Campus & community, Campus news

Sun, campus shine on Cal Day 2016

Tens of thousands flocked to campus on a sunny Saturday for Cal Day, UC Berkeley's annual all-day open house. Check out some photo highlights of the day.

By Public Affairs

cheerleader painting kid's face — A Cal cheerleader shares her team spirit with a young recruit. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

April 18, 2016

Tens of thousands flocked to campus on a sunny Saturday for Cal Day, UC Berkeley’s annual all-day open house for prospective and current students, alumni, families, friends and kids interested in exploring the many resources and opportunities the campus offers.

UC Berkeley photographers captured some photo highlights of the day: (Story continues below.)

People on plaza — Some 40,000 people flooded the campus for Cal Day, Berkeley's annual open house. (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)

people by sather gate — On Cal Day, the campus hosts more than 400 events, from museum tours to faculty talks to science and art exhibits and activities. (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)

Cal marching band — The Cal Marching Band performed a medley of songs for the crowd, including a cover of "What's My Name Again?" by Blink 182 and ending with the fight song "Fight for California." (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

man in armor — Robert Crabbs, a graduate student in nuclear engineering, wears a 65-pound suit of armor in the hot sun. On weekends, he practices medieval reenactments with a group of like-minded enthusiasts. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

T. rex fossil — People gaze at a life-size cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil, reconstructed by the Museum of Paleontology, in the Valley Life Sciences Building. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

studnt holding snake — Berkeley undergrad Natasha Stepanova holds a carpet python, advising kids to pet the snake head to tail. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

Taxidermy Chinese Pangolin — A Chinese Pangolin is one of the 640,000 amphibians, reptiles, birds, bird eggs or nests, and mammals housed in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Cal Day is the one day each year that the exhibit is open to the public. The other 364 days, the archived specimens are used for research. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

student talking to man — Mary McDonnell, a conservation and resource undergrad, discusses the bird specimens at her station in the museum, collected from the Bay Area and Alaska in the 1890s. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

Boy looking through microscope — Kids at the Essig Museum examine arthropod specimens. Arthropods include insects, spiders, scorpions and their relatives. The museum contains one of the largest collections of California insects in existence. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

girl playing a drum — Five-year-old Avery Frasier feels the beat on a Cal Marching Band drum. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

student pose with Snapchat Ghost-Bear — Berkeley's Snapchat Ghost-Bear poses with incoming and current students, encouraging them to get involved with social media on campus. (UC Berkeley photo by Jenny J. Kim)

student waving Cal flag — A member of the UC Rally Committee demonstrates to onlookers how to swing the Cal flag. (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)

Kids doing a science experiment — Families enjoyed hands-on science experiments at the physics info booth. (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)

Board with student writing — Students share what they want to accomplish in the future. (UC Berkeley photo by Josephine Wu)

people sitting on memorial glade — Students relax on Memorial Glade toward the end of a hot Cal Day. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

band performing — Indie rock band Built to Spill rocks out on stage for the crowd at Memorial Glade. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

People dancing — The audience dances to Built to Spill. (UC Berkeley photo by Anne Brice)

The Campanile clock's chimes signal the end of a full 2016 Cal Day. (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser)

Visitors chose from 400 events, performances, tours, faculty talks and hands-on activities to keep them entertained throughout the day.

Science enthusiasts stopped by the Valley Life Sciences Building for a close-up view of the life-size cast of a T. rex and to examine unusual specimens, from extinct mammals at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology to gargantuan insects at the Essig Museum of Entomology.

Others grabbed a cup of frozen custard at the food booths and relaxed on Memorial Glade or hopped onto a trolley for a guided tour of the campus. Those looking to get some perspective took free rides to the top of the Campanile, where they got a bird’s eye view of the campus and, as a Cal Day bonus, heard the tower’s 61 bells in duet with the first digitally created sounds of the Russian “Tsar Bell,” a 200-ton bell in Moscow’s Kremlin that broke before it could ever be played.

Prospective students discovered the various student groups and programs, from the LEAD Center to the Cal dance team to the Society of Physics Students. Visitors with an artistic bent took tours through the contemporary UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and got the inside story of the campus’s new arts and design initiative on a tour with Shannon Jackson, associate vice chancellor for arts and design.

Cal Day ended at Memorial Glade with a concert by indie rock band Built to Spill, where students and music-lovers cooled off with free refreshments.

To see more photos from the event, visit calday.berkeley.edu/.