I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 60s and 70s. Life seemed to follow a straight path. From the youngest age I wanted to be an inventor, scientist or a doctor and gradually, through the years veered to the latter. In high school I enrolled in a professional insertion program to spend a few hours a week observing professions of my choice. I got a first glimpse at what it would be like to be a veterinarian (no) and a scientist (maybe). There was no clear spark and so upon graduating high school, I did what many of my also-unsure-about-the-future friends did, choose between Cal State Northridge (right around the corner) or UCLA (big time). I went for UCLA and after just a few weeks into the fall quarter of 1978, was getting my first Bs and Cs. In high school, with the exception of Cs in Spanish, I had been an almost strait A student.
UCLA increasingly became hell. Commuting, walking up and down hills, entering buildings and either going up to the 8th floor or down under ground to -3. Entering amphitheaters with 100 or more other pre-med students. The cut-throat competition in this milieu. Working my rear off and yet struggling to pass courses. I was just not wired for it. One day in early 1980, totally out of the blue, I walked into the admissions office and applied for a transfer. Luckily, transfers between UC schools were possible and there were several campuses to choose from. I definitely wanted to get out of the LA area, which eliminated Riverside and Irvine. Santa Barbara was a party school and San Diego even more LA than LA. That left Santa Cruz, Davis and Berkeley. Berkeley somehow shined and so it was my first choice. Although I didn’t save a copy of my transfer request, given my state of mind must have put as the reason “if not accepted, will drop out”. My parents only learned of the situation when I received the formal acceptance letter. I would be going from a conservative bubble to one of the most liberal places in the United States.
My parents drove me up to Berkeley in July 1980 and I had a few weeks to acclimate at my great uncle’s place in North Campus, before entering the dormitories and starting my junior year. The first task was to register for fall quarter classes. Having done this at UCLA – and Berkeley being in the UC system – thought I knew the drill. I however didn’t realize that transferring campuses entailed a formal transcript review by a counselor. I would have to meet this person to declare a major and a minor, since the coursework to fulfill the Bachelor of Science degree would be tailored to these, and they could prepare me for what I would become. My gut instinct drew me to a biology major with a minor in physics.
The Bombshell
I was in a fantastic state of mind going into the counselor’s office. I couldn’t imagine the meeting lasting more than a few minutes, but it soon became clear that this was no “hello nice to meet you, all is in order, goodbye”. Time dragged on as the counselor reviewed my UCLA sojourn, course by course, grade by grade, with alternating almost-frowns and hopeful stares... and then came the bombshell. The counselor looks me straight in the eye and says “I see that you haven’t taken a foreign language. A year of foreign language is a requirement to get the BSc in the College of Life Sciences at both UCLA and at Berkeley”. My blood ran cold. I don’t remember if I slumped down in my chair or sat straight up. The last thing I wanted was a year of foreign language classes! I had nothing against Spanish in particular, but didn't see how suffering through the subject that was the bane of my public-school years would be of any benefit to a future biologist... or to my future full stop.
I had to think fast. In a shaky voice I asked whether the requirement could be waved. I then probably said something silly like “I would do anything not to take a year of foreign language!”. But this counselor was not a negotiator – rules were rules. He answered my pitiful request in a more conclusive tone “I’m afraid the requirement cannot be waved and I urge you take the course this year, since should you wait until your senior year, then, should you fail any one of the three ten-week courses, you may find yourself retaking the failed segment during the summer quarter to get your degree”. This person was trying to help me, but it sure felt differently.
I was distraught and went silent. It looked like I was either going to take Spanish 1A or pack my bags and go back to LA.
And then something unexpected happened. Who knows, perhaps it was seeing a catatonic 19-year-old about to break out in tears. Or maybe it was just his job to stick to a Plan A and only unveil Plan B if things looked bleak. In any case, he looked at me and said “Well, there is an alternative if avoiding foreign language means that much to you. Although one year of foreign language is a requirement in all colleges at UC Berkeley, if you transfer to the College of Natural Resources (CNR), then you can take computer science as a foreign language.” He said this in a matter of fact way, which took me a few seconds to compute (sorry) as the counselor went from my adversary to my best friend. I loved techy things and computers especially! I had even participated in a one-day expo for tech-minded students in my senior high school year on the future of computers. With what must have been a glowing face, I asked “How do I transfer!?”
I can be too cavalier at times and this was definitely one of them. I really didn't care that Natural Resources had no biology major nor a physics minor. In fact, I payed little attention to the funky sounding courses required for the Bachelor’s in CNR. It didn’t really matter since I had little idea of what I wanted to do in the first place. All I knew is I escaped taking a year of Spanish!
I couldn't have possibly known it then, but those few additional seconds in the counselor’s office would set me on course for a then-unpredictable, most fantastic story... and welcome irony.
Eyes shut in 1983
Path(s)
The College of Natural Resources had an indisputable influence on my career path. I stress influence. Had I stayed in the College of Life Sciences as originally planned, then I surely would not have followed the same river, streams and tributaries through my career. I may or may not have stayed in the life sciences or gone to grad school. Perhaps I would be a Spanish teacher!! But no doubt once the die was cast in the counselor’s office, CNR did play a role in the contours and occasional detours, but was not strongly causal.[1][2]
Perhaps with exceptions of political science and sociology, CNR was real Berkeley... and unlike the former mere departments, CNR was a college. CNR embodied the 60’s culture. Being from a fairly conservative environment (which I disdained), CNR, Berkeley and the Bay Area opened a world of endless possibilities. I loved and engaged in it. I didn’t grow a pony tail, stop showering, or dress in Peruvian garb, but my views on most everything widened and I came as close as any CNR student in living a green nature, and as any of my friends in experiencing art and music scenes.
Hanging out with Berkeley friends changed my perspective, but equally important were the atypical courses required for the CNR degree. Plant pathology, forestry, soil science, community ecology, conservation, political science.... and entomology! I had been fascinated by insects since the youngest age and now would experience an actual 101 course dedicated to these amazing creatures. Truth said, I knew almost nothing about insects. Butterflies, beetles, bees, flies and wasps were insects, but clearly, I had a lot of learning to do. Taxonomy, anatomy and physiology, life-cycles and behaviors, and the importance of insects to ecosystems and humans. In retrospect, I was fortunate in knowing so little, since this meant each and every course was filled with surprises (superbly taught by Dr. Howell Daly). Entomology – and the other core CNR courses for that matter – was paving my future path.
California Oak Moth project on Berkeley campus in 1982.
Despite a guiding light, I wanted to stay flexible and so sometime in 1981 declared my major as Bioresource Sciences. The CNR also required students do a senior year thesis. I went to Dr. Daly’s office in mid-1981 to see if entomology projects were available and he directed me to the forest entomology group and specifically to Dr. David Wood. Dave was a terrific scientist working on bark beetle ecology. I would later volunteer to help some of his graduate students with their field work, but at the time of our meeting, Dave introduced me to Dr. Jan Volney for a possible project. I eagerly met Jan who enthusiastically took me under his wing. Perhaps it was in Berkeley style, but I not only conducted the work (on sex pheromones in the California Oak Moth; my first scientific publication!), but also participated in diverse projects in the forest ecology group 1981-82 and even spent the summer of 1982 on Cebollita Mesa near Jemez Springs, New Mexico, living in a trailer and working with a crew of entomology students on a forest pest, the Western Spruce Budworm. That’s another story.
Graduation was around the corner and in early 1982 I had to think seriously what to do next. Going on the job market with a degree in Bioresource Sciences and experience as a lab tech seemed perilous and an anticlimax to so many years of study. I don’t remember a key moment in what came next, but many of my friends were now graduate students in entomology and through osmosis and my love of the intellectual climate at Berkeley, I figured that a couple more years exploring the world of insects could lead to something special. I decided to apply for the Master’s program in Entomological Sciences. If things went well, continue for a PhD.
Volney and Wood groups in 1982. Photo courtesy of A.M. Liebhold
Acceptance to the entomology program let alone any graduate school at Berkeley was not a done deal. Berkeley entomology was considered one of the finest in the US and because such departments were few, the acceptance rate was low. I was advised that if my GPA was not at least 3.6/4.0 and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) not in the top 5% my chances were slim. I was nervous and for good reason: my GPA was short of the magical 3.6 (due to two years of languishing at UCLA), and my GREs, although good, would not offset my GPA. An explanation for middling performances in my motivation letter could be viewed as a desperate and unverifiable excuse. The truth is I coped with dyslexia throughout my life – I had difficulties reading. After discussing my application, credentials and impoverished reading history with a faculty member, he exclaimed “Good God man, you’re illiterate! How did you get ever into college??”. I didn’t tell him, but upon admission to UCLA I received a letter basically saying the same thing[3].
So unsurprisingly, my Verbal Reasoning score of the GRE was not even close to Berkeley standards. My saving grace was good scores on the Analytical and Quantitative sections. But would the admissions committee be swayed by someone who appeared more at home in the Physics Department? I suspect my reference letters were good, but the deal-breaker was (or so I was told) that my application was highly unusual. The committee wanted to give me a chance and a Masters would be a measured step towards possible entrance into the PhD program. I was actually told the names of the two committee members who pushed for my application. Reflecting on this experience in 2017, I wrote each of them a letter of thanks.
What if?
A seer greeted me on my first day at UCLA in 1978 and told me “In two years you will be at UC Berkeley”. "No way!" I said. "But should it happen I think I'd enjoy it".
The same seer stopped me just before entering the counselor’s office in 1980 “You will be a graduate student in entomology in two years time”. “What!?” I replied. “There’s actually a department of entomology?”
I saw and approached the seer in 1983 and she said “You will fall in love and spend a year in France after your Masters”. The love part was believable, but for someone who had never traveled to a foreign country, had no particular yearning to travel so far, and did not speak a foreign language, I was eager to learn more.
End of Part 1
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Footnotes
[1] This is the complex and unpredictable world of sequential causality and its fuzzier sib, influence. If a sequence of events is channeled, that is, you are making choices that keep you well within the adjacent possible, then the stream itself can be steered – driven in a sense – by choices. These are within the realm of predictability and not the strong, possibly revolutionary, choices that start by changing streams and leading to finding oneself in very different waters. Imagine billiard balls. The strike to a ball puts it on a trajectory, which can be modified by future strikes, but both the initial strike and the trajectory influences future strikes. Are the future strikes ‘causal’ to the ball’s subsequent trajectories? Well, if the future strikes depended on the previous strikes (both occurrence and trajectories), then surely each strike causes a potential deviation in trajectory, but the previous strikes are causal to future strikes themselves. So, more useful recognize these contrasting types of causality: that which creates the sequence, and those which influence the sequence. Moreover, the path taken by the ball (strike, path, strike, path, ad infinitum) will be influenced the environments encountered (lay of the billiard table), but the environments encountered are a consequence of previous strikes, and previous environments!
[2] Recommended book about causal analysis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Why
[3] Like the GREs, my Verbal Reasoning score on the SATs was not up to standard. I was accepted to UCLA, but had to take a special exam to see whether I would need to enroll in a dedicated 1-year English grammar and composition course. Fortunately I passed it, but for an unforgotten reason did not fill the vacancy with the foreign language requirement.