Mariana Soto Sanchez, a first-year student, is interested in pursuing a degree in psychology. (UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small)
For freshman Mariana Soto Sanchez, her first week at UC Berkeley was worlds away from her life in Ontario, California.
“I’m from a big, tight-knit family,” she says. “We’re always doing everything together — there’s always family in our house. You never have any alone time.”
At 18, Soto Sanchez says being at Berkeley — one of 8,800 incoming students — is overwhelming and exciting, a risk she knew she had to take. She says she plans to study psychology, a subject that touches her on a personal level. “I’ve had so many amazing therapists and doctors, and I really want to give back to that.”
Soto Sanchez has transverse myelitis, a neurological disorder caused by severe inflammation of a section of the spinal cord. She came down with it suddenly as a sophomore in high school. It started as severe back pain and within an hour, she had lost the ability to use her arms and legs. Three years later, she has some mobility back, but she still uses a wheelchair most of the time.
Although leaving home and finding her way on campus has been a shock and challenge, she has found support with the Disabled Students’ Program , which will continue to provide her with resources to help her be successful on campus.
It’s a big change, she says, but worth it. And she hopes other students with disabilities are inspired to take chances like she has.
“My advice would be, ‘Don’t let anything stop you because there are always going to be obstacles.’ But if you don’t take the risk, you’re going to spend your whole life wondering what something is like,” she says.
[See photos from Golden Bear Orientation and meet more new students below.]
After transferring to four different colleges, musician Christian Barajas, from Watsonville, California, has finally found his home at UC Berkeley. He’s been performing with the San Jose Opera since 2015 — which he loves — and is now on track to get his degree in music at Berkeley. “It was important to me to be surrounded by scholastic faculty, so even though Cal might not be the mecca for opera, I’m also interested in musicology. The research side of music is important to me. I could have gone to a music conservatory, but I think I’ll get the best of both worlds here.” (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)
Freshman MJ de Vere (front) and Niharika Gupta play a game of “Hungry Hungry Human Hippos.” (UC Berkeley photo by Brittany Hosea-Small)
