Business
Old-School Networking: Blues in Business Come Together to Give Each Other a Hand
At Wells Fargo headquarters in San Francisco, four recent Cal grads—Angus Hsu ’07, who works in portable housing finance; Fred Fannon ’08, an analytics consultant; Richard Zhu ’09 in the Securities division; and Dana Zhang ’13 from the Global Financial Institutions group—are hard at work creating an alumni network of Golden Bears at the bank. […]
Food, Glorious Food: Why Do So Many Cal Alums Take a Career Detour Into the Kitchen?
Paul Oprescu majored in modern American history at UC Berkeley and planned to become an academic. But he had a dream—not the kind you hold in your heart, the kind you have in your sleep. He dreamt he was making fresh pasta and selling it to students. That, he says, was the impetus that prompted […]
Kabam? Ka-Ching: Naming Rights Bring Cash to Campus
Even on a football field it sometimes helps to tread lightly. That’s why as Berkeley administrators were deciding how to pay down the $445 million price tag associated with the retrofit and expansion project at California Memorial Stadium, the idea of selling naming rights to the structure itself was never on the table. “We have […]
In on the Ground Floor: Would My Investment in a Friend’s Scheme Really Seal My Fortune?
Graduation was near and other seniors were scrambling for work. I knew I was set. I had met a brilliant entrepreneur and was investing my time and savings in his sure-fire venture that guaranteed me both a job and untold millions. His plan was literally airtight: Create a device that would improve upon the highest […]
Elements of Branding
Brands comprise a package of sensorial elements meant to promise unique value and to maximize awareness and recognition of the product, service, or entity they stand for. Ideally the brand bundle should evoke an emotional response, a resonance in the eye and mind that helps to bond the viewer to the product or service. One […]
Whatcha Gonna Do With a Degree in That? Consider the Pixar Possibility
Winter Break is coming, along with relatives who will almost certainly ask questions just like that. Well, we went nosing around Pixar Studios and talked to three Berkeley alums whose answers may surprise you. Sociology isn’t the easiest major to explain to practical-minded grandparents, and Gillian Libbert says she picked it because, “It sounds corny, […]
Upward Mobilty, Or Is It ‘Upward Futility’?
While a new Associated Press report claims 80 percent of Americans are teetering at the brink of poverty, a recent study from UC Berkeley and Harvard indicates that a child’s chances of rising out of poverty might may be linked to zip code. The Quality of Opportunity Project examines the likelihood of upward mobility, from a […]
Flight Plans
UC Berkeley, of course, is one of the top engineering schools in the nation, an institution that needn’t take a backseat to any peer—including a certain private university nestled in the San Francisco Peninsula. But there’s one area where Cal’s engineers and entrepreneurs have admittedly played catch-up to private, heavily endowed universities: ramping up for […]
The Fruits of Labor
Seth Holmes’s new book from UC Press, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, released June 10, could well change the way you look at your morning strawberries. Holmes, an assistant professor in Berkeley’s School of Public Health, spent a total of 10 months in 2003 and 2004 traveling with Mexican migrant […]
Sino the Times
Has the Ugly American been supplanted by his Chinese counterpart? In the upcoming issue, California looks at the growing resentment in the developing world over Chinese business ventures abroad. It wasn’t so long ago that Chinese engineers and economists were welcomed with enthusiasm by struggling Asian, African and South American nations. The Chinese were seen […]
Into Africa
Nothing is free, least of all money, so when Japan pledged $32 billion in support to Africa at the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African Development, what were the motives? Are they any different from those of China, currently one of Africa’s biggest investors? Experts and news sources speculate that in fact China’s increasing influence on […]
Parents of the Corn – Part 2
We contacted Professor Peggy Lemaux of the College of Natural Resources after today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Monsanto’s seed patents, and asked her about genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. She acknowledges the heated passions raised by GMO food: “I’ve been involved in this since 1991, and the debate has remained essentially the same,” she says. “But what […]
