Places of Interest:

• BARROWS HALL--I have a few classes here.

• DOE (MAIN) LIBRARY--The grad library on campus, with a three-month borrowing period, Doe contains the main stacks (underground!) and the periodicals room. Don't worry--Doe has just gone through five years of seismic upgrades, so now the books are probably safer than anyone else in the city in case of an earthquake. Attached to Doe is the Bancroft library, the rare books room.

• DWINELLE HALL--Many of my classes are in this building, which is home to the history department and some language departments. The language lab and audio-visual library are located in the basement. Dwinelle is currently being renovated and so it is a mess; a normally hard-to-navigate building with room numbers that repeat and then skip a thousand only to start up again, Dwinelle now has the smell of new paint and a dearth of working water fountains.

• EVANS HALL--The second through sixth floors are the home of the Math Department; Evans also houses User and Accounts Services and the largest public computer cluster.

• KING STUDENT CENTER--The school store is in the basement; textbooks and very long lines abound. Outside, the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph is one of the main entrances to campus; it teems with students, bus stops (including the 51), and food trucks (although Berkeley cannot boast a plain old hotdog wagon, it does have vegi-haven sandwich stands, udon and dumpling stands, and coffee and donut stands).

• MOFFITT LIBRARY--This is the undergrad library, with slightly nicer study spaces than Doe library.

• SATHER GATE--A good central meeting place.

• SATHER TOWER--This is the clock tower on campus, visible from much of the city; its carillon is audible at noon around campus. It also has a rather nice outdoor plaza around it which offers a less crowded place to sit outside midday than Sproul plaza.

• SPROUL HALL--Home of the Financial Aid, Fellowships, Admissions, In-State Residence, and other administrative offices. The side entrance to the building leads down to Sproul plaza, the space in between the King Student Center, Sather Gate, and Sproul. Rioters, protestors, pan-handlers, aggressive Asian Christian groups, and smoking students crowd shoulder-to-shoulder most of the day.

• STEPHENS HALL--This confusing building built into the side of the hill is home to the Grad Student lounge on the very top floor: to get there, climb all the stairs you can find and then look for a red sweater sticking out of a door (to keep the door from slamming). The lounge is an impressive room, even if it does have rec-room castoff furniture; it resembles Tower Court's Great Hall.

• TANG CENTER--University Health Services

• TENNIS CENTER--I have not actually visited the courts yet, but I feel sure that we will.

• UNIT 3 RESIDENCE HALLS--You will have to go here to have your photo taken for your student ID.

• UNIVERSITY HALL--At the farthest west edge of campus, this is the home of the bursar's office and the school computer store. University Hall is at least a ten-minute walk from most other important places on campus; while you're here, you might as well run any errands you need to in the city of berkeley.

• VALLEY LIFE SCIENCES BUILDING--This is a pretty, sunny building; inside is a large spiral staircase built around the skeleton of a T-Rex.

• WHEELER HALL--The third and fourth floors are the home of the English Department and my mailbox.

Want to know more about the workings of the campus? Here are some helpful places to start on the web.