A Journey Home
The road growled underneath my SUV as I swiftly turned onto the off ramp at Berkeley, ignoring the dirty looks that my brother and close friend gave me while they clung to the car with white knuckles. The turn was a bit quicker than I’d intended. I smiled as I slowed the car to a crawl, as we quickly entered what looked like a busy residential district. There were crowds of people scurrying back and forth across the street as if it were nothing more than a sidewalk. The people appeared distant and distracted as they hurried about, too busy or too important to be concerned with the world around them. My brother, my friend, and I barely noticed them as we excitedly admired the houses that crowded the street and the greek letters that adorned them. These houses were so remarkable to us because they were the Fraternity and Sorority houses at UC Berkeley. Several months earlier, I had applied to UC Berkeley, UCSC, and UC Davis. At the time, I wasn’t expecting to get into all three schools. My hope was to get into at least one of the universities, and by casting a wide net and applying to three schools, I thought I’d guarantee my chances of that. Yet, as fate would have it, I ended up getting into all three. All my life I had been told that I needed to get good grades, participate in various extracurriculars, and do everything in my power to make myself the most ideal candidate for college in order to even have a chance of at least one school selecting me. Now, quite suddenly, the tables had turned. It was now my responsibility to pick the school that would be my future. That was the purpose of this trip to Berkeley. I knew I wasn’t going to UC Davis, for various reasons, and I knew plenty already about UCSC. I was born and raised in the San Lorenzo Valley, which is a mere 20 minutes from UCSC. I had visited UCSC on many, many occasions, on the account that my Grandma had worked there in my childhood, and that many of my relatives had attended UCSC over the years. In short, UCSC was an integral part of my local community and my childhood. I knew UCSC. UC Berkeley, on the other hand, was a completely different story. UC Berkeley was the origin of the historic Free Speech movement. It had discovered elements, invented CRISPR, and produced many more amazing scientific discoveries. So I had heard a lot about UC Berkeley, on account of its prestige and its significant contributions to scientific discovery and national culture. However, I had never physically seen UC Berkeley, nor walked its prestigious grounds for myself. That’ what I, my brother, and my good friend were intending to do on this trip. As we entered UC Berkeley, we were amazed by the sheer size of the school. My brother, myself, and my good friend had all gone to the same small school of only several hundred students. UC Berkeley was a literal city that accommodated tens of thousands of students.Once we parked our car and started walking around, the true scale and complexity of this school started to sink in. It was Cal Day, so there were thousands of stalls, tours, entertainment events, and walkthroughs we could attend. We toured some of the dorms, which had an unmatchable view of the San Francisco Bay, and were inhabited by some of the friendliest people we had met. We then hiked to the lunch area, where there were hundreds of food trucks for us to eat from, each one serving a unique kind of food. We just decided to eat from a generic taco truck. We then moved on to the various tents that dotted the main field of UC Berkeley. There, in the shadow of a clock tower that was over 150 feet tall, we inquired about the hundreds of nationally recognised programs and departments at UC Berkeley. As I looked around the field, I was frankly overwhelmed by the masses of people, loud sounds, and relentless stimula that was emanating from this school. UC Berkeley was oozing with energy, excitement, and knowledge. I thought to myself, this is a school where things happen. We eventually made our way to the University Library, primarily to find a quiet place to escape the excitement. As we entered an enormous room that appeared to have a roof hundreds of feet high, with what appeared to be thousands upon thousands of bookshelves, a grin crawled across our collective faces. We raced through the cramped bookshelves as if it were a maze, pulling book after book off the shelves and marvelling at its magnificent content. Eventually, we made our way to the back of the Library, where they kept primary documents. As we rummaged through various filing cabinets and documents, we eventually discovered something of interest. We found the original federal census maps used in the 2010 Census for Northern California. We rummaged through some more, and found a map of home. The map had a black and white outline of Santa Cruz County, with the various towns, communities, and cities signified by different color blotches. As we looked, I eventually found our home town, Felton, signified by a purple splotch right above the city of Santa Cruz. That was all of the information that the map conveyed about Felton. Its name, and its general location. Something about that bothered me, but at the time I wasn’t sure what. Then a soft horn signified the closing of the library; it was time to leave. We rushed out side, where we discovered that the thousands of people, stalls, and food trucks had all left since Cal day had apparently ended a few hours earlier. It was around five o’clock, and we realized it was time to leave UC Berkeley. The campus was bathed in the golden rays of the late afternoon sun as we began to make our way back to our car. The campus was eerily silent, as the crowds of people had either gone home, or gone to their dorms. The only sound was that of the Bell Tower, letting out five loud chimes to signify the time. As we wandered the campus, admiring its beauty in the afternoon sun, I finally had some time to contemplate the tough choice I had to make. I thought of the prestige of UC Berkeley, but then I thought of home. I thought of the amazing University Library that contained nearly a million books, but then I thought of how the only acknowledgment of my home was in a map hidden in the back of that library in a dusty drawer. That map didn’t capture the true importance of my hometown. It didn’t describe my grandma or my family; it didn’t describe the rich logging history and the ancient redwoods that crowded its skyline; all my town was to that University was a name. Felton. Felton meant nothing to UC Berkeley, but it meant everything to me. As we approached our car, and started talking about the trip home, I knew I wouldn’t be coming back to UC Berkeley in the Fall. I was going home. I was going to UCSC.