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Hello, my name is Ethan Sprague and I'm a first year mechanical engineering major from
Lodi, California. I chose Berkeley because it's got such a great program and it was definitely
the best college that I got into. And I really like it here actually, the environment's really
nice. The summer before I came to Cal, I actually worked in tomato fields picking and weeding
tomatoes for H.J. Heinz tomato company. Move in was really simple. My mother, my father,
and my sister, we came in and we just grabbed all my stuff, just walked down the stairs
and then found my room. It took us a while to find my room, but once we did we just threw
all my stuff on my bed and then they left and that was move in. I live in Foothill,
building 8. It's a really nice place, it's pretty quiet, not as loud as the units, but
it's got a very secluded atmosphere. So it depends on what you're looking for in your freshman
year. I have two roommates, I'm in a triple. One of my roommates is a mechanical engineer
like me and the other one is a first year computer scientist major and he's from Singapore.
Okay, this is my room. It's a wonderful place.
That's my roommate. Say hi, Dave. Bye, Dave. He doesn't know that he's going to be on camera.
Bathroom's down this way. This is our common room.
We have a really small suite. There's one sixth of us here.
During welcome week, I did all sorts of activities. Whatever they offered, I tried to hit all of the major bases.
I explored campus a lot just on my own and with other people. I went to Calapalooza, saw all the clubs, ate all the free food.
In the end, it really exposed me to how big and broad Cal is. There's just so much to do here.
Behind me is the Greek theatre. It is where convocation is held and a lot of school assemblies.
It's also home to a lot of big name shows. So for my building, Foothill, you can actually hear
most of the concerts. It's pretty cool.
Okay so now we're on campus and behind me you can see two things. One is the Campanile, the big tall clock tower.
And the other is the construction going on Campbell Hall.
Campbell hall is going to be and was the old astronomy department. It should
be finished by around 2014. It'll be about 5 stories tall. Over there is Stanley hall.
It is the newest building on campus. It is where I took my Engineering 10, introduction
to design class. Over there is the Hearst Mining Circle. It's the home of the materials
science department. And behind me is Evans. That's where I took a lot of my classes last
semester. E7, which is computer programming and a lot of my math discussions are held in there.
Currently we're headed off to the Kresge Library, better known as the engineering
library. And actually it's right below us. And you'll see that skylight when we go inside.
Okay, so this is a list of the classes I took my first semester. Comparative literature
R1B, it was just English literature, basic reading and writing requirement, although
I did become a much better writer through that class. Engineering 7, which is programming
using Matlab as a programing language. That's what a lot of the programs you'll write here
as an engineer. It'll be in Matlab. Engineering 10 was an introduction to the design and analysis.
Really, it was an introduction to mechanical engineering. We did a lot of miniature projects
and that was a lot of fun. Engineering 92, which is a simple one unit course, one hour
a week and it kind of surveyed all the different engineering majors offered here at Cal. They
had the heads of each department come in and explain to you what their department did and
that was really helpful. It made me more certain that I wanted to do engineering. And then
finally, I did calculus. And I guess it's calculus, there's no other way of describing it.
It wasn't too terrible and I survived my first semester.
My English class was much more difficult than I expected. It's not like high school English at all.
It's much, much tougher.
Would I have done anything differently…I probably would've taken physics instead of E10.
I really liked E10. I thought it was a great class, but doing physics this semester
as opposed to last semester means I can't do as many courses that have physics as a
prerequisite. You know, actually I got sick during the first week of when club week was
going on. I kind of just laid low, did my homework, went to class, and slept a lot,
so I didn't really get involved right at the beginning and I really, really regret that.
I didn't get involved in almost anything. I became really close with my roommates, we
hung out a lot, but we didn't do any outside campus activities, which I think is, you know,
really not something you should do. I didn't really get homesick. I thought I was really
prepared for college. I was ready to leave the house. Well, your parents are always much
more excited to see you once you're in college. They don't see you as often, so I mean, there's
no use for them to be "aargh" on your case, they're like, "Oh, let me take you out to dinner.
Let me tell you about how awesome it is at home," and stuff like that. I mean, I don't
want to say my relationship got better with my family, but it's a lot less stressful.
I bet the hardest part of my first semester would be just getting used to the flow of
things here at Berkeley. You know your classes aren't stacked right after each other. You
work for two hours, then you stop for one and a half hours and what you do with those
one and a half hours is you can either waste it, you can watch videos online, you could
study. I just had a hard time adjusting to the stop and go pace of class life. I think
the best part of my first semester was realizing that I could handle this. It's not easy, but
it's not undoable. Berkeley's a great place that I'm really going to enjoy my next
three years here.