Balancing personal and academic life

Balancing academic responsibilities, personal interests, and extracurriculars can be challenging, especially for international students. Mehdi’s perspective sheds light on effective strategies.

Mehdi personally managed the balance between academic responsibilities, personal interests, and extracurriculars by integrating them. Rather than keeping these aspects separate, Mehdi ensured that his passion projects contributed to his academic growth, and vice versa. This holistic approach allowed him to enjoy every moment of the day, regardless of the context.

Mehdi’s life at UC Berkeley 

Mehdi’s experience at UC Berkeley has been enriched by the vibrant community of intelligent and emotionally self-aware individuals. Engaging in deep conversations with peers has been a highlight, a contrast to his previous environment. Beyond academics, Mehdi actively participates in a sports team and collaborates with a machine-learning club. This club undertakes projects for companies like Amazon and Google, including course development assistance. Additionally, special, fun, and sometimes irritating dorm life adds to the authentic college experience.

Mehdi’s plans for the next years

During the summer, Mehdi pursues a remote internship with his research lab where he codes and engages in robotics. He plans on continuing the research in the next undergraduate years as he’s really interested in it. Mehdi also allows the possibility of pursuing a life in startups or in big tech in the future.

Advice for applicants

“My advice would just be to just be genuine. I think a lot of people mistake college applications to be something very difficult, which they are in their own respect. You just have to the time to understand what makes you unique, and what makes you special, which is very hard to do. I've gone through this exercise multiple times. It's hard to show why are you the person to go, but it's an exercise that I'd recommend people to do to understand maybe qualities that make them unique, and how to frame it in a way that when the admission officer reads it, they'll be like “oh, that's the one, that's the one that needs to go through”.

Another piece of advice Mehdi gives to future applicants is to have people with you during the application process who ask you questions. 

I think I have a document that is over like 20,000 words. It shows how I tried to be as meticulous as possible. You know, redrafting things a million million times over until you read it and think “I don't think I can make this any better. Let me send it”.

Mehdi believes that getting in depends both on your abilities and luck and what you need to do is maximize your luck. 

He only got help with writing from his father but also one college consulting service. 

He genuinely believes that anyone who will be precise in the process of application has a really good chance of getting into their dream universities.