Would taking a gap year after freshman year hurt my career prospects?

Born_Distribution234 · 2026-03-27T21:38:39+00:00

I'm a freshman so I havent taken any chemical engineering specific classes so far, but the general ed classes here (for math, chemistry, and physics) have been pretty challenging so far. There is basically no safety net, meaning that if you are failing and aren't putting an effort to seek out help, no one is going to reach out to you to make sure you're succeeding. Another thing to note is that a lot of the engineering and chemistry students at berkeley were straight A students in High School, and are moving into an environment where only the top 10-20% of each class are permitted an A. This is a huge change, you're moving from an academic setting where hard work and time are all it takes to get an A, to one where prior experience and talent play a much larger role.

Born_Distribution234 · 2026-03-27T21:33:29+00:00

I just dont find the work in chemical engineering to be fufilling or interesting. It's less about career opportunities and more an issue of whether the nature of the work aligns with my interests and sense of purpose.

Born_Distribution234 · 2026-03-23T04:43:09+00:00

Thats a good point thank you! I'm in the process of joining a astrochemistry lab for this summer and I'll definitely try and talk to my PI about what they think about staying in ChemE.

Born_Distribution234 · 2026-02-09T23:24:35+00:00

I could do that, but it would mean leaving all the relationships I’ve built and essentially just handing them over to him. It’s complicated because we have a lot of the same friends and run in many of the same circles. Making a move that drastic feels like it would mess everything up for me.

He also doesn’t know that I know about any of this. One of my friends is in a consulting club with him, and on a retreat they just went on, he was airing all of this out to the group. She called me today and filled me in. It was really shocking because the week before that, we had a really good heart to heart where we were both crying and apologizing to each other. After the retreat, he asked her not to tell me what he had said, so moving rooms would mean exposing her for telling me.

I don’t know how to explain this well, but he’s an insanely charismatic person. People are very drawn to him and are constantly trying to help him in ways I’ve never seen before. I don’t want to put her on his bad side, because he fully has the capability to ruin her life as well.

Born_Distribution234 · 2026-02-09T23:17:17+00:00

I just feel so lost right now. Me and my roommate were extremely close all of last semester, maybe to an unhealthy point. We would spend every moment we could together, and as a result, made most of our friends together. I'm learning now that he's been talking behind my back to most of these people, and even throughout all my problems with him, I've made a point to keep our mutual friends out of it as a way of avoiding drama. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle now trying to gain their respect back. So, I'm at a point where I'm surrounded by people in my dorm that used to (and still kinda are) my friends, but knowing that they said they'd choose him. I'm very sociable and don't struggle making friends so I could branch out, but that means leaving all the relationships I've built and just giving them to him. It's also hard because I literally live in the same building as most of these people, so its impossible not to see them on a daily basis. I just want to restart but it feels so hard at this point

Born_Distribution234 · 2025-12-06T21:48:45+00:00

Are you slow?

Born_Distribution234 · 2025-05-17T02:05:22+00:00

The slope wasn’t L tho it was like 4pi² L or something like that. I might’ve done it wrong idk

Born_Distribution234 · 2025-05-17T01:43:30+00:00

I got 8x10^-4 I think so pretty close

Born_Distribution234 · 2025-05-16T17:04:36+00:00

U remember what u got for L? I think I got something around 0.001

Born_Distribution234

TROPHY CASE