This course strives to ease the difficulty of transitioning to life at UC Berkeley as a first year student, and provide a safe space to build community. The DeCal will be a multi-faceted experience featuring interactive discussions, guest speakers, and as field trips. A large portion of the course will be learning about the variety of resources and support systems students have available to them on campus, and how to navigate through being a first year student at Cal successfully. Students will also be fostering the skills to engage in discourse on complex social issues, an important aspect of being a Golden Bear and citizen of the world. The course will be co-facilitated by two second year students who are dedicated to help the next generation of students.

Since this course is largely discussion based, attendance is mandatory. Each student is allowed one ‘no questions asked’ absence, but any absences beyond the first will affect the student’s attendance points. Student absences can be excused if the student talks to the facilitators directly beforehand. Each student is encouraged to participate in the class discussions and contribute their unique experiences.

Each student will create a blog on Tumblr or other blog medium for the purposes of this DeCal, and share its link with the facilitators. They will not be required to share their blog with anyone else. Students are to post a weekly journal entry on their individual blogs, due before the start of the next class. The entry will be a short 1 paragraph response to either a prompt regarding the prior class’ topic, or an introspective question to prepare for the following class’ lesson.

We encourage all first years, spring admits and even junior transfers to apply. Enrollment is first come, first serve.