Cal Day was celebrated on Sat. April 13th from 8:00am-4:00pm. White-tented booths were arranged around the central campus, staffed by dozens of individual departments for the annual UC Berkeley open house. Close to 8000 official visitors (newly admitted students, current students and their families) enjoyed exploring the booths to learn all about Berkeley as their new school or a future goal.
On this year’s Cal Day, many of the usual SSL volunteers were still away—or recovering from—travel for the recent total solar eclipse. Fortunately, a group of dedicated SSL volunteers, organized by undergrad Catherine Dang (with support from staffers Karin Hauck and Dan Zevin & scientist Joanne Wu) rose to the occasion and enthusiastically staffed the booth despite the rain, wind and cold. The undergrads, including Catherine, were Helen Vo, Leire Roma, Malaikah Khan, Pooneh Zehtabfard, Melody Wu, Skyler Chan and Marvin Lin and were joined by engineer Matt Fraysse. Despite the dreary weather, people crowded the booth to ask questions about SSL and NASA missions, and to get info & mission swag donated by the lab. The incoming Cal students were most interested in hearing from our helpful undergrads about research and employment opportunities and other offerings at the lab.
Thank you, volunteers, on behalf of all SSL!