We are a collective of students within the UC Berkeley Joint Medical Program as well as medical students attending UC Berkeley for our masters’ degrees. Many of us are from historically marginalized and disadvantaged backgrounds. As such, we recognize the specific challenges and barriers to recruiting and supporting underrepresented minority students. We aim to use our expertise as URM medical students to support the premedical students at UC Berkeley and the greater Bay Area. 

As medical students we aim to uncover the hidden curriculum for URM students of Berkeley. Through the Big C Funding we would be able to provide longitudinal direct mentorship as well as host a series of events that would allow premedical students to gain valuable information, build connections to nearby medical institutions, and provide opportunities for networking which have in our experience have proven highly effective at getting us to the next steps of our career development. 

In summary, we aim to strengthen pathway connections across the lengthy application timeline for students that are underrepresented in medicine.