Saagar Asnani is a graduate student in Musicology and Medieval Studies. He focuses particularly on the regions of France, Italy, Occitania, and Catalonia. He works mainly with the relationship between language and music, as his research bridges sociohistorical linguistics with musicology. Saagar earned his MA from UC Berkeley in 2022, and BA in Music, French and Biology from University of Pennsylvania.
How did you decide to pursue a graduate degree in Berkeley’s Department of Music? Is there any advice that you have for undergraduates, who are interested in pursuing graduate school?
I had a kind of circuitous route to graduate school. I thought I wanted to pursue medical school for most of my childhood and for all of my undergrad. I applied for medical school, took the MCAT, and I realized my heart wasn’t really in it after the first cycle when I got waitlisted everywhere. At that time, I did some thinking. Backtracking a little bit to undergrad at UPenn, where I majored in Biology, Music and French: I realized that my classes which made me happy, and for which I would be interested to wake up and go to class the next day, were my music history classes, my French language classes – Medieval French literature was one of my favorites classes of all of undergrad. I actually wrote my senior thesis on Medieval French music. So I thought, “Maybe the fact that I’ve been envying all of the PhD students around me for pursuing their passions and doing what they love everyday – maybe that’s a sign. Maybe I should try to become one of them.” And so, I applied to graduate school after one gap year, and it worked out really well, so I came to Berkeley.