It is Berkeley
I’ve been telling people that Columbia made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. And I refused. Both are great schools, there’s no doubt about that. I would graduate satisfied with my experience at either place, I’m quite sure. But after some careful examination, my choice is Berkeley. It is, right now, the better school for me. I’m confident in that decision.
I consulted with several people while making this choice. I want to thank them for their insight. I don’t think any of them secretly gave me advice, so listed below are their names, in no particular order. Some of them are journalists and writers; many are not. You can read some books by a few of these people, or articles in the NY Times, SF Chronicle, Harper’s, the New Yorker, Sierra Magazine, The New York Review of Books, or hear them on This American Life, or watch them on television, etc., etc. Two of them are poets, and another has edited poets. The former dean of both Berkeley’s and Columbia’s graduate schools of journalism is here. There are a couple of doctors on the list, an architect or two, some lawyers, a woman studying naturopathic medicine, a scholar of Milton’s rhetoric (among other things), an extremely rich banker. Several people who are very good with numbers, either in programming or finance. An artist, two photographers, a chef, a yoga instructor, a mechanic. The author of the most popular surf blog in the Bay Area. Most are American, though there is one Kenyan, one pair of brothers from Sri Lanka and Singapore, one pair of sisters from Bulgaria, one friend from Montreal, one from Burma, the scholar is originally from Black Diamond, Alberta, my mother is from Korea, and several are the children of immigrants. Many are living in San Francisco or Berkeley or New York City, but there are others in Encinitas, North Pole (Alaska), Seattle, San Luis Obispo, Norcatur (Kansas), St. Paul, Palo Alto, Denver, Bloomington (Indiana), Los Angeles. The guy named Richard Lewis is not the comedian. He is originally from Texas.
| 1) Adam Hochschild 2) Barry Bearak 3) Bill Drummond 4) John Lyons-Gould 5) Rod Mackenzie 6) Alisa Dichter 7) Vera Petkova  Michael Pollan9) Gary Lenhart 10) Andrew Revkin 11) Tom Valtin 12) Nanette Asimov 13) Rebecca Solnit 14) Cynthia Gorney 15) my mother 16) Soon Hyouk Lee 17) William Pallister 18) Rob Gunnison 19) Jeremy Rue 20) Daniel Porter 21) David Perlman 22) Peter Alsop 23) Brian Chang 24) Adrian Cotter 25) Pat Joseph 26) Joan Hamilton 27) Ethan Klein 28) Mike Papciak 29) Jon Mooallem 30) Catriona Stewart 31) Katia Petkova 32) Kim Haddow 33) Eric Antebi 34) Annie Strickler |
35) Yuyu Thein 36) Jack Quinlan 37) Tom (Jack’s friend) 38) Sonia Narang 39) Carmel Wroth 40) Brian Aguilar 41) Dorian Merina 42) Giselle Sotelo 43) Zach (what is his last name) 44) Sharon Neville 45) Robert Mac Donald 46) Klaus, at the sushi restaurant on 86th 47) Lydia Chavez 48) Carolyn Wakeman 49) Dalton Cox 50) Seth (last name?) 51) Tom Goldstein 52) Tim Nickel 53) Melanie Wang 54) Melissa Miranda 55) Marisa Taylor 56) Jared Leavitt 57) Martin Kerestes 58) Marcia Parker 59) Marilyn Berlin Snell 60) Jesse Ellison 61) Pablo Stern 62) Lisa Gray 63) John Barry 64) Pamela Jennings 65) Ellen Cox 66) Arvindh Kanagasundram |
67) Gita Varaprasathan 68) Amy Matthews 69) Liz Pallatto 70) Julie Caine 71) Edward Okongo 72) Taylor Pipes 73) Andrew Scher 74) Michael Werner 75) Katie Campbell 76) Claire Lesle 77) Mary Lesle 78) Kate Barton 79) Tony Lesle 80) Richard Lewis 81) Lilly Jamali 82) Ashok Kanagasundram 83) Jason Witmer 84) Kate Jessup 85) Mike Ellis 86) Jessica Fennel 87) Martha Geering 88) DJ, the bouncerThere are two people whose thoughts on this subject I would have appreciated. I came very near them, close enough to grab their lapels and demand an answer. But a sense of propriety and other circumstances prevented me from doing so. Their names are Gay Talese and Jon Stewart. |
