The Berkeley Bubble

I was trapped in a bubble back in Berkeley. Caught up in the pressures of people pursuing prestigious business careers, this summer was my escape from the toxic environment to expose myself to something greater than a computer in an office with no windows. 

I enrolled in a study abroad program to experience an eye-opening summer by visiting new cities and countries with different cultures and practices. Little did I know, I would have this eye-opening experience by interacting with the 16 other Berkeley students in my program. 

This is the first year that this Spain Environmental Design program accepted non-architecture students. Studying abroad with people of different majors meant differences in our skills and thought processes. There are currently 17 of us in the program and majors ranging from Sociology to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to Economics and more. Through the different class assignments to the small lunchtime conversations, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with students that I will never meet with the typical classes I would take or organizations I would join at Berkeley. I became intrigued by the beauty of different studies and how education shapes an individual by trying to comprehend how my fellow classmates think. Suddenly what many people called the Berkeley bubble became something so diverse and beautiful in Spain. We all brought different ideas to the table that were challenging and also inspiring. From students that had their future planned out to students still trying to find their interests and passions, we were all at different stages in our lives. We were all so different that there was no way of comparing each other. Different age, different grade, different major, different background. We were all supposed to be different. The professor designed this year’s program so that new perspectives were brought into the studio. 

So the point is, I didn’t have to fly 6000 miles to have my escape and eye-opening experience this summer! (Just kidding!) You never have to be trapped in the bubble you surround yourself and identify with. Accept differences and be open to learning new perspectives, and you might just find yourself loving the bubble!

- Julia

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