Category: Blog

With the students from Hwa Chong International School, we started the USA Summer Camp with a visit to Silicon Valley. When people think of Silicon Valley, they think high-tech and computers, so it was only fitting that we started with a visit to the Computer History Museum. The Computer History Museum is the world’s leading institution exploring the history of computing and its ongoing impact on society. The Museum is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computer history and is home to the largest international collection of computing artifacts in the world.

For many of the students, their first interaction with the world of computers started with their laptops and smartphones, so seeing many of these early computers was quite an eye-opener for them. We saw examples of early mechanical computers, to those which functioned using magnetic tapes, right up to the age of silicon and all the way to early examples of supercomputers.

In addition to computers, we even got to see some modern implementations of computers, such as an example of a Waymo self-driving car:

And if you thought that this place was like a normal museum that only features static displays, think again. There is an IBM 1401 Demo Lab which re-creates a working medium-sized computer operation from the 1960s, including working keypunches, printers, card readers and tape drives:

Even though we had a couple of hours to spend at the Computer History Museum, it was not enough if you wanted to examine all the exhibits in detail, and the guides were only able to guide us through a curated selection of the exhibits. 

 

The museum is non-profit, and one of its sponsors is Google, so it only made sense that our next stop would be at the Googleplex. Once again, we were received by our gracious hosts who not only took time to show us around the visitor centre, but also gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the facilities that are usually only accessible to staff and their guests. Everyone has heard so much about the food at Google, so we were able to take a walk through one of the larger dining halls, and also picked up some snacks for the hungry and thirsty students (complimentary of Google, just like for their staff):

And just as legendary as the free food are the recreational activities that are sprinkled throughout the offices:

During the stop at the visitor’s center, the students saw a familiar face at the Wall of Meng – Mr. Tan Chade-Meng, Google’s own Jolly Good Fellow, is an alumni of Hwa Chong Institution who had delivered a talk to the students not that long ago:

And just before we left, the obligatory group photo in front of the Google building to prove to everyone that we were indeed visiting Google and not just goofing off:

Building on the success of our first USA Summer Camp with Methodist Girls’ School, we were approached to conduct a similar program for the students of Hwa Chong International School. The only difference being that they wanted a program of shorter duration, 1 week as opposed to 2 weeks. Hwa Chong International also wanted the program to start in May, which is during their Internationalism Week. Most universities in the United States only start their summer vacation from June onwards, so it was really lucky that UC Berkeley starts their summer vacation the same time that Hwa Chong International had allotted to their students. So off we went to the campus of the University of California, Berkeley in May!

Like the program that we did a couple of years ago, the students stayed at the dormitories that full-time students live in during the regular semester. Instead of repeating everything from our earlier blog post, here’s the link to the post where we talked about the student dormitories.

Other activities which are similar to what was done for the students from Methodist Girls’ School (and which we don’t want to repeat for risk of boring our readers) include:

• University of California, Berkeley campus tour
• Visit to Sather Tower

The main difference between this program and the one that we did for Methodist Girls’ School is that we only had one week with the students. Because of that, we were not able to have them participate in an academic program developed by ATDP. Instead, we arranged for several workshops organized by undergraduate and graduate students from the Bioengineering department. In the next post, we’ll talk more about the bioengineering workshops.

After two wonderful weeks spent on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, we were nearing the conclusion of the Business & Entrepreneurship program. The students were all busy preparing for their big presentations and finalizing their business concepts, as well as putting together their business plans which they would get to keep and show their parents and teachers back home. Here’s a video of the students taking turns to share what they have learnt during the course:

https://youtu.be/OFRO8wjd3so

There’s this joke that if nobody sees you doing something awesome, then it doesn’t count. However, our participants do take home proof that they have completed their business & entrepreneurship course, in the form of a certificate issued by the University of California, Berkeley and a personal evaluation from their Berkeley Instructor:

By the end of the program, each student had learned a whole lot more about what it means to run a business, from first coming up with a new business idea, to how to fund the business, run it, and hopefully to make a profit doing something that they are passionate about. 

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their stay at Berkeley, together with all the recreational activities that had been planned for them.

We were now into the second week of our USA Summer Camp. By now, all the students were quite familiar with where they had to go on campus, and no one got lost navigating their way from the dormitories, to the classroom and to the dining halls. We even had time to take the students to do some shopping just off campus in the city of Berkeley where they bought some souvenirs from the student store to remind them of the great time they’ve been having at the university.

But now, serious work was starting and the students had to complete their final project and presentations for the climax of the Business & Entrepreneurship program. So this was a shorter week, and we didn’t have as much after-class activities planned for them, mainly due to time constraints, but we still managed to squeeze in a few interesting visits. 

One of them was a field trip to Hiller Aviation Museum. The museum features over 50 aircraft from over a century of aviation history, and in its 20 year history, has served over a million visitors. The museum was founded by helicopter pioneer Stanley Hiller Jr., and had its origins in a group of eclectic aircraft collected by Stanley in a warehouse in nearby Redwood City. 

 

We were coming to the end of our USA Summer Camp, but there was still one last icon that the students had yet to visit, and that was the highest structure on the university campus: Sather Tower. Also known as the Campanile, Sather Tower is the third tallest bell and clock tower in the world, standing at over 300 feet. Although it may not look like it, the clock tower is actually one of the most seismically-sound buildings on campus, so it is also where a lot of dinosaur bones are stored for research. We had just some time before the conclusion of the course for a quick visit up the Campanile, and to see the wonderful views that it afforded.

On our approach to Sather Tower:

 

Inside Sather Tower, there are some memorabilia, including this early schematic drawing of the tower which details the materials that went into constructing the various parts of the tower:

Atop Sather Tower is a 61-bell carillon which is played thrice daily and can be heard throughout the campus. Student musicians have to attend a special class before they can volunteer and be selected to play the carillon.

  

You would think that for something so serious looking, you would only hear classical tunes. But this being Berkeley, I am happy to say that during my own time as a student there, I have heard many whimsical songs.

Video of Music & Light Show celebrating 100 years

https://youtu.be/5OlyO1UsfLw

And finally, I cannot stress this enough, the natural scenery around the campus is always breathtaking, and there is no better place to see it than from the top of Sather Tower:

After all the hustle and bustle and excitement and assignments, it was finally time for the weekend! This was the students’ first full weekend in California, and we wanted to take the opportunity to bring them out on some longer field trips.

Our first port of call was to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Started in a 1978 with a one-time gift from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (David Packard being one of the co-founders of computer giant HP) of US$55 million, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a showcase for the habitats and sea life of Monterey Bay. There are more than 35,000 creatures representing over 550 species in 34 major galleries, with nearly 200 exhibits in all.

The next weekend, we visited one of the most iconic cities in the world, and a place that you cannot miss if you ever visit Northern California: the city of San Francisco. There is just so much to see and do in San Francisco, that you won’t be able to cover everything in one day, so we had to choose just a few of the more popular attractions for our half day there. Here are some of the things the students did:

Bay Cruise:

Walking on Lombard Street, also known as the crookedest street on earth:

And here’s an obligatory shot of downtown San Francisco:

The whole point of our USA Summer Camp is to give students the feeling of what it’s like to live in a university, and a big part of college life are student activities on campus and the traditions continued by students. At Berkeley, one of the most famous traditions involves rolling down a hill just outside the faculty club, in the belief that this will gives students good grades. The legend goes that long ago, students who wanted to petition their professors for better grades would try to get their professors’ attention by standing on the hill and shouting at them while they dined at the faculty club. Most likely, some students who were less careful must have taken a tumble, which is probably what inspired the legend. It was great to see the Methodist Girls’ students getting into the spirit of things, and most of them were happy to do a roll down the hill.

In addition to beloved traditions, there are some monuments which are favorites among students. From certain locations on the Cal campus, if you look up at the hills that flank the university grounds, you will be able to see a big, yellow ‘C’ up on the hills. The Big ‘C’, as it is known, is a giant concrete block built into the Berkeley Hills overlooking the university. It’s a very well known symbol that is mentioned in a number of school songs and celebrates over one hundred years of athletic and academic excellence at the university. It has a history of over one hundred years, being constructed by the classes of 1907 and 1908.

The Big C is a site of many ‘fights’ between the students of UC Berkeley and their rivals from further down south at Stanford University. Stanford students have painted red over the original yellow paint, red being the color of Stanford University, and have even rearranged the concrete to make the letter ‘S’ instead. With so much history at this iconic site, we definitely had to make the hike up the hills to take a look, or at the very least, to enjoy the wonderful view that the high vantage point the hills would give us.

Here we are starting up the hike:

Half-way there!

Someone tied a swing way up here!

Group shots at the Big C!

Berkeley is just a stone’s throw away from Silicon Valley, and it is sometimes easy to forget that there is a lot of fantastic natural beauty to enjoy in the state. In fact, just in the backyard of the UC Berkeley campus are two great natural spots: The UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens and the Redwood Grove. One of our after class field trips involved going to explore the Botanical Gardens, which is a 34-acre piece of land home to over 10,000 types of plants including many rare and endangered species. The Garden is organized geographically, and features 9 regions of plantings from Italy to South Africa, and a huge collection of plants native to California. Plants from all the continents on Earth can be found here.

As this group of students were mainly teenagers, I expected them to not be so interested in what the Botanical Gardens had to offer, thinking that they were more interested in the field trips that had to do with technology (like the Google field trip that we just did) or to do some shopping in the student store to pick up some souvenirs. To my surprise, many of them complained to me later on that the hour and a half I had allocated to exploring the gardens was too short for them to enjoy everything it had to offer. The one feedback I got was that if I were to ever do this again, I should allocate at least 2 hours, if not more.

Right next to the gardens is a redwood grove. Redwoods are some of the tallest trees in the world, and these tall beauties are indigenous to California and a wonder to behold. As it was summer, one of the very nice things that we were able to enjoy was a concert in a clearing in the redwood grove. The band that was slated to play during the time that we were in Berkeley specialized in country music, something that not many students in Singapore would be familiar with. Again, I thought that the students would not be interested and would want to leave by the first intermission so that we could catch the last bus back to campus and grab some dinner. The reason I put this on the itinerary was to give the students the chance to see the redwood trees up close and also to enjoy an outdoor concert, even if it was a genre of music they are not familiar with. Again, the students surprised me during the intermission, and they overwhelmingly voted to stay on until the end of the concert, saying that it would not be a problem for them to make the hike back to campus on foot. Wow. Here are some shots from the conert:

One of the highlights of our summer camp are the field trips. After having made a 19-hour journey, it would be a waste not to take in all that the wonderful Bay Area has to offer. While there are the usual tours and visits that are open to the public (San Francisco, Monterey Bay Aquarium), Scholarlynk also arranges for special trips, and one that gets people the most excited is the visit to Google Headquarters in Mountain View. 

I think everyone with a computer or a smartphone would know of Google, but what most people don’t know is that the headquarters are off limits to everyone except staff and their guests. But here we were, at an exclusive event just for the students from Methodist Girls’ School. 

The first thing that everyone wanted to do the minute they set foot on the Google campus was to try out the bicycles that everyone had heard of. Because of the enormity of the campus and since staff may sometimes have to head out for meetings in a different part of the grounds, these bikes were supplied FOC by Google for their staff to use. 

Surprisingly, one of the most famous Googlers is actually a Singaporean by the name of Tan Chade-Meng. He is famous for being Googles Jolly Good Fellow (it’s actually on his name card), and the one who is in charge of welcoming all the VIP guests to the Googleplex. In fact, there is a large collection of all the famous people he has received over the years in the visitor centre:

Here’s a mock setup of what a Googler’s office space looks like:

Their famous cafeteria where all the food you can eat is free. The only condition being that you cannot bring any food off the campus.

And of course, a group shot with all the students from Methodist Girls’ School who went on our summer camp’s field trip to the Google campus

The students had a great time, and even had the chance to speak with our hosts to find out more about what it would take for them to one day be Googlers themselves. Now, it was back to the dorms for the students to rest up and continue with their assignments.

The first day of class, all the students started bright and early and most were at breakfast even before the pre-arranged time. There was something for everybody at breakfast, so no one was left missing the food back home. 

The Berkeley campus is not very large, so we get around to all our classes by walking. But that is not a bad thing, given the wonderful spring time California climate and the beautiful university grounds. Nothing like a nice 10 minute stroll to wake everyone up before class.

The Berkeley Instructor assigned to teach the Business & Entrepreneurship course was a young man by the name of Madison Alexander. Though he was young, he was already a serial entrepreneur, having sold off one business and currently into his second venture. The students appreciated learning from someone who was actually a businessman, so that he could teach them about the practical aspects of running a business, and not just talk theory. 

As mentioned, the summer camp is not just about classroom time, because an important part of the college experience is what happens outside of the classroom as well. For the first day, we didn’t want to overload the students in their new surroundings, so we started things off easy with a more detailed tour of the campus. Although the campus is small, it manages to cram a lot of things in. The first and most obvious stop for most visitors to the campus is the clock tower, Sather Tower. 

Also known as the Campanile, it is the third tallest bell and clock tower in the world, standing at 307 ft. Because it is also one of the most seismically sound buildings on the campus, it is also where many fossils are stored. 

And speaking of fossils, here are some other things the students saw on their first day:

That capped off the first day, and the students sure needed the time off because they hit the ground running in class and already had homework and a reading assignment to finish before tomorrow’s class.

One of the perks of our USA Summer Camp is that participants get to stay on the beautiful campus of the University of California, Berkeley. That’s right, participants will stay in the same dormitories that are reserved for full-time students, so that they get the full college life experience. So this is the sight that greeted us as we approached the university right after leaving the airport:

A bit of history about the university. The University of California was founded in 1868, born out of a vision that it would “contribute even more than California’s gold to the glory and happiness of advancing generations. Today, there are many other campuses that are part of the University of California system, but as Berkeley is the oldest, it has the distinction of being called Cal for short.

Here are some numbers related to the university:

It is home to 184 academic departments and programs, so there is major for everybody.

It boasts a student to faculty ratio of 18 to 1

There are 7 Nobel Prize winners currently on the faculty

Despite being more than 100 years old, one of the original buildings from when the university was first established still stands today. Of course, there are many more modern buildings on the campus as well, and the dormitory that we stayed at for the summer camp was one such example. Instead of talking about it, here are some photos of the Unit 1 Residence Hall, and the spacious dining hall where we had all our meals:

So, that was about all we had time see on the first day of summer camp. Everyone had just taken a long 19 hour flight, and now to adjust to a 15 hour time difference. The students had an early night and got ready for the first day of class the next day.