Student Organizations
Student organizations at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design support our community and enrich the academic experience. Participating in a student organization is a great way to learn a new skill, engage more fully with your education, and connect with others at CED.
Graduate Student Organizations
- Graduate Architecture Student Union (GASU)
- Planning Students Association (PSA)
- Room One Thousand
- Transportation Graduate Students Organizing Committee (TRANSOC)
The Graduate Architecture Student Union (GASU) exists to support graduate students in the Department of Architecture. It is led by graduate students who work with faculty, staff, undergraduate students, alums, and other community members. GASU’s meetings, programming, and organizational resources are dedicated to supporting, connecting, and generating opportunities for graduate students.
The Planning Students Association (PSA) is the student group for graduate students in the Department of City and Regional Planning. PSA supports the program professionally (through events such as alumni mixers, and helping gather and distribute professional resources), socially (through trips and other social events), and through advocacy for students (acting as a liaison between students and the department or broader university).
Room One Thousand is the graduate architecture journal at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. Perched atop Wurster Hall, Room 1000 is also a small, unemphasized room with expansive views of Berkeley, the San Francisco Bay, and the ocean beyond. Like its namesake, the journal serves as a vantage point from which one might observe contemporary architecture as it operates in relation to the city, the landscape, and the many forces, institutions, and people that help shape them. The journal is thought of as a medium: as both a platform for conversation and a vehicle for generation. For each annual printed publication, our editorial team solicits articles from distinguished scholars and practitioners from around the world, then our graphics team produces the journal.
Get in touch via email.
TRANSOC is the long-standing student-run organization on the UC Berkeley campus that supports the well-being and success of transportation graduate students from related disciplines, such as civil engineering, city and regional planning, and public health and policy. Our mission is to empower our students with abundant academic, social, and professional resources and connect current students with our powerful global network of alums. We organize a variety of events to support our students all year round, including workshops on academic conferences, career panels, study sessions, office visits, picnics and mixers, and the annual alum reception.
Get in touch via email.
Undergraduate Student Organizations
- American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS)
- Alpha Rho Chi (APX)
- American Society of Landscape Architects, Berkeley Student Chapter (ASLA)
- Berkeley Urban Studies Student Association (BUSSA)
- Chicanx/Latinx Architecture Student Association (CASA)
- CED Admissions Ambassadors
- College of Environmental Design Students of Color (CEDSOC)
- CED Undergraduate Student Council (CED UGSC)
- National Association of Minority Landscape Architects (NAMLA)
- National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMAS)
- OddYard Zine
- Pilipinx Association of Scientists, Architects, and Engineers (PASAE)
- Sustainable Efforts in Environmental Design (SEED)
- Sustainable Housing at California (SHAC)
The American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) is a professional organization that is the official voice of architecture students in North America. AIAS Berkeley is a part of the West Quad Chapters, providing professional support to the architecture community in Wurster Hall. AIAS events include attending national conferences, firm tours, workshops, and socials.
Get in touch via email at via email.
Alpha Rho Chi (APX) is UC Berkeley’s premiere co-ed professional fraternity for architecture and the allied arts. APX promotes professional development, lifelong relationships, academic support, and extensive networking.
Get in touch via email.
The UC Berkeley student chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA@Berkeley) is the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning’s student group, serving MLA and MLA-EP students, as well as landscape architecture undergrads. ASLA at Berkeley coordinates professional development and skill-building opportunities, organizes social and community service activities, and represents the student’s voice at faculty and curriculum committee meetings and to the CED Dean’s office.
Get in touch via email at via email.
The Berkeley Urban Studies Student Association (BUSSA) is the undergraduate student association for urban studies majors, city planning minors, and all other students at UC Berkeley interested in city planning.
Get in touch via email.
The Chicano/Latino Architecture Student Association (CASA) is dedicated to providing outreach, support, and a professional network post-graduation for all students interested in any major in the College of Environmental Design. In addition, CASA is committed to working with other professional student organizations in the campus community to help raise more community awareness amongst ourselves and within the professional realm. CASA board members encourage all students to join, in the hope that CASA becomes for you what it is for us: great friends, great networking, and great support — a family.
Get in touch via email.
Connect with CASA alums by contacting: roy.hernandez@thirdwavecorp.com.
CED’s Admissions Ambassadors are current CED students who gain personal and professional skills by reaching out to local, national, and international communities. We host outreach events such as high school and community college visits to Bauer Wurster, meeting prospective students on campus, panels, presentations, phone banking, Cal Day, development, use of multimedia tools, and more!
Get in touch via email.
CED Students of Color (CEDSOC) aims to develop and expand the academic and social support, mentorship, career networking, and advocacy efforts for students of color and other underrepresented students within the College of Environmental Design. Students of color include those who identify themselves as African-American, Native American, Asian American, Latina/o, and Pacific Islander, however CED-SOC is inclusive and embraces all forms of diversity including LGBTQ students, low-income students, and allies who value and work for equity and justice within low-income communities and communities of color.
Get in touch via email.
The CED Undergraduate Student Council’s (CED UDSC) mission is to represent the undergraduate student body within the College; address the needs of undergraduate peers through service; provide representation on College committees; and advocate for the undergraduate student population in CED to faculty and administration.
Get in touch via email.
NAMLA at Berkeley is a student organization aimed to provide space, resources, and community for minority and underrepresented communities interested in the landscape architecture field. This includes students who identify as BIPOC, queer/LGBTQIA+, first-generation, low-income, as well as allies who wish to support these communities. NAMLA aims to support students through multiple pillars of academic support, professional development, and community-building.
Get in touch via email.
The National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMAS) is an organization dedicated to giving a platform for minority architects to advance their place in the architectural industry, fight social and environmental injustices (not necessarily limited to architecture), and bring unity to a diverse body through shared visions and goals. NOMAS is the NOMA representative for Student university chapters.
Get in touch via email.
OddYard is a student-run, independently funded publication that strives to provide an interaction between art and the city. We want to understand, analyze, and apply urban design and architecture to our everyday lives. One objective is to learn and research; take in all the necessary information to be well equipped and informed for our environment, to design, to build. We hope to take and apply this information to research, writing and art, creating a product whose language is understandable. Because we are new to this topic of research, green in the field of urban design, we decided to focus on the needs of ourselves and our peers. Our research, art and writing is aimed at building a framework for change in the urban environment; looking at ways to shift the relationship between planner and user. Our observations on how people interact with the urban environment is the base for our research. Our work is starting small with the intent to widen in scope.
OddYard strives to create a free flowing, democratic environment. We have no application process for general members and will not for the foreseeable future. We believe that everyone should have access and opportunities surrounding urban design. Above all, we aim to display as broad a spectrum of people and issues as possible. We will purposefully use this medium for voices of POC, people living with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, and others whose voices have been marginalized in the history of Western urban design. With this in common, members of OddYard step forward to become engaged and active within the urban environment through art, action, research and writing.
Get in touch via email.
The Pilipinx Association of Scientists, Architects, and Engineers (PASAE) is an organization with the main purpose to guide students throughout their college careers, in hopes that they will evolve academically, professionally, and socially. PASAE strives to bring students together, regardless of their backgrounds or circumstances, through events such as professional mixers, study sessions, and weekly meetings.
Get in touch via email.
Sustainable Efforts in Environmental Design (SEED) is the student group for SED majors within CED (though all majors are welcome). The purpose of the group is to network, learn about possible career paths, and meet others who share a common interest in sustainable design.
Get in touch via email.
Sustainable Housing at California (SHAC) is a group of undergraduate and graduate students at UC Berkeley with a shared passion for sustainability in the built environment. Through hands-on and interdisciplinary projects, SHAC offers an educational experience for students, brings about positive impacts to our community, and develops innovative technologies and methodologies for the world beyond.
Get in touch via email.
Affiliated Student Organizations
- ASUC Housing Commission
- Bamboo Abroad at UC Berkeley
- Cal Construction
- Invention Corps of Berkeley
- Sustainable Undergraduate Research Group (SURG)
- Telegraph for People (TFP)
- Undergraduate Real Estate Club (UREC)
The ASUC Housing Commission works to address UC Berkeley’s student housing crisis, a problem that affects both a student body and the surrounding community of the East Bay. The Housing Commission is chartered body of commissioners established by the Associated Students of the University of California — UC Berkeley’s student government. We exist to educate, coordinate, and advocate on issues relating to housing policy both on the local level and for housing owned and operated by UC Berkeley.
Get in touch via email.
Bamboo Abroad at Berkeley is the campus branch of the Regeneration Field Institute (RFI), which runs an eight-day immersive experiential learning program in Chone, Ecuador. Berkeley programs run every January and May. Local architects, farmers, and field experts cover topics including bamboo construction, environmental design, sustainable architecture and engineering, agroforestry, ecosystem restoration, and more.
Students will live, learn; and work in a bamboo house on the Los Arboleros farm surrounded by the biodiversity and beauty of natural, native Ecuador which RFI is working to protect, regenerate, and preserve. We then support the local community with a bamboo construction project. Past projects include renovating bus stops, sports dugouts, storefronts for businesses, and an outdoor recreation space for an elderly center.
Connect with campus reps via email.
Join the Cal Construction Team and learn how architecture and design is applied in the construction industry through professional coaches that teach our students what we need to compete in the annual ASC Competition in Reno, Nevada. Learn valuable insight behind the cost of buildings and constructibility of structures. We’ll be sending 4 teams to Reno in this upcoming year in the Commercial, LEED, Virtual Design Construction, and Design Build competitions.
Get in touch via email.
Invention Corps of Berkeley is a not-for-profit, multidisciplinary student organization focused on human-centered design by partnering with professors, graduate students, and companies on specific projects that utilize design thinking to improve existing solutions on poverty, health, environment, and society. As a diverse organization of all skill sets and backgrounds, we are fueled by our individual passions and converge upon those passions to create a holistic organization by continuously prototyping with the goal of empowering ourselves and others. Our aim is to invent new ways to make a better world.
Get in touch via email.
The Sustainable Undergraduate Research Group (SURG) is an undergraduate research group affiliated with the UC Berkeley Office of Sustainability and guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We strive to research local cross-cutting issues, empower undergraduate voices, and increase the accessibility of research on campus. Researchers will join working groups that tackle an area of sustainability tied to the UN SDGs that interests them, contribute to a collaborative research report, and present their
findings to key stakeholders.
Get in touch via email.
Telegraph for the People (TFP) is a student-led coalition that is fighting to make Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue car-free.
Get in touch via email.
The Undergraduate Real Estate Club (UREC) works to increase awareness of the real estate industry; to provide a network for students interested in the real estate industry; to function as a representative organization of the undergraduate student body interested in real estate at the UC Berkeley campus.
Get in touch via email.