Welcome to Codebase Spring 2024!

By Surbhi Jain, Spring 2024 President

Welcome back everyone to Spring 2024!! I hope everyone had a restful winter break and is excited to get back to campus!

If you walk through Sproul or the glade, I’m sure you will not be surprised to see the myriad of colorful tents and tables with flyers coming at you in all directions. There’s a club for everything at Cal whether that be dragon boat, teaching, dance, or identity-based groups.

Today, I want to talk about Codebase, one of the many tech-focused student organizations on campus. I’ll be going through who we are, what we do, what makes us unique, my reflections, and how you can apply!

Before we start, a little disclaimer: by no means am I saying that Codebase is the “best” club on campus — there’s a reason there are so many clubs. Every community is different, and it’s important to find the one that you enjoy the work, people, and mission of. Whether that’s Codebase for you or any other club, I really do hope you find your place and get the opportunity to explore what Berkeley has to offer.

What is Codebase?

Codebase was founded in 2016 by a small group of undergraduate computer science students with the mission to:

“Build a community of developers that empowers students to break into the software industry.”

The tech industry was, and still is, an extremely competitive (and scary) field to break into. Codebase aims to make industry experience more accessible and approachable to students. We’re a tight-knit community of developers, friends, and mentors who support each other throughout the college experience.

Every semester, our members work closely with clients to flesh out end-to-end impactful software development projects. Developers work in small groups with their project managers for 13 weeks, growing their technical skills and gaining industry exposure. Every semester we work on a range of projects in many different industries — decided on by the interests of our members. Last semester, we worked on projects relating to fintech, machine learning, and web development!

Our Fall 2023 Members!

What are our values?

We value growth, mutual learning, and uplifting each other in our passion for tech. A quick way to understand our culture is by reading over our Base Behaviours:

• Put People First — Care for people within our club! This means placing mental health and well-being over getting work done, helping each other out with classes or other stressors, and just extending kindness to each other!
• Actively Take Ownership — Show initiative and pride in your work, whether it’s stepping up on your project team, creating a CodeHost (see below!), or taking up a leadership role.
• Seek Continuous Growth — Be ambitious, always willing to learn, and proactive when it comes to seeking feedback. Be inspired by the people around you!
• Communicate Candidly — Don’t be afraid to speak your thoughts; create a culture of honesty, and prepare to listen and receive others kindly.
• Genuinely Give Back — We strongly value gratitude, appreciation, and paying forward all the best experiences and opportunities afforded to you.

More than that, we focus on creating a community that is supportive and moves towards eliminating the competitive culture that is cultivated at Berkeley. We discuss topics like imposter syndrome, social impact within the tech space, and approaching finances in our post-grad life.

What do projects look like?

The largest component of being a Codebase member is working on our projects. Every semester, Codebase works with four high-growth tech companies and one non-profit organization and builds a technical product for them. Each project team, consisting of two project managers (PMs) and six developers, collaborates closely with their client company’s software engineers through 13 weeks of agile development, complete with sprints, standups, and code reviews. Throughout this process, our members build their foundations in software engineering, learn the best industry practices, and work on a product with immediate feedback and users.

The Doordash team last semester

Our developers are still full-time students, so we always work remotely from our client, with the potential to deliver our two formal presentations throughout the semester in person.

We have two different types of projects:

• A Mentored Project — for those completely new to software engineering where we teach you full-stack fundamentals as you build a web project for a non-profit. In the past, we’ve developed dashboards, portals, and more for Open Heart Kitchen, Berkeley Food & Housing Project, and The San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
• A Client Project — for those with a bit more experience through classes, side projects, self-learning, or an internship. These projects partner with industry clients and can be frontend, backend, databases, distributed systems, crypto, virtual reality, etc.. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to know the stack already — we’ll teach it to you along the way. Some past clients include Doordash, Etsy, Truera, Bill.com, and Postman, among many others.

You can learn a little more about the requirements for which track you fall into and how to choose between the two tracks in our most recent blog post, How to Choose a Track: Mentored vs Client! If you’re still confused about which track is right for you, talk to us during tabling, infosessions, or through Discord, and we’d be happy to talk through your experiences and figure out which project is right for you. We also ask many questions on our application to help gauge which track we think is best suited for you and will let you know if we think you should be switching tracks.

We’ll be announcing our clients very soon so keep an eye out for updates on the specific companies and projects we’ll be working on this semester! https://codebase.berkeley.edu/projects

Etsy duckies from last semester on a team retreat near Arnold, CA (saw lots of big trees and food coma-ed over delicious hotpot)🐣🌳

Our Community

Yes, Codebase is a great way to get industry experience and develop your skills, but an arguably even more important aspect is the community and friends you get along the way. Berkeley is a big place, and being in Codebase gives you a small community within it to help you navigate college and make some of your closest friends.

We have a bunch of fun and enriching internal initiatives that comprise our Codebase experience:

• CodeHosts — members hosting an event to introduce their interest/hobby to the club! In the past, we’ve had board game nights, bouquet-making, a charcuterie board picnic…
• CodeBits/Bigs — being paired with a member of the club who can guide you through Codebase (and honestly just be your friend.)
• A semesterly day trip — in the past, we’ve gone to Six Flags, the Santa Cruz boardwalk, and Great America amusement park!
• Professional development mentorship — all new members get paired with a member or alum who might be more experienced with job/internship recruitment in various fields, grad school, teaching, research, etc., and receive weekly guidance.
• CodeTalks — lightning talks on fun things just to know other club members better and learn more about each others’ passions!
• CodeGals — an affinity group for women in Codebase to bond over shared experiences and hang out every semester.
• CodePals — slowly getting to know everyone in the club by being paired with a random person to hang out with every week!
• Projects, again — while projects do involve work, a lot of your time with your project team is also hanging out and doing fun activities (axe-throwing, hiking, baking) together! We even have bucket list competitions between teams!

A bouquet-making Codehost led by one of our lovely members in the past! 💐

How are we involved with the wider Berkeley community?

As a club, we try to be cognizant of our impact on the wider campus and Berkeley community, and how we can extend our resources to others. Here are just a few of our external initiatives planned for this semester:

• Professional development/recruitment workshops, open to all
• Tech talks/panels with industry speakers
• Joint events with other organizations at Berkeley, ranging from socials to professional events
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Tech roundtable
• Volunteering with the local community (we usually participate in The Berkeley Project together as a club!)
• While we don’t have the capacity and resources to offer a Mentored team experience to everyone, we have always published our mentored project curriculum for full-stack web development on our website for those looking to self-learn!

A past project team of mine — Ginger Fall 2021. They quite literally always had my back

What Codebase has meant for me.

I can wholeheartedly say that joining Codebase was the best decision I made in college. Coming to Berkeley, I was terrified of what computer science was going to be like and if I was going to make any friends. Originally, I kept doubting if Berkeley was even the right school for me because I was worried that everyone was too smart, I would feel intense imposter syndrome, and the environment was going to be overly competitive and toxic.

Even the idea of tech clubs scared me — it sounded like a breeding ground for even more feelings of I’m not smart enough to be here. But I remember going to the Women in Codebase pannel (now called the GEMS panel!), and hearing these remarkable women talk about imposter syndrome, gaining confidence, learning how to recruit and interview for internships, and finding their people at Berkeley. This wasn’t a group of people competing against each other, but one that uplifted each other and celebrated each others victories. That single event encouraged me to apply, and I haven’t looked back since.

I came in with a general interest in software engineering, but I had no clue what that meant or what type of work and industry I would enjoy most. As a Codebase developer, you get the chance to work on different tech stacks and industries every semester. I made sure to choose projects that were quite different from one another each semester. I was a client dev for 3 different projects, ranging from database systems, to full-stack desktop app development, to backend AWS route tracing. Then, I got the chance to lead a project in Machine Learning and Distributed Systems. Throughout all this, I got to learn so many different languages, frameworks, and industries, and it opened my eyes to how broad the software industry is.

More than the specific technical growth and languages, I learned to effectively communicate and increase my confidence. Going from shaking behind my computer terrified if I had to ask a question during our 10-person stand-up calls freshman year to helping organize a tech career fair for 500+ students, presenting at infosessions, and confidently talking to CEOs and leaders of tech companies — my Codebase journey, with so much support from my peers, has been transformative.

Most importantly, Codebase has given me the best friends and community I could have asked for. From iconic Friday nights at Jaguar for Codebase Karaoke, to exploring New York boroughs with fellow Codebase interns, to potlucks and “Codesgiving”, to going to Disneyland with my lineage, to camping out in moffit basement struggling through 61c and 70 together, to the simple late-night conversations — I am so so thankful for each and every member and am always in awe of how lucky I am to be part of such a great group of friends.

Some members during our club-wide retreat near Sacramento last semester!

Join our team!

We’re currently recruiting for both client and mentored project developers this Spring who are eager to learn, work on a project, and be a part of a strong community!

Throughout the first few weeks of the semester, we’ll be hosting a wide variety of recruitment events for you to get to know our members and learn more:

Gender Minorities in Codebase Panel — hear from some gender minorities in CB and their perspectives on navigating tech, Cal, and more!
January 18th 7–8 PM • BNorth 82A • In-Person Only

Codebase Infosession 1 — come meet us, hear about our work, and learn about our community!
January 18th 8–10 PM • SOCS 166• In-Person & Zoom

Tech Diversity Night (Joint Tech Fair) —come learn about many of the tech clubs on campus in an event specifically geared towards underrepresented minorities
January 19th 8–10 PM • TBA• In Person

Codebase Infosession 2 — exact same content as Infosession 1, for people who couldn’t make it!
January 21st 8–10 PM • SOCS 126 • In-Person & Zoom

URM in Codebase Fireside Chat — meet some CB members from various under-represented backgrounds in tech and hear about their experiences!
January 22nd 7–8 PM • BNorth 82D • In-Person Only

Cookies & Clubs (Joint Tech Fair) — come learn about some of the biggest tech clubs on campus, while enjoying some cookies!
January 22nd 8–10 PM • VLSB 2040 • In-Person Only

Application Due
January 25th @ 3AM
Apply here

Tabling @ Memorial Glade or Sproul
January 16–24th (excl. Weekends) 9AM-4PM

Discord Office Hours — Drop in on our Discord server at these times if you have any questions about your application!
January 20th, 6–8PM
January 22nd, 6–8PM
Discord Invite

Closing Thoughts

I truly hope Codebase can change your college experience the way it has mine, but whether it is through Codebase or another club or activity — go explore, learn, have fun, and make those lifelong friendships! I hope you have a wonderful semester ahead of you! And if there’s anything Codebase or I can do to help you — don’t hesitate to reach out! 🫶