March 28, 2024
Dear Admitted Student,
Congratulations on your admission to the College of Chemistry (CoC) at the University of California, Berkeley!
To help you make an informed decision about which school to attend, we invite you to our Cal Day events on Saturday, April 13, 10am to 4pm. These activities include:
Presentation and Q&A: I will give a talk about CoC's undergraduate majors and programs in 1 Pimentel Hall, followed by Q&A (10-12);
Information Tables hosted by Undergraduate Advisers, the Undergraduate Dean, CoC Peer Advisers and Tutors, student organizations affiliated with CoC, and our Career Counselor (12-4);
An open invitation to attend our annual Undergraduate Research Fair (12-2), where you can talk to current CoC students who are actively involved in research with CoC faculty;
Tours of the College of Chemistry led by current CoC students (1-3);
We are also hosting an informal Information Session on Friday, April 12, 3-4 pm, with advisers and current students. The session will be in our Advising Center, in 121 Gilman Hall. Because the Advising Center is small, we can only include 20 guests. Please RSVP here; attendance will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
Please also check out our Admitted Students page for further details.
UC Berkeley, and especially the College of Chemistry, enjoy a worldwide reputation for scholarship and research, with strong and rigorous undergraduate programs. Our students engage in research with the world's leading scientists and engineers. Our graduate programs continue to receive top rankings by the National Research Council and U.S. News and World Report.
The College of Chemistry offers a number of advantages normally associated with smaller four-year colleges. For example, we concentrate on just three majors: Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Chemical Biology. Our two-semester freshman chemistry sequence provides a focused and comprehensive introduction to the upper-division courses, taking advantage of students' solid background in chemistry. These two courses are typically attended by about 250 students; by comparison, lower-level, non-major freshman chemistry courses often enroll more than 1000 students.
The College provides easy and efficient access to academic support and advising through the Undergraduate Student Services Center. The Center offers Tutoring and Peer Advising programs and a Career Counselor dedicated to the needs of College of Chemistry students. As members of the broader UC Berkeley community, our students also benefit from the resources of a large, multi-faceted research university.
The College of Chemistry is an ideal choice for students with a wide range of interests and career goals who have a strong commitment to a course of study in chemical engineering, chemistry, or chemical biology and are interested in studying in a research environment. Students are expected to follow the College's suggested academic program schedule for their chosen major.
Again, I offer you my warmest congratulations on your admission to UC Berkeley and the College of Chemistry. We hope that you will choose to join us and continue your study of the chemical sciences and engineering at Berkeley!
Sincerely,
John Arnold
Professor of Chemistry & Undergraduate Dean
arnold@berkeley.edu
