Now that I’ve finished my master’s degree and won’t be returning to academia anytime soon, I thought it’s high time for my recurring blog post: Reflecting on everything that’s happened since the last one.

Aside: Time really flies! I started writing this post after my 8th semester at Berkeley (when I finished undergrad), but I haven’t gotten the chance to properly sit down and write until now (after finishing my summer instructor stint – more on that in a future post).

🚫 Disclaimer

I’m one (EECS) student at UC Berkeley so take my advice with a grain of salt. These tips are also in no particular order.

1. Minimize context switching

It has always been tempting for me to look at my (in)famously packed Google Calendar during the school year and try to spread things out. There is definitely some wisdom in this; you can only have so many classes and meetings and socials in a day before you go kaput. At the same time, I’ve realized that by trying to space things out, you’re also reducing long periods of time where you can think, focus, and do work. Therefore, I would recommend minimizing the amount of context switching and instead schedule as many things back-to-back as you can so that you have uninterrupted time periods for work and play. (This is also what Berkeley time is for, so you might as well use it!)

2. Miscellaneous bucket list items for Berkeley students

  • Visit the various libraries on campus
  • Go up the Campanile/Sather Tower
  • Hike up the Big C and Fire Trails
  • Go kayaking in the Berkeley Marina
  • Picnic on the Memorial Glade
  • If you want to learn some computational biology, you can take INTEGBI 134L: Practical Genomics and visit the Museum of Vertebrae Zoology in the Valley Life Sciences Building (which is not open to the public!)
  • Visit the Berkeley Botanical Garden
  • See a movie at BAMPFA (students can get tickets for $5!)

3. Building-maxxing

As someone who would stay on campus for extended periods of time due to my busy schedule, I learned to find good places to work. As an EECS student, I was frequently Northside and thus I did a lot of work in Soda Hall. Most undergrads will be familiar with floors 2-4, and the upper division lounge in the 3rd floor was a place I did a lot of work in. However, only later did I realize there was also seating in the 6th and 7th floors. The 5th-6th floors are for graduate students, but the 7th floor has a little lounge area where anyone can work and you only really realize that if you meet with professors or become a TA. Of course, this advice is perhaps not really applicable anymore since EECS has now moved into the Gateway building. I’ll miss the Soda days 🥹

When I was Southside, I would often work in MLK since there’s plenty of seating and access to various campus eateries if you have a meal plan (which I did have). One thing that would often annoy me is the line to use the bathroom on the ground floor. It took me several semesters to realize that there is another bathroom in the back of MLK if you keep walking past the OCF and yearbook rooms. Barely anyone goes there, which means there’s never a line and it’s cleaner. Would recommend!

4. Professors (and PhD students) are just people

In my first few years at Berkeley, I thought of professors as these untouchable, perfect, nearly-superhuman experts in their fields. I would get starstruck just being a student in one of their courses, and it was quite intimidating to attend instructor office hours.

While it is true that faculty are very knowledgeable, as I’ve gotten more involved in course staff, research, and special topics and graduate-level courses, I’ve realized that professors are just people. They’re usually very happy to have a conversation with you, especially about their teaching and research. The key is not wasting anyone’s time: Come prepared (e.g. read their papers and other papers in their field), put in the work (e.g. for the course you’re taking or the research you’re doing with them), and demonstrate your genuine curiosity and interest.

Speaking of special topics and graduate-level courses, they are also a great and lesser-known way to get involved in research (or at the very least get practice with research skills). I was able to rub elbows with and sometimes even publish with professors by taking special topics courses, like Professors Gireeja Ranade and Narges Norouzi (CS 194-271 Research in AI Education), Professor Sarah Chasins (CS 294-184 Building User-Centered Programming Tools), Professors Lisa Yan and Michael Ball (CS 294-189 Designing CS Education at Scale), and Professor Bjoern Hartmann (CS 294-304 Human-AI Interaction).

Related to this, PhD students are also just people. Again, this is not to trivialize what PhD students do – I admire them greatly for their dedication and expertise. But it’s also super eye-opening to talk to them about their interests and work. I’ve had the privilege to meet and talk to various PhD students at this point, such as Tim Aveni, Serena Caraco, Rose Niousha, Brendan Henrique, Bhavya Chopra, Meng Chen, and Abby O’Neill, and they are all very inspiring and down-to-earth people who can give you great advice and insights into what grad school is like.

5. Attending research conferences effectively is an art

It is very tempting to try to attend every single paper session, poster session, demo, tutorial, and workshop in a research conference, but it is also impossible and incredibly draining. After my first research conference (SIGCSE 2025), I learned to pace myself a bit better and do more pre-research to determine which sessions I really wanted to attend. It’s totally fine to skip sessions to take a break, catch up on work, or attend spontaneous social events (e.g. all the Berkeley folks at the conference grabbing dinner together).

Another thing I found overwhelming is networking. I felt like a very small fish in an enormous ocean (not to mention SIGCSE isn’t even that big of a conference). It took all of my mental energy to get over the initial intimidation of introducing myself to talk to people I didn’t know. However, when I did (often by dragging friends with me for emotional support), it was usually very rewarding, such as talking to the keynote speaker at SIGCSE 2025, Professor Cecilia Aragon (UW) after I inadvertently sat down for lunch at the same table as her, or meeting Professors Adam Blank (Caltech) and Travis McGaha (UPenn). They all encouraged me to pursue a PhD despite just meeting me, and I say this not to brag, but rather to show how academics are generally very encouraging and nice.

6. Maybe hopping around courses is the move for gaining teaching experience

After taking CS 61A in my first semester at Berkeley, I was determined to join course staff. My first step was becoming an academic intern the following spring (the position is now called “teaching intern”) and applying to Computer Science Mentors. I must admit, when I learned that I had been accepted as a Junior Mentor (JM) for CS 88 (aka DATA C88C) instead of CS 61A, I was disappointed. Part of it was probably internalized EECS elitism (a lot of students scoff at data science as “easier” than CS or EECS), and part of it was my lack of emotional connection to DATA C88C since I’d never taken the course. But I’d checked the box on the application because I wanted to go where I was needed, and so I diligently taught weekly sections as a JM, then as a Senior Mentor (SM), and finally I became a Course Coordinator. In that time, I got to know some amazing people who were all just as passionate about CS and DS education as I was, and I am still friends with many of them to this day.

I eventually joined DATA C88C course staff as a tutor in Fall 2023, and the rest is history: I’ve taught DATA C88C for over 2 years, and occasionally jumped to other courses like DATA 101 and DATA 188. Every time I made a switch (for one reason or another), I always felt that same sense of disappointment that I first felt when I went from CS 61A to DATA C88C. Thoughts would swirl in my head: Will the staff be as good? Will the instructor(s) be good supervisors? Do I have the skills and expertise to even teach this course? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to just do what I know I’m already good at?

But over time as I had all of these teaching experiences, I realized that it was actually a blessing in disguise: Every course does things slightly differently, and I could not only learn new things, but also leverage my past experiences to improve the current course I was teaching. I also got to know more instructors, staff, and students, which expanded my professional network. And the fact that I taught so many courses I had technically never taken (DATA C88C, 101, and 188) kept me on my toes and gave me empathy for students, which is one of the most important parts of being a teacher. So while there is merit to going deep and staying with one course, there’s also a lot to gain by hopping around courses. Looking back on it now, I wouldn’t change a thing.

7. Don’t leave your electronics in your (locked) car

When Thanksgiving break began in the first semester of my master’s, I thought it would be fun to go with my parents to the local Rialto cinema in Elmwood to see the newest Knives Out movie (Wake Up Dead Man). We naively thought that leaving our belongings (including our electronics) in the locked car would be fine given that Elmwood is a pretty popular shopping district, but unfortunately someone broke in and stole all our stuff.

Luckily we had some insurance and savings, and the Thanksgiving holiday meant that we could take advantage of Black Friday deals to buy replacements. It definitely could have been a lot worse. But it reminded us to take our valuables with us wherever we go, and reminded me to religiously back up my files, code, and dot files so that I can set up a new laptop fast. It was also a nice “reset” for me to re-evaluate my hobbled together .bashrc, and since then I’ve been a happy starship user.

8. Caffeine is a dangerous cheat code

I managed to avoid caffeine consumption for about the first 3 years of being a college student, but in senior year and during my MS, I found myself drinking coffee on and off. There were weeks where I’d be really busy and sleep deprived, and coffee was basically the easiest solution to my problems. Then I’d get hit with 3 days of caffeine withdrawal symptoms (not fun), which reminded me of why I tried so hard to avoid coffee in the first place. I know peers who would get so deep into caffeine addiction that they’d drink multiple Red Bulls a day, so all I’m trying to say is: Use caffeine wisely, and it helps to quit gradually rather than “cold turkey” if you really must have some caffeine to get you through school.

9. Having a meal plan saved so much time

I ended up having a meal plan every semester I was a student at Berkeley, including during grad school. This was somewhat embarrassing every time I admitted it to someone (mostly because students think dining hall food is gross and because my cooking skills are quite behind that of my peers), but it was also so worth it. It saved me so much time that would otherwise be spent grocery shopping, meal prepping, and cleaning. If you don’t mind eating things repetitively and the social stigma, I’d highly recommend having a meal plan.

10. LLMs

Around 2024 is when LLM-assisted academic misconduct began spreading like wildfire. At this point, some instructors have given up and are explicitly allowing AI usage in their courses, for better or worse. I actively avoided AI for anything school-related because I was worried about overreliance and turning my brain to mush. I highly recommend to incoming students (or really, just students in general) to not let LLMs do your thinking and learning for you.

11. Undergrad vs. grad school

When I applied to the 5th year MS program at Berkeley, I had a very fuzzy understanding of what life as a graduate student would be like. Of course, I knew that I would have to take classes and work on a research project, but other than that, there’s not really a manual outlining all the differences between undergrad and grad school. Here’s some things I know now after completing my master’s program:

  • Grad classes are much more “chill” than undergrad classes. This is mostly due to the fact that they’re smaller and often research-based, which means you’ll spend most of the class sessions reading and discussing papers, and maybe work on a semester-long research project, as opposed to the relentless stream of labs/homework/quizzes/projects/midterms.
  • I ended up having more free time as a grad student than as an undergrad, mostly because I had fewer commitments overall (e.g. no clubs). This was kind of nice from a work-life balance standpoint. However, because most of my friends had graduated and moved on to work, they were no longer in Berkeley and therefore I had fewer people to hang out with. It made grad school a bit lonelier, but at least there were some people I knew who were also doing the 5th Year MS (shoutout Abby Brooks-Ramirez). Additionally, some grad student organizations would host regular lunches and socials, such as WiCSE (Women in CS and Engineering) and EE GSA (Electrical Engineering Graduate Student Association).
  • I applied to on-campus housing for graduate students. They are all apartments with single bedrooms (nice!), in apartments that can have up to 6 bedrooms. I strategically chose (and received) a 5-bedroom unit in Ida Jackson House since it’s 1 block away from campus on Southside, the rent was quite good ($1580/month inclusive of utilities), and I didn’t mind living with a lot of other people since it’s all mediated through the university. I’ve talked at length about the advantages of on-campus housing, and it went pretty well during my master’s too. My roommates and I were friendly and mostly just coexisted.
  • Once you become a graduate student, your official title as a TA is no longer “Undergraduate Course Staff 2” and instead it becomes “Graduate Student Instructor.” With this comes a significant pay raise, but it also means you’re much more expensive to hire. This ended up being an issue when I reapplied to teach DATA C88C and the instructor sadly informed me they didn’t have the budget. The good news is, I was able to find another 20-hour GSI position in DATA 188, but it is good to know about these constraints if you’re trying to get a course staff job at any UC since we all use the same bargaining agreement.
  • Someone once told me that being an undergrad is learning how to do what other people tell you to do, while being a grad student is learning how to come up with questions and things to do. Now that I’ve finished my master’s, I think it’s a very accurate description.
  • Your faculty advisor matters so much for grad school, and I feel very lucky that Professor Lisa Yan was mine.

12. Housing agreements are a must

Even if you plan to live with people you are good friends with, you should ALWAYS have a pre-written and signed agreement about how you are planning to pay for things (rent, utilities, fees, security deposit) and how you are planning to live together (guests, noise, pets, chores, etc.). It may be a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but better to have that early to prevent a bunch of drama and resentment at the end.

13. Give yourself as much time as possible between graduation and starting a full-time job

I’m very glad that senior-year Rebecca had the foresight to request the latest start date possible for my full-time job at Databricks, because it allowed me to have the time to be a summer instructor this year and gave me some breathing room to relax and apartment hunt.