Photo: Kevin Michael Photography / kevinmichaelphoto.com
Growing up in Silicon Valley in the 1980s and ’90s, Doreen Sinha ’00 enjoyed a solidly middle-class upbringing and excelled in school. Stanford might have made an obvious choice for college, but she didn’t even look at the brochures. “I always knew I belonged at Cal,” she recalls with a smile.
Once at Berkeley, Sinha marveled at professors such as Marian Diamond — who could hold hundreds of students rapt — and dove headfirst into earning a dual degree in molecular and cell biology and psychology. Looking back, Sinha is surprised by how much Cal has given her beyond a world-class education.
Sinha says her first post-college employer took a chance on her simply because she was a Berkeley graduate. She credits her current position at Genentech to her Cal connections. And in 2008 she met her husband, Ravi Sinha ’97, through mutual Cal friends. “I keep reaping the rewards of Cal even though I’m 15 years out from graduation,” she says.
That awareness fuels Sinha’s desire to give to Berkeley and to encourage others to do the same as a volunteer for the Class of 2000’s 15th Reunion Gift campaign. “Cal has opened so many doors for us,” she says. “I want to tell people: Don’t wait till you’re older. Donate what you can now.”
Sinha was energized by the Big Give last November and hopes its success at inspiring young alumni to give means that a new generation of Cal graduates are stepping up to the plate. “We say we want Berkeley to be affordable for the students coming after us,” she says. “It’s time for the young and youngish alumni like me to stand up and put our money where our mouths are.”
