POV: you got into UC Berkeley but didn't get any scholarships as a Mexican student
POV: you got into UC Berkeley but didn't get any scholarships as a Mexican student
The story and what I've learned so far
hey there! I’m Sofi 👋
Since before starting high school, my long term mission has been to bring to life healthier and more sustainable products for all, using bioengineering. Over the past 2 years, I’ve worked on different projects, created relevant content and met lots of interesting people in the space. Follow me along on Twitter and LinkedIn ;)
I’m ambitious, determined and impatient: I’m an INTJ (my personality type). I strive for the best of the best, most of the time. And most of the time, I give my best to make that happen. That said, I (still) want to study bioengineering at UC Berkeley because of 3 main reasons:
Be surrounded by the best of the best. Schools like Berkeley seem to be good at this. Great research and an increasing number of biotech startups are located there.
Grow as much as I can, as a person. Living in a different country and far from my family sounds like an experience that can accelerate this kind of growth.
Accomplish my mission ASAP. You know the drill: life is short, consciousness is unimaginably precious, the world can be 10x better and I should take responsibility to create an amazing future. Not attending Berkeley this fall will not stop me from doing that. Being there though, would accelerate the process, which we all seem to need these days.
Expanding on the title, here’s the TL;DR of how I got up to this point:
I applied to UC Berkeley knowing that they don’t give scholarships to international students, because I was sure I could get into a program that has helped 3 friends study in top US schools… except I didn’t get in 🤦🏻♀️.
So I looked for other options. I called and emailed Berkeley for help, asked friends for help, considered taking loans, applied to other scholarship programs and even reached out to high net-worth people.
None of those worked. Though I’m still hopeful for some sort of miracle, I’ve mostly called Amor Fati at the fact that I’ll stay in Mexico, at least for the coming months.
failure
My willingness to fail gives me my ability to succeed—Vinod Khosla
I think I’ve gotten more comfortable with failure than most of my peers. So much so, that I’m sometimes scared that I’ve gotten too comfortable.
Part of me thinks: “when will I be able to write a success story!? It’s not like I spent 2 years preparing to enter a US college just to get a nice acceptance letter and then write a stoic-sounding blog on failures and lessons!”
Then I answer: ambitious is not a synonym of easy. You shouldn’t resign to eternal failure but you should accept that some of the stepping stones in the path to success will be failures and you can use them to evolve.
Lastly, if there’s something I wanted even more than studying at Berkeley was having the satisfaction of knowing that I did everything that was in my hands to make it happen. Today I can say I’m fulfilled in that sense AND I’ll keep on playing.
On to the lessons…
#1 Financial aid is important
The irony of life! Exactly 1 year ago a friend asked em “so if you do get into this school, how will you pay for it?”. I was so focused on getting an acceptance letter that I forgot that things cost money and that this was something I couldn’t afford without getting at least 85% of financial aid.
The first lesson is to start looking for (and applying to) financial aid at the same time you apply for admission. Otherwise, do that as soon as you submit your applications.
That will help with having a plan B, C and D. Although my first option was the ideal, there were other programs that could’ve helped too if I’d found them in time.
#2 Get help from people who can help
First off, huge thanks to Mia, a UC Berkeley student in the MET program who told me about her experience as a student there and provided feedback on my essays.
Now, this is more of a “me thing”. I started telling some people at school that I was applying to these top unis. Now I know that they didn’t care enough to send over scholarships they found. Future Sofi, if you wanna avoid the gossip, just tell people who are likely to help.
In that sense, My intention for posting about my admission on LinkedIn and Twitter was not to get dopamine from the likes but to create serendipity and ultimately find financial aid. I want to give a huge shoutout to some people here too.
Ishan Mukherjee. Man, thank you so so much for letting me know of more programs. You’re truly a great example of how to be just a good person helping other people around the world. We need to meet in person one day!
Paulina Paiz. Pau! Thank you so much for sending some unconventional advice and opportunities as well as following up with me. Let’s definitely meet IRL too!
Michael Raspuzzi. As always, Michael, you’ve not only helped me with the “make it happen” part but also with dealing with the “things didn’t go as expected part”. You’re da best! Looking forward to catching up in person.
That’s great but how come did I get over 400 reactions and only 1 new person really helped me find more programs? My hypothesis is that I need a clearer ask. Something like: “Before celebrating… does anyone know of scholarships or programs that can give me more than $25k to study at UC Berkeley as an international student?”.
Last but definitely not least in terms of asking for help: do what YOU want and BELIEVE in yourself.
I could (and perhaps will) write a whole blog post on this phrase. See, these past months I’ve got to make decisions regarding college, my cellAg project and a summer internship offer. The hard part is that they were all connected somehow: college in Mexico would allow me to develop my project more cheaply but investment isn’t here, if I interned at the startup I’d have to quit my project altogether and maybe my project isn’t that big of a deal after all so maybe taking a loan to Berkeley or taking a gap year to intern at this startup would’ve both been better learning opportunities.
In my mental fogginess, I asked over 20 people for individual advice and wrote a tweet on what I learned. Basically, we’re all biased and you shouold’t ask for advice but use their stories as data points to make decisions based on what YOU want. It will be scary since no one else has been exactly through what you’ve been through so you have to believe that the best decision is the one you make because you will make the most out of it.
#3 On applying for stuff
I used to think that changing the story depending on the audience meant losing authenticity. But that doesn’t make any sense! Just as in companies, you need to know who selling your story to. Pitching a VC will not be the same as selling to a client.
When I apply to other scholarships and programs, I need to keep in mind what each organization values. Prestige? Unconventionality? Mindset? I need let them see that part of me that aligns to their mission. I applied this to college applications but again, forgot about it during scholarship applications 😐.
Then, as silly as it sounds, for one of the fellowships, I completed my application and just waited for them to send me an email. I never noticed that there was this tiny wonderful button that read “review and submit my application”. When I emailed the program director, it was already too late.
Anyways, the reminder is to always confirm in some way that your application has been submitted. You can check in with friends who apply at the same time.
#4 Act from love instead of fear
Navid Nathoo, founder of the community I love the most, once told me that to achieve something you only need 3 things: know what you want, want it badly and believe you can get it.
I’ve found that to be quite true, especially with this whole situation. In fact, one of my favorite questions in life now is: how badly do you want it?
Of course I wanted very badly to study at UC Berkeley: be a golden bear, bring things into existence there, meet amazing golden bear people, and grow so much as to call Berkeley my second home.
In retrospective though, I think that sometimes fear took over. Instead of thinking about those things I started to let fear drive me: the fear of staying in a third world country for more years, missing out on what bioengineers are doing at Berkeley, give in to the inertia towards complacency here…
You know, not only did a tragedy happened over the past 2 years. The world also opened more than ever before to online opportunities, which allowed me to see outside of my near environment, outside of just Mexico. Meeting people from around the world, including you reading this newsletter, allowed me to both raise my standards and appreciate what my local culture has to offer.
Now I know that some trends will continue. I still will be able to catch up with my Toronto friends through Zoom and meet new amazing people through Twitter. However, my past self was scared that as we were all going back from URL to IRL, people would only want to hang out in hacker houses in SF and I’d lose access to the amazing synbio community, which I’ve even come to see as the “Magical secret world of the coolest nerds and builders ever who are growing the future” ✨🧙.
Anyways 😂, my point is that love may last longer than fear. So keeping in mind the great reason why I want to be in a wonderful place like the one I just described (instead of why not being there scares me) may be a better option to endure and make it happen… with a scholarship this time!
where I’m heading to
Thanks to TKS, to a congress in Switzerland next week. As for college…
I’ve always said that my college option in Mexico is not that bad at all. They’re gonna teach me everything I need to become a legit bioengineer and achieve my mission—besides I won a 70% entrepreneurship scholarship which less than 26 out of 60 thousand students get at this university.
The only challenge is the environment. I’m honestly scared of the number of femicides in Mexico, feel uncomfortable at the fact that I haven’t met anyone here who is as crazy for biotech has I am or has even heard of words Ginkgo! The lack of research opportunities and bioengineering startups doesn’t help much either :(.
But we’re anti-fragile people here. So if I do study here (and don’t take a gap year to do something interesting and figure out fin aid for Berkeley), I’m gonna fight inertia with love. I’m gonna keep on moving faster and faster: keep on attending cool conferences outside, meeting people URL, visiting the lab so many times that my classmates think I live there, do summer internships in Boston or the Bay Area, start a freaking iGEM team here so we break… I mean, grow freaking awesome things, go harder on my biotech blog and podcast and so-much-more.
Future Sofi, the only way you can disappoint past Sofi is by giving up on your dreams. I know you won’t do that, so just remember: ignore the world’s expectations and exceed your own, fight inertia every single day and believe in yourself.
Life is continuous learning with ups and downs that enrich us in intelligence and strengths making us better entrepreneurs and better human being!!
Sofi, you enriched your person and you will get it!! :)
You’re so inspiring, Sofia! Keep the faith; the right opportunities will present themselves!