
Finding Community at Berkeley
As one might expect, being admitted to and committing to a school like UC Berkeley was daunting and overwhelming at first. There was definitely a transition period for me. I had questions about how I would make friends in my large lecture classes, what were my chances of getting into the clubs I was interested in, and how would I learn to find community in a university with over 30,000 undergraduates. Turns out that the best solution is to dive in—here’s how I and several other students did just that.
Golden Bear Orientation (GBO)
All first-year and transfer students are required to attend Golden Bear Orientation (GBO), and this is where you’ll likely make your first friends at Cal! This period of about a week served as an introduction to the school, as well as including some downtime to meet and hang out with people I had befriended online through some admitted student resources like group chats and the incoming class social media channels. Many of these people happened to live in a housing Theme Program called the African American Theme Program (aka Afro Floor).
Afro Floor
This theme program is an application-based living arrangement where you live among other people who share similar experiences and scholarly interests, and comes with several commitments and responsibilities that you can read more about on the Afro Floor website.
Chiamaka Okafor, a student studying molecular and cell biology thinks that “Afro-Floor is cool” because “there’s different kinds of Black people from different areas.”
One of the responsibilities of students who live on Afro Floor is to serve as unofficial guides and the first welcoming smiles to many classes of incoming Black students during bridges Senior Weekend.
Milissa Sutton, a student studying African American studies and education, says that Afro Floor is the thing that swayed her to choose Berkeley: “I wanted a community of Black people who I could find comfort in and find a community beyond my first year. I was afraid that because of the majority population of Berkeley, I would be alone, but that wasn’t the case. The first few weeks of school, without prompting from the Resident Assistants (RAs), we, as students, organized game nights every night to get to know each other. There’s a real community here.”
Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center
“I live at Fannie—that’s my favorite place to be on campus” said Alexandria Hennings, a student studying political science.
The Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center is a physical space on campus where Black students can find community with fellow Black peers. For more information on what the Resource Center offers, read this blog on the ins and outs of the Black Resource Center.
Finding Community & Joining Clubs
In the first semester of freshman year, I was added into group chats by Black peers that I met online and in person where we discussed and shared opportunities with each other. One of the clubs I stumbled upon in this time is called Diaspora Magazine: a collection of Black creatives in all fields, from photography to design to writing. I applied online to be a writer and got in!
The theme of that semester’s publication was “Black Consciousness”, and I chose to center my spread around the question of “What Black stories aren’t told?” For the rest of the semester, I worked with the editorial team to outline and polish an article about my dad’s immigration story. I met so many new people and experimented with an interview style I was unfamiliar with. By the end of the process, I had made new friends, gotten to know my dad and his story better, and left with a physical copy of my very own design and writing.
This is only a glimpse into the variety of identity-based clubs at Cal. If you’re interested in learning more, take a look at Black Student Orgs @ UC Berkeley.
Trust Yourself
Coming to Cal was one of the scariest decisions of my life, and the idea of not finding a community made it all the more terrifying. It was only until after I got here that I realized that community can be found in the most expected and unexpected places—from group chats to clubs. My message to those worried about the same things I was: trust yourself. You’ll find organizations where you feel included and people who make you feel like you have second, third, and fourth families. Cal has a rich Black history and a diverse community, and it’s this energy of inclusion that made me choose Cal.
Milana Berhe, Class of 2028, is majoring in astrophysics and political science and minoring in creative writing.
Want More?
- How does Cal Celebrate Black History Month?
- Read more about the Black Resource Center.
- Interested in the Black history of Cal? Read about Black History on Campus.
- Finding your niche: Learn how other students have found Community at Berkeley.