Induction to California

As you may have guessed, I have arrived in California. I have been here a week and am now equipped with everything I need for a happy modern life: an office (decorated with some confident photos of previous Sather lecturers), an email account, an internet access code or two, and ID card to give me access to my building out of hours and library borrowing privileges.

Amazingly I have no borrowing limit. Accustomed as we Cambridge academics are to a more or less strictly enforced 10 book limit, I approached the Berkeley borrowing desk with some trepidation. How would I choose between the 12 I wanted to borrow (Berkeley has a wonderful collection – and I had stumbled upon the ‘laughter’ section)? I needn’t have worried. I can borrow as many as I like for up to year. This was like the proverbial child in a sweet shop (though I did wonder how many mainstream books I would find had been borrowed by other sweet-eaters like me). Maybe they library just doesn't have the space to store all it has, and this is a benign form of out-housing.

In many ways Freshers Week (or Welcome Week as I should call it) seems reassuringly familiar. I’ve had tremendous hospitality from the faculty -- and all those internet codes must have taken someone hours to get sorted. Meanwhile the students seem to be engaged in much the same activities as those back home, offering free water in return for signing up to some very worthy, but ultimately no-hope, Society. (In Cambridge they do it with alcohol – here apparently off limits till you’re 21 -- but the principle’s the same.)  Plus hours of partying, music, and non-stop hellos.

The local student paper is up in arms that Welcome Week has been cut to just two days from seven – the ‘authorities’ wanting to reduce costs. I can see why the students object but I have to say that after half a life time in Cambridge, I feel a sneaking sympathy for the mean ‘authorities’.

Anyway the only really, really different bit has been the two hour compulsory induction for foreign scholars provided by the International Office of the University -- to which I was firmly invited.

I must confess that I was not looking forward to this.

It wasn’t half as bad as it sounded. In fact, cynical as I was when I turned up, I did  learn quite a lot of things that I didn’t know about tax, health care and whether you did or did not need to take a Californian Driving Test (I think the answer to that was no…but it seemed the trickiest question of all). Though after 90 minutes, it became pretty clear that almost al the information they were handing out was also on the sheaf of paper we were given. So I slipped away.

This meant that I missed what was obviously going to be the final section -- on how to adjust to life in the US, and what Americans are really like. There was plenty of good, homely, common-sensical advice on the paper here. If you don’t learn the language (English), you’re likely to find acculturation hard. A sense of humour helps too. So far so good.

The mind boggling bit was the list of “the values majority culture Americans live by”, drawn from a book by one Robert Kohls on precisely this topic. It was scary stuff. Take this one: “Time is valuable; achievement of goals depends on productive use of time. Result: efficiency and progress often at expense of interpersonal relationships”.

Or “Americans believe competition brings out the best in people and free enterprise produces most progress and success. Result: Less emphasis on cooperation than competition.”

If all this were true of the people of Berkeley, then it might be a grim prospect for the next few months. Happily I’ve seen little sign of these “majority values” so far. I’ll keep you posted.

Comments

[Oliver]

Dear Lord, Prof Beard!

How can you put up with these people? Make for Cambridge at once. Colchester Museum seems less intellectually bankrupt than this 'Berkeley'.

[Mary]

Let me start to catch up on some replies...

As for meeting up.. for a start the lectures are open to all. You can find the timetable etc here:

http://classics.berkeley.edu/people/sather.php

you'd be very welcome

[Avi Rappoport]

Welcome to Berkeley! It's usually much cooler than this, really. The cliches about old hippies and Marxist academics are sometimes true, but not always. MELVYL is the University-wide library online catalog, but the length of time it takes to get books from the other libraries gets longer as the semester goes on.

Random thoughts on food things: The cheese at the Cheese Board collective is really good, as is the pizza, but it's not worth *that* long a wait. Andronico's is expensive for groceries but they're a lot nicer than Safeway. The produce at the Tuesday and Saturday Farmer's Markets is so fresh it squeaks, and the Berkeley Bowl market has amazing produce, a humongous selection.

Anything you'd like to know? I've lived here a long time, so would be happy to give you info on food and bookstores and theatre and music and politics (oh the local politics is vicious.) Whoever said Governor Schwartzenegger (I still quail at typing that) is doing well has completely missed the point. The state budget is a disaster area, much like the Polish Parliament, which required unanimous agreement to pass a law. In our case it's 67%.

Anyway, welcome again!

[Eileen]

The CDL wont do you much good in Berkeley proper anyway, as there is never any place to park !

[StB]

On the California Driver's License. Technically, you do not need one. But police may not know that this is the case. When I was in California, I took one. And then on one occasion when I was stopped by the police for some silly inadvertent mistake I made I had only my European license with me. They claimed it was not valid, but did not make a fuss. Perhaps just the mention of the Real Thing helped. Who knows.

[Mark in Miami]

If you do drive, taking a Driving Test is a good idea. Get a CA licence and don't give up your UK one. It will help you to get used to the "other" side driving, and help as a pedestrian too.

Go eat at Alice Waters' place and she is divine and you'll love it. And go see the Merce Cunningham Dance Company when they come to Zellerbach soon.
Walk up the hill and see how beautiful Berkeley is, too. And the Museum is cool.

[John Durkacz]

Was walking through Edinburgh the other day and came across a wonderful statue of a most noble looking dog by name of 'Bum'. Never heard of him before and was most intrigued. True it was in a public place but epitomised the understatement as it was hidden behind a gateway to the park. He apparently was a vagrant who won the hearts of the people of San Diego,California; quite how he managed this I do not know. Perhaps just being 'Bum'? He sadly passed away in 1898. Somewhere in San Diego there is a statue of 'Greyfriar's Bobby',from Edinburgh exchanged as a token of friendship.Bobby showed his loyalty to his deceased master by lying at his grave heartbroken. All this made me think of you on your great American sojourn. Do keep reporting on all the nooks and crannies (and diversions as above) that you can possibly find.
PS As a Classicist,don't you think animals sometimes display greater nobility than humans?

[Ty Jones]

hello mary.

are you going to have a meet and greet for the public during your time here. would love to meet you and say hello.

[mj]

WELCOME TO THE US! Enjoy the election! I love the bay area--I went there last year for a few days--the Berkeley campus is huge.

[Steve the neighbour]

As many books as you want for up to a year? AMPLE time for mass-copyright breaking photocopying. How much is that, BTW?

[Joseph Frame]

The reason you were told everything that was written on the papers you were given is because, unfortunately, most Americans don't like to read anything but VERY SHORT advertisements; many Americans cannot (or will not) pay attention to anything they are being told by anyone but an announcer on a TV commercial; hence this method, which allows purveyors of information to feel somewhat secure that they has acquitted themselves to the best of their abilities. Mr. Kohls apparently omitted this aspect of American culture from his book – maybe he was distracted by a TV commercial.
Joe Frame - USA

[Aly]

Or, for breath-that's-taken even closer than the Big Sur, climb up Panoramic Way, behind the football stadium, for the views across the Bay which never fail to amaze -- with the sight of such thoroughly human settledness amidst such bold and dynamic landscape.

[Ed Morrow]

Welcome to the U.S.

If you really want to see one of the most beautiful parts of the U.S., take a drive down the coast on Highway One towards Monterey and Big Sur CA. Fall is the best time of the year on the Central Coast; the scenery is spectacular and the weather is wonderful. It is a good sample of the U.S. to balance against the insular nature of the Republic of Berkeley.

[Bushwick Bill]

"ESPEN writes that Berkeley and San Francisco are "out on the left percentile of most scales in the US." That is why they are two of the wealthiest cities in America,"

Rather the opposite, actually--Berkeley and SF are far to the left *because* they're two of the wealthiest cities in America. Something about unearned wealth warps the brain.

[dearieme]

"Reserved for NL": I hope that the Dutch are duly grateful.

[Jane]

But purely academically, of course, don't want to provoke any ranting diatribes about politics per se.

[Jane]

Wow, that's really exciting. You'll be there for the Presidential contest. Hope you'll be able to post interesting analysis on different ways of doing/looking at things.

[Tim Riley]

Berkeley is a great place to visit. Look out for the somewhat exclusive "Reserved for NL" parking spaces on campus!

[Mary]

Jane -- I'm here till Christmas, plus or minus a couple of weekends in the UK, m

[Jane]

Book Heaven!
Have fun. How long are you going to be there?

[mary]

Z and Liz..
It's very hot at the moment...feels like 30 degrees.
As for books, I've just requested a book on something called Melvyl - which gets books from all other University of California libraries

[Liz]

I remember having the same 'what, I can have *how* many books out?' moment when I swapped ocean sides. I wonder if all American university libraries are just generous on principle. Does your library have a useful system whereby you can borrow books from other university libraries if your own library either doesn't have it or the copy is out on loan? Our version is called EZBorrow, it functions like a stripped-down but much quicker form of inter-library loan, and it's an absolute life-saver.

[Z]

How's the weather?

[PL]

Apropos Anthony Alcock's comment: perhaps it's less wishful thinking or pep talk than a warning to visiting scholars from Asia (provenance of the great majority) that the ethos they're accustomed to, of cooperative effort above all and the submergence of the individual, does not prevail in the U.S.

[anthony alcock]

The extracts from Kohls' book sound like perverted wishful thinking about the American "ideal". I wonder how US production of this sort of pep-talk stuff compares with that of other western countries. In Germany there are books of the Ratgeber variety, but they tend to provide useful information rather than gnomic moralizing.