I decided to leave my Ph.D.
I didn't know what I would do next, but that's not a bad thing at all. Leaving graduate school to pursue a particular job or a specific business idea would have left me second guessing my decision in the likely event that the job turned out to be unfulfilling or the idea went under.
Instead, I left because I knew I was on the wrong path, and that knowledge kept me going during the search for the right one.
The most difficult part of the process was breaking the news to my advisor and to my mom. I talked to my advisor first. I'm not sure what that says about my priorities.
My advisor was incredibly supportive and agreed that taking a break from grad school is a good option for me now. He told me that life was too short to finish a Ph.D. just for the sake of finishing a Ph.D. Plus, I’m still young. Life doesn’t have to follow a linear path.
Having such a compassionate advisor actually made me want to stay longer.
The conversation with my mom was equally nerve wracking. As the son of an Asian mother who had come to this country for her own education, I knew my mom had been looking forward to telling her friends about "my son, the doctor."
I didn't want to make the call. I remember feeling nervous as I stood alone in the courtyard of Cory Hall, waiting for my mom to pick up her phone. I rushed through the words as I told her I was leaving Berkeley, and then I was quiet. My mom understood, though.
"I've been watching you for a while," she said, "and it looks like you've been floundering. I think this really is the best thing for you right now."
I exhaled and a sense of relief washed over me. It was an amazing feeling to know that my mom understood so much more about me than I expected.
And with a newfound lightness lingering in my shoulders, I walked to my last social hour as an electrical engineering graduate student
From the Editor: Summer 2008
Far and away the best prize that life offers
is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
--Theodore Roosevelt
is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
--Theodore Roosevelt
Welcome to another issue of The Berkeley Graduate.
This issue is focused on work and our relationship with it. We lucked out to have a great essay about figuring out whether graduate work is really what you want to be doing. We’ve also got articles across the spectrum: from taking your work away--via research abroad--to bringing your work home by researching your own community. We also wanted to cover what you cannot take with you and so we have some information about the intellectual property office, but to bring to light some other resources, we also have some information about planning for after work and the careers office here on campus. We love being able to tell you about opportunities and think it should be a good read. That is ever the hope.
We are still working on establishing our web-presence where the archive and some new exclusive content will be posted: we have some great audio and video from interviews with professors, university staff, and even speakers and performers from some of the recent conferences and events that have been on campus that you may have missed. Check out the Graduate Assembly’s page for updates on our status at
ga.berkeley.edu
(or at facebook.com by searching for “berkeley graduate”).
If you’d like to participate in the publication of The Berkeley Graduate in the future, shoot us an email at berkeleygraduate@ga.berkeley.edu.
As always, best wishes and keep reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)