Alumni

Chaka Tellem is a class of 2023 UC Berkeley graduate who studied political economy with minors in public policy and race & law. Tellem will attend law school in the fall of 2024. His passion for advocacy and law grew from his formative years in Dallas and Los Angeles. Tellem was the ASUC (Associated Students of the University of California) student body president for two years, from 2021 to 2023. He is currently...

When Nathanael Stephen Payne ’23 was developing Wrestle with Jimmy for UC Berkeley’s “Introduction to Playwriting” class, he had no idea where the project would take him. His answer came several years later, when he crossed the stage at graduation as one of two students to receive the Larry Belling Promising Writers’ Award.

“For the first time, I was receiving some sort of payment for my written work, validated by a long-standing institution like Berkeley,” said Payne. “I’m very fortunate to have been given the recognition at the time I did, on the...

Viet Thanh Nguyen emerged from UC Berkeley with more than a diploma.

In fact, he earned three (but who’s counting?) — dual bachelor’s degrees in English and ethnic studies in 1992, and a doctorate in English in ’97.

But his education wasn’t confined by the walls of a classroom.

Nguyen became steeped in activism, leaving Berkeley with “four misdemeanors, three diplomas, two arrests, and an abiding belief in solidarity, liberation, and the power of the people and the power of art,” he recalls in his memoir, 2023’s A Man of Two Faces.

Berkeley Social Sciences launched a new program recently to better equip students for successful careers by giving them real-world experiences. The Social Sciences Career Readiness Internship Program (SSCRIP) prepares students for a variety of professions by offering skills workshops, personalized coaching, internship placement assistance, and stipends for unpaid and low-paid internships.

"Our responsibility towards...