For Cal alumni Sanjay Shah and Rachelle Mendez, lessons learned as undergraduate rhetoric majors forged a path to success in Hollywood.
In the late 1990s, Sanjay Shah and Rachelle Mendez were assigned to the same group project in a UC Berkeley rhetoric class. That collaboration would become a blueprint for two decades of friendship and creative partnership that led to parallel paths into the television industry, multiple hit shows, and prestigious awards like the Emmys.
Shah is a writer, showrunner, and executive producer on Everybody Still Hates Chris, an animated comedy about Chris Rock’s childhood. He has worked on a string of successful comedies, including Fresh Off the Boat, Central Park, South Park, and King of the Hill. And Mendez is a television producer, writer, and showrunner for unscripted television, producing shows like Queer Eye, The Hype, Undercover Boss, and Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. She is currently the head of unscripted at Hyphenate Media Group, the company founded by Eva Longoria and Cris Abrego.
Despite their similar career titles, the two found their way to the rhetoric major from very different backgrounds. Mendez was a trained actor from a performing arts high school; many of her classmates would continue into a conservatory or begin a career in professional theater and performance.
“I thought, ‘I already know how to be an actor; I don’t know how to be a student,’” Mendez said about choosing her major. “So I chose to focus on academics. What was enchanting about rhetoric was that it felt very similar to acting. The way an actor breaks a script into beats was like looking at language in rhetoric.”
Shah arrived at Berkeley planning to major in economics because it seemed like a reasonable choice. He also signed up for a film noir class. On the first day of the class, however, Professor Russell Merritt told students they would be studying films about “fantasy and realms of enchantment” instead. Shah wanted to leave, but people were blocking the exit, so he sat through class and ended up loving it.
“That experience not only led me to find my career but also to a lifelong love for film,” said Shah. “The rhetoric major, Russell Merritt, and a four-DVD Netflix plan was my film school.”
Both emphasize that rhetoric was the perfect major for a career in Hollywood. The discipline trained them to break down stories, understand how narratives move audiences, and recognize the underlying arguments embedded in every scene.