As I sat in the second row of Dr. Kyle Mays’ course on Afro-Indigenous History at UCLA, I was struck by the brilliance of the scholar that stood before me. He was young, energetic, and inspiring beyond measure. As I looked around me, I felt surrounded by this sense of impossibility. How was it even possible I was sitting in this room but, secondly, how is it that one even became an academic?

If you’re anything like me, you first heard the term “networking” and flipped out. It can seem extremely intimidating and formal and like you don’t know where to start, especially as an undergrad or someone who isn’t extremely extroverted. But truly, networking is the secret to finding opportunities and jobs down the line and college is the best time to get started since the entire campus is one big network.

Shortly after applying to, and being accepted by, almost all of the schools in the University of California (UC) system, it was time to make a huge decision - which school would I choose to go to?! Some of you reading might already know just by the name of the author of this blog post that I ended up deciding to attend UC Berkeley, and in this post, I want to share with you my reasons why.

It was during my final year at UCLA, while completing my Masters, that I came to the final conclusion that pursuing a Ph.D. was not right for me. After nearly two and a half years of considering whether I should apply and after going through the process of taking the GRE and asking for letters of recommendation it became clear that a PhD was not going to be the next step in my professional journey.