No. 20 - Many such questions
October 17, 2025•614 words
Sunday night, I went to Hayward Round 1 with three other BMT members to play Pump It Up (PIU). Never met more of sweats than them. Also I got yelled at by my mom because I was outside late at night. In her defense, it was quite very late indeed. 11 PM to 2 AM, oops!!!
This mini social made me think - what if I do belong here? I have yet to feel any sense of belonging at Berkeley, but actually having fun with people that I met for the first time at this school made me put some use into my brain.
Where do I belong?
For the past several months, I have been in absolute denial about where I have ended up after all those hours of grinding grinding and grinding. Berkeley is a great school, but you never know how much of absolute BUMS come to this school until you actually come here.
Yes, everyone has their own pace, not everyone took 50 bajillion APs and dual credits in high school to shove it into their college applications. I used to joke around with my friends in high school saying "Caltech '29 btw," "Stanford '29 btw," "Berkeley '29 btw," etc. but when I say this to some people here, I GENUINELY mean it. The amount of work I put into anything has most of the time been absolutely incomparable to the amount of work others would put into anything.
Please explain how most people here, the greatest extent of studying they've done is doing the worksheets their school teacher handed out? What do you mean you've never self studied anything out of your own interest.
So my natural response to this would be, "why am I at this school?" The college I've imagined was a place I get to meet other motivated people to study on what we are collectively interested in; however, college has only been a place where I've witnessed people throw up after drinking too much alcohol or complain about an introductory/prerequisite course for weeks and weeks only to drop it.
Maybe I simply have not met my people?
Thought I would meet some cool people at MATH 191 (Putnam Seminar) but turns out the higher level of a class you go to, the geekier the people get... I didn't mean nerdy geeks who start tweaking out when one thing doesn't go their way while solving a problem when I said "my people." I may often do that as well but I'm not THAT bad. Also the 191 classroom is honestly kind of stuffy I sometimes feel like passing out from lack of oxygen.
Where are my people?
Class? MATH 54 - Class size of 800. MATH 55 - Class size of 300. MATH 191 - Class size of 35, but they're all kind of weird. BIOE 10 - Class size of 350, AND I don't go to the lectures. MPS 101 - Class size of 35, but this is where people all talk about jbs and intrnships...
Shift perspective out of classrooms; where do I meet people?
Clubs. I joined BMT Logistics team. I was going to also work on PW but meetings are after 191 on Thursdays? Yeah no I'm going back to my room and getting some rest. BMT people have been majorly cool; some of them seem like an extreme version of my inner personas. And they are inner personas for a reason!...
What if this is a me problem?
What if I am just being performative? (this is another topic to write about)
I need to stop here before I spiral into depression again.
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10/17/2025