Nehal Eldeeb, a Ph.D. candidate in social welfare
For Eldeeb, serving as a Berkeley Connect graduate mentor has been a fantastic way to advance her own work while doing one of the things she enjoys the most: exchanging ideas with students.
“I’ve always loved mentoring,” says Eldeeb, noting that serving as a graduate mentor through Berkeley Connect is a wonderful opportunity because it is more relaxed and informal than serving as an instructor for a standard class.
While fewer than half of the Berkeley Connect students in her group had chosen social welfare as a major, all of them expressed an interest in finding a way to serve the greater good. Creating a welcoming atmosphere for the group discussions, Eldeeb helped the students think more broadly about the careers they are trying to build by considering, for example, the things that make a community thrive.
1 Berkeley Connect grad fellow for every 80 undergraduates
“I especially enjoyed the one-on-one conversations,” says Eldeeb, noting that students who seemed apprehensive about their Berkeley journey at their first meeting with her were strikingly more excited about their work and plans at subsequent ones. In the larger group discussions, students had an excellent opportunity to get to know one another in an intentionally noncompetitive environment.
Some more outgoing students, such as Rebekah Flores ’24, who spearheaded the blog post that led Eldeeb’s group to win the annual Berkeley Connect contest, stepped up to lead group discussions. For shy students, as Eldeeb herself had been, the warmth and openness of the atmosphere made it possible for them to participate in the group. At the same time, they knew that Eldeeb was available to talk with them privately about their goals and interests.
100% of grad fellows report significant research progress, and 92% report skills and experience helped advance their careers
With the support provided by her Berkeley Connect fellowship, Eldeeb has had more time to focus on her own research, which explores parents’ behavior on the internet in order to understand their needs and improve their access to useful information and services. Using topic modeling — an unsupervised machine-learning approach that analyzes large amounts of text data — Eldeeb seeks to develop effective interventions that meet parents where they are.
During her time as a Berkeley Connect graduate mentor, Eldeeb observed the positive impact of the program firsthand. Across the board, students in her group were energized by the interactions with her and with the other students, and by the end of the semester, they were more grounded and confident in their path moving forward. She also feels that Berkeley Connect is particularly valuable for students who are the first in their families to go to college, or who are otherwise unfamiliar with navigating large institutions.
“Our class discussions focused on social questions and issues that interested the students and considered what career paths they might take to address a given problem,” says Eldeeb. Clearly, Berkeley Connect mentors such as Eldeeb are helping students make the most of their time at Berkeley and think expansively about the future.
