This was the students’ last day on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, and in some ways, it would be their most important day here. For the morning, we were being hosted by the Admissions Department of the university, so this would be the perfect chance for all future Cal Bears to ask any questions they have about the admissions process, be it to do with testing requirements, application deadlines, or even about life on campus.
The students found the session very informative, with the admissions officer dispelling many myths about the admissions process and requirements from students. It also got a lot of students thinking about what they had to do on their academic journey if they wanted to come study in the United States at some point in the future. It was a nice coincidence that the teacher-in-charge from Hwa Chong International was also in charge of admissions, so she also found the session useful and informative.
Our last on-campus stop was to go up Sather Tower to its observation deck. Once there, we got a close-up view of the carillon, and it just so happened that there was a graduation ceremony going on that day, so we got a bird’s eye view of the celebrations:
And here’s the view you will see when you get to the top of Sather Tower:
And that was one of the very last things that the students from Hwa Chong International School were going to see of Berkeley for a while, at least until their next visit. One quick lunch later, and we were off to one of the highlights of our trip: the visit to Google Headquarters in Mountain View.
The visit to Google is something that is always requested by our participants, and thanks to the generosity of a few friends working there, is something that we have always been able to accommodate. As always, the first stop is the Visitor’s Centre, where they can view the Wall of Meng. This stop is always exciting to our Singapore participants, because Tan Chade-Meng (who the wall is named after) was the first Singaporean hired by Google. It’s doubly exciting for this group of students because Tan Chade-Meng is also an alumni of Hwa Chong Institution.
Following on the theme of relaxation, our next stop was the staff recreation area. Here, you can find retro pinball machines, foosball tables and of course, the famous free drinks and snacks which we were allowed to partake in.
We also viewed the main buildings where all the hard work happens, and we just had to take our group photo in front of the building which bore the Google logo (just so we could tell all our friends that we really went to Google):
Finally, our two gracious hosts sat all of us down and took any and all questions in a Q&A session.
Many of the questions were centered around how they got their jobs at Google, what did they study in college in order to get their current jobs and what students should do now in order to increase their chances of getting a job there. Suffice to say that everyone was suitably impressed with Google and wanted to get a foot in the door.
One of the interesting things at Google which the students did not the the chance to see (due to us running out of time) was the Android garden. Here, you can find statues representing each version of the Android OS that has come and gone, in perfect alphabetical order. Can you name them all?
