My Busiest Friday at UC Berkeley: Classes, Work, Performance, & Movie Night
I am a person who loves to be busy, probably too much for my own good. Last semester, I took 13 units. And outside of classes, I write for Berkeley Life 10 hours a week, keep up as part of the Daily Cal news team, and I am a performer and vocal director for an upcoming Shakespeare play turned folk musical. I would much rather have the good stress that results from making the most of these fleeting college semesters than not push myself. These commitments help me maintain my social life, as otherwise it is easy for me, an isolationist, to lock myself in my room and do homework or scroll on social media. Throw all that together and you have a chaotic Friday comprising all my different academic and social commitments. Enjoy the craziness and buckle up as I document a day that is bound to have me exhausted yet fulfilled by the end of it.
7:15 a.m. – Wake up, Breakfast, Get Ready
After hitting snooze a few times on my phone, I finally give in and rise from the dead. After checking my phone and scrolling for a few minutes to wake up a bit more (“noodling around,” as my twin sister calls it), I force myself to get out of bed and get my blood flowing. I usually don’t have time to get breakfast, but I’ve been trying to get into the habit of getting there right when the Foothill Dining Commons opens at 7:30. I was able to get there right after 7:30 today, and my roommate having an early morning interview helped motivate me to be out the door early. Since few students are here this early, I sometimes like to set up in the TV room and catch up on Netflix shows (Season 3 of Resident Alien as of now) or the NFL draft while I eat. I couldn’t watch the first round live since I was performing, and I was curious to see how it turned out, especially for my hometown team, the 49ers.
After breakfast, I head back to my dorm around 8:15 a.m. to get ready. This includes making my bed, tidying up my side of the space, getting dressed, brushing my teeth, and doing my hair. It’s the longest it’s ever been and lately I’ve been rocking a man bun to keep my hair out of my face. I do a few other housekeeping things before I open up my computer and…
My breakfast at Foothill! On this occasion, I got myself a plate of scrambled eggs, turkey sausage and home fries, a small bowl of Cheerios, one banana and a glass of milk.
9 a.m. – Log On For My First Work-Study Shift!
Here is where my day of work officially begins! Fridays are one of my lighter days when it comes to classes, so I work four of my ten weekly work-study hours for Berkeley Life on these days. The first half is during the morning before class, where today, I’m mostly working on the rough draft for this article, along with a few other small tasks.
I’ve been writing for Berkeley Life since being hired in the fall, and after being a news writer on the Daily Cal ever since freshman year, it’s a nice change of pace to write about my experiences and focus on student life.
11 a.m. – Lunch at Foothill Dining Commons
To reward myself after my first two-hour shift is done, I head back to the Foothill Dining Commons for a lunch break, once again embarking on the 5-minute walk from my room. One thing I like about Foothill is that they always have at least one meal option that’s appealing and looks delicious, which makes the trip over there worthwhile.
While eating, I check my messages and email to see if there’s anything urgent I need to respond to. If not, then I’ll text my friends or send them silly video reels I have saved on Instagram. Because of the crazy day ahead, I also decide to get some caffeine to make sure I can keep going. (Dr. Pepper is my go-to soda, but they don’t have it at Foothill, so I stick with regular Pepsi, which is also quite good!)
11:30 a.m. – Second Work-Study Shift
After lunch, I get back to work. Most of the two hours are spent wrapping up this article and planning the photos I will take throughout the day. On my last shift of the week, I also make sure to finish up my daily digests that detail what I’ve done throughout my ten weekly hours of work. After finishing up at 1:30 p.m., I have a bit of time to relax before I head out the door around 1:55 p.m. for my next activity of the day!
Starting to write this very article as part of my work shift!
2 p.m. – English 117B Discussion
The trek to Dwinelle is one of the farthest ones I have to take from Foothill and it takes about 10-15 minutes. Usually by now I’m already on campus for my creative writing class, where Fridays are either a lecture in North Gate Hall or a small group workshop, where I meet with my three other groupmates near the Campanile. For this week however, we’re meeting at a later time and on Zoom. So instead, I make my way to the only in-person class I have, a Shakespeare class I’m taking with Professor Arnold. This is the second Shakespeare class I’ve taken at Berkeley, after taking the lower division course English 17 with Professor Landreth (which I highly recommend!).
In discussions, our GSI gives us general questions about the play we’re currently reading, and sometimes has handouts of speeches for us to analyze. This week, we’re reading the last play of the course, and one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote, The Tempest. I’ve really enjoyed this upper-division course because, while English 17 focused more on Shakespeare’s comedies and the earlier half of his works, this class is centered around his later plays. This means we get to explore his tragedies, problem plays, and late romances, the latter of which The Tempest falls under.
My walk from Foothill to Dwinelle Hall. I pass by the Campanile and Wheeler Hall on my way to my 2 p.m. discussion, and it’s always fun to see the daily afternoon happenings near Sproul Plaza.
3 p.m. – Office Hours with English 141
Immediately after discussion, I find a quiet spot on campus and hop on Zoom to meet with Professor Abrams for my creative writing class. We send our work in the day before, and during office hours she gives us feedback about what’s working and what isn’t. The second half of the course has been focused on poetry, so for this meetup I have two poems for her to look at. As she’s giving feedback, I like to take notes at the bottom of my Google doc so I can look at the feedback from both her and my small group when I get to revising the piece at the very end of the semester. After my 20-minute time slot is over, I have just enough time to scurry up the hill and back to my dorm to get ready for my next class of the day.
The aesthetic walk back to Foothill, taking a shortcut that my friend at Foothill introduced to me; he calls it the “Dungeon Route”. It’s really not scary, rather it’s an obscure route past the faculty housing that is the fastest way back to Foothill!
I ran into some furry friends right outside my suite when I got back home. The most common critters I encounter are deer like these, or turkeys that like to walk across the sidewalks!
3:30 p.m. – English 141 Small Group Workshop
I meet up with my three groupmates over Zoom for an hour, where we go over our poems that we submitted, going around so that each person gives feedback. It’s fascinating to see how creative and unique everyone’s writing is, and over the semester, you really get a sense of their style and methods of storytelling. It’s an intimate, personal endeavor whenever you write, so you also get to learn a lot about their process for writing, and what inspired them to choose that certain topic.
Today we are going over the second poem we submitted. While the first poem just had to be about childhood, this one was more specific about form. We had to pick between either a closed poem with a set pattern, or a list poem, which is exactly how it sounds. I ended up picking the latter, because I don’t like the constraints of a closed poem.
At the end of the meeting, we take a group selfie and send it to our professor as proof that we met in order to get our attendance grade for the day. There’s a semester-long selfie competition, which really encourages us to be creative about them, and think about how we can incorporate themes of the class or poems we’ve read into the selfies.
My creative writing small group wrapping up one of our last workshops. We take selfies to prove attendance, and for this one, we decided to do a physical representation of iambic pentameter, having just gone over it in lecture.
4:30 p.m. – Quick Dinner
After getting off the call, there’s not a lot of time to grab food, so I run over to Foothill Dining Commons right as it opens. If I know I won’t have time to sit down and have a full meal, I’ll pack a plastic food container in my backpack before I leave my room. That way, I can eat as much as I can, and save the rest for later so a) it doesn’t go to waste and b) I can have more to eat later on. This is one of the days where storing food for later will have to be necessary, because in half an hour I have to start getting ready for my show, which will take up the next five hours of the day.
5 p.m. – Get to Hoyt Hall, Prepare For Show
I walk around five to ten minutes to get to Hoyt Hall two hours before our performance starts. We’re doing a folk musical adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing. With our preview night being the night before, we go over notes on what to improve, and then get ready. As the vocal director, I lead warm-ups and affirmations before the show, along with any songs that need to be reviewed or changes that need to be announced. Singing in front of people is one of the most vulnerable things anyone can do, and I do the affirmations because getting in the right mental state is just as important as doing the same physically with vocal warm-ups.
As an actor, I also have to get into costume and makeup (which our awesome Assistant Director helps with). By 6:30 p.m., the backyard where we perform is opened and the audience starts trickling in. I use the last half hour to do a quick check of my lines, finalize makeup and start getting into my character’s headspace. Before long, “places” is called and it’s time to start the show!
The entrance to our venue, the backyard of Hoyt Hall! We went for a very rustic, ’60s Appalachian vibe for the show.
7 p.m. – Showtime! It’s Opening Night!
I spend the next few hours performing in my very first villain role. Don John is the illegitimate brother of Don Pedro. In this production, after their father dies, a dispute over control of his mines results in Don Pedro’s victory and control of the mines, leaving Don John outcasted and bitter. With the help of the cunning Borachio, he schemes to get revenge and turn everyone else’s world upside down.
The role is fun to play because he’s very akin to Hamlet: he’s whiny, complains a lot, and lashes out easily. In the show, I also get to sing two songs from The Crane Wives, the second one being my last scene in the show. Being the first actor to be done before the curtain call means I can relax backstage, conversate, take silly backstage photos and fiddle around with the ukelele in the dressing room when it’s not being used in one scene. After years of playing piano, I’ve been trying to branch out and learn ukulele and guitar. When the show’s almost done, I get ready to enter for the curtain call and take bows with my fellow actors at the end.
9:45 p.m. – Show Complete!
After a successful opening night, I meet up with friends who saw the show and get out of makeup and costume. Sometimes casts celebrate after the opening, but we’re waiting until after we do our last performance. After leaving Hoyt Hall and bearing the cold, I make the five-minute trek back to my Foothill residence hall floor for…
The quiet but cool walk back home through Soda and Etcheverry Hall. This is one of my favorite parts of Northside to walk through, and it’s been my go-to route to get to rehearsals for the show.
10 p.m. – Movie Night With Friends
It has become a weekly tradition for my friend group to meet up on my residence hall floor to watch a movie in the common room. Everyone pitches in: one person residing on the floor makes popcorn, another floormate hosts the movies and brings her projector so we can watch it on the wall.
The movies vary thematically and emotionally, spanning from the Lego Batman Movie, Whiplash, and everything in between. This week, we’re watching Tron: Legacy, after having watched the black comedy Bottoms at the previous movie night. I’m really excited for the Lord of the Rings marathon we’re doing the weekend before Dead Week. That’s right. All three, and the extended editions at that. I’ve never watched the extended editions before, and I’m stoked to see the reactions of our friends who somehow haven’t watched the films yet.
When the film’s done, another tradition is watching a “How It’s Actually Made” video on YouTube. After cleaning up snacks, reconfiguring the room, and saying goodbye to everyone, it’s time to head back to my room.
Tron Legacy for movie night! I arrived halfway, so it took a bit to understand the plot, but the special effects were very fun and I enjoyed the film.
12 a.m. – Wind Down, Get Ready For Bed
After an exhausting day, I’m sure to brush my teeth before anything else, because it’ll be way harder to bring myself to get up and again and do it once I’m in bed. Then, I slip into some comfortable pajamas, clean up my room a little bit and start to relax. On days when I haven’t had dinner and the dining commons are closed, I either get something on GrubHub or heat up one of my trusty Mac n’ Cheese cups stored in the snack stash I had next to my desk. If I’m having a late-night meal, I’ll find something to watch while I eat.
But for tonight, all I have the energy for is a quick snack of cashews, because by 1 a.m. I need to be asleep. The next day is our two-show day where we perform in the afternoon and evening, which means I have to wake up at 9:30 a.m. to start again!
Recap
Something I want to reiterate is this is not a normal schedule for me, and it isn’t sustainable for me over a long period of time. This is one of the busiest days of the semester for me, at a point in time where my schedule will become way more manageable once my show is over. Before and after the show, my nights are totally free and my class load is very manageable at 13 units. As a Media Studies major and someone who does performing arts on the side, the majority of what I do depends on activities outside of class, such as this job, clubs, Daily Cal, etc.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the many commitments I have as a student, which can be stressful but ultimately leave me fulfilled and satisfied knowing I’ve made the most of my day! What do you look forward to in your day?
Nolan Zils, Class of 2027, is majoring in Media Studies and minoring in Journalism and Creative Writing.
Want More?
- Check out Milana’s Day in the Life article!
- Read Hosea’s story on how to find balance and navigate life at UC Berkeley.
- See Melissa’s piece to get Berkeley advice from a graduating senior!