Student Organizations
Joining a student organizations is a great way to learn a new skill, meet like-minded people, and establish connections to enrich your college experience. There are so many ways to get involved.
Graduate Student Organizations
- Planning Students Association
- Room One Thousand
- Transportation Graduate Students Organizing Committee (TRANSOC)
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.
Find us on Instagram at @roomonethousand or 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.
Find us online at @transocberkeley or 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 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 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.
Find them online at @aiasberkeley or get in touch via email at aiasberkeley@gmail.com.
Alpha Rho Chi 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.
The UC Berkeley student chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA@Berkeley) is the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Department’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.
Find them online at @berkeleylaep_students or get in touch via email at berkeleystudentasla@gmail.com.
BUSSA is the undergraduate student association for urban studies majors, city planning minors, and all other students at UC Berkeley interested in city planning.
Find them online at @berkeleyurbanstudies or get in touch via email at berkeley.urbanstudies@gmail.com.
The Chicano/Latino Architecture Student Association, better known by the acronym CASA, is dedicated to providing outreach, support, and a professional network post-graduation for all students at Cal 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.
Find us online at @casaberkeley or get in touch via email at casistas@gmail.com.
Connect with CASA alumni by contacting: roy.hernandez@thirdwavecorp.com.
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!
Email contact: cedambassadors@berkeley.edu
CED Students of Color 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.
The mission of the CED Undergraduate Student Council 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.
Find them online at @cedugsc or get in touch via email at cedugsc@berkeley.edu.
NOMA stands for the National Organization of Minority Architects, 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.
Find them online at @nomas_berkeley or get in touch via email at nomas.berkeley@gmail.com.
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.
Find them online at @ucb.pasae or get in touch via email.
We are 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.
Find us online at @seed_cal or get in touch via email at sustainabledesign.cal@gmail.com.
Sustainable Housing at California, also known as 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.
Find them online at @calshac or get in touch via email at sustainablehousingatcal@gmail.com.
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 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.
Find us online at @asuchousing or get in touch via email at housing@asuc.org.
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.
Find RGI online and get in touch with campus reps Sarah Ricci and Bellamy Cramer at bambooabroadatberkeley@gmail.
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.
Find us online at @calconstructionteam or get in touch via email.
We are 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.
Find us online at @inventioncorps or get in touch via email.
SDG Undergraduate Research Group 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.
Find us online at @surg.berkeley or get in touch via email at surg.berkeley@gmail.com.
A student-led coalition that is fighting to make Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue car-free. Find us on at on Instagram, or get in touch via email.
The purposes of this organization are: 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 University of California at Berkeley campus.
Find us online at @urecberkeley or get in touch via email at urec@berkeley.edu.