On the weekend of April 16th, my friends and I participated in the first ever Southern California College Poker Tournament! The tournament was for college students in the SoCal area with a $0 buy-in that doubled as a recruiting event for quant and finance firms. A senior friend of mine (Vanessa, a fellow blogger) put together a team of five girls who had no interest in being recruited and just wanted to have fun playing poker.

Little Tokyo is a bit far from Caltech, but a fun LA experience overall, especially for anyone who likes Japanese food and/or culture.

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post for recommendations of boba around Caltech. This follow up includes a far more comprehensive list of boba shops in the 626/SGV area. Now, I’ll admit that I have a rather extensive spreadsheet of boba stores and drinks that I’ve tried and enjoyed or disliked. However, I’d rather not bore everyone with a full spreadsheet, especially when it reveals just how much boba I’ve had each year. However, if I attempted to write about all of the shops I’ve tried, this post would get too long, so it’s instead compressed into a much more easily digestible format: a Tiermaker list. Obviously, this is the most sophisticated possible presentation of this information and 100% objective. Definitely tested via the scientific method and not subject to personal bias whatsoever.

In the past few years, boba or bubble tea has exploded in popularity, with stores opening up all across the country. As a very avid but picky boba drinker, this has been a blessing for me, as I’ve been able to try drinks from so many new stores. In the past four years, I’ve been able to try what might be conservatively called a fairly significant portion of boba stores in the Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley area (otherwise known as 626/SGV).

Title image: Caltech students crowding around the windows to see Steph Curry shoot, credit: Mark Medina

Maybe you’ve hopped on a plane to LAX and now you’re trying to get to campus. Or you found some free time in between the 5 sets due next week and the sport you’re playing to take a trip out to LA. Whatever your reasons are, I hope this post offers some useful resources on how to get on/off campus. While Pasadena is a beautiful neighborhood, it’s not located in the most convenient areas of Los Angeles, an urban sprawl in and of itself. Please note this article is updated as of 2/3/2022.

As a Caltech student, I obviously have a love for STEM. But for me, that love is incomplete without the bigger picture—the role that STEM can play in helping society. That connection between science and humanity served as the initial motivation for one of my primary passions: organizing for environmental justice.

Now that the 2021 baseball season has come to close, I want to take a little trip down memory lane to the 2019 Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs. To set the scene, after an exciting wild card game win, the Washington Nationals (my team) began a five game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers win the first and third game of the series, and the Nationals win the second and fourth game, making game five a do-or-die situation. The final game took place at Dodgers Stadium, a mere 20 minute drive from Caltech. I pounced on this opportunity, going to the game with my fellow baseball-fanatic and Caltech student, Arya.

Hi y’all – this is my first post on the blog, and I’m glad to be here! This is actually a continuation of my friend and fellow blogger Tyler Colenbrander’s previous post about our experience living together over the past three virtual terms at Caltech. You can see his post at this link.

Even if you’ve heard of Caltech before, you might never have heard of Pasadena, the quaint Los Angeles suburb it’s tucked into.

It is currently 1:21 in the morning and I am thrilled to be writing the first post of our new admissions blog, Caltech Fission. For those of you who didn’t follow the old blog, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Andrew and I’m a senior at Caltech studying geophysics and English literature.

After a week being back, I think it’s about time for some reflections on what it meant to be abroad, and what I’ve taken away from it. I’m really happy to be back, but it’s just been almost a culture shock of sorts being back in California, and back at my true home (for now, at least).

There’s nothing more festive than beautiful holiday decor. Something that has gotten quite popular in recent years is light displays. Around Pasadena, the LA Zoo, LA Arboretum are a few venues that have elaborate holiday light displays. This past weekend, I went to check out the LA Zoo Lights. The general admission is $15 on weekdays and $20 on weekends, which is certainly not cheap, so if you do go, be sure to take a ton of photos.

This year, there was a superbloom in California because of all the rain we got from December to February. During spring break, three friends and I went to Anza-Borrego state park near San Diego to see the wildflowers. It’s about a 2 hour drive away from Caltech, and on the way, we saw flowers dotting the hills along the highway. Some hills were orange from all the California Poppies, while others were yellow and purple.

Welcome to part 2 of “Chandrew has a friend in town and is procrastinating his schoolwork by hanging out with him”! Also known as “It’s a Sunday so we went to the beach”. We specifically went to my old favorite beach – the place I went the first time I came to Los Angeles: Santa Monica! After a quick lunch in the morning of In-N-Out (gotta get that 3x3 and animal style fries every day), we took the trek out to the beach for some fun in the sun.

Greetings from La La Land! Actually, pretty much the top of La La Land. No, I didn’t make a trip out to Mt. Baldy; I did that last year and I suffered enough on that hike!

Fasten your seatbelts, attach your climbing harness to your jetpack, it’s time for FIELD TRIP 2019 EDITION! But Andrew, you say, you aren’t in any geology classes this term. And you’re right. This was something special. Something unique. Something just odd enough to be beautiful: an English field trip.

For R’s birthday, we went to get brunch at Zinc Cafe & Market in the LA Arts District. We had originally planned to go to BluJam Cafe in downtown LA, but there was unexpectedly a two hour wait because of the LA Marathon the next day! Thankfully we stumbled upon this place on Yelp and switched plans.

Printed Matter recently hosted an LA Art Book Fair at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Little Tokyo. The fair focuses on the distribution of artists’ books, and it is free to attend. Inside, there are hundreds of booths, each with its unique kind of merchandise, including books, zines, posters, monographs, and more.

Ever wanted to see the famous Hollywood sign up close? Well you can! There are several hikes that lead up to the Hollywood sign in the Santa Monica Mountains, ranging from 3 to 7 miles long. Some of the hikes start at Griffith Observatory, while others start in other parts of Griffith Park.

Last weekend, I went to get brunch with my friends. We went to Bird’s Nest Cafe near USC, which serves pancakes, tacos, sandwiches, omelettes, and more. I got the Sunrise Tacos pictured below, and I thought they were delicious. They usually come with avocados which would probably make them super appealing for most people, but unfortunately I’m allergic to avocados :( I would recommend coming to this place, since it’s really cute, not expensive, and quick!

Time for Renegade Craft Fair #3! I’ve been to the one in SF and the one in LA, so I was excited to hear that the fair was coming to Seattle for a weekend. Like the SF fair, it was held in an old warehouse, although this fair was much smaller than the one in SF (and about the same size as the one in LA).

It’s not a trip to the Bay Area without a trip to Din Tai Fung. I know that I have one in LA, but who can resist going to one of the best chains ever. DTF in the Bay Area is in the Santa Clara mall, which is much nearer to San Jose than San Francisco. The mall itself is a Westfield (interestingly, the same brand as the one in Arcadia) and is huge, with both fast fashion and high-end brands such a Gucci and Prada there. I went with my intern friends who also love Din Tai Fung.

Just a 2 hour drive away from Caltech is the sleepy town of Newport Beach, where you can go whale watching for $15-20! It’s a really cute and quiet town, with a nice calm vibe. It was my first time going whale watching since I was a kid, so I was pretty excited.

During a random weekend in 3rd term, my boyfriend and I visited Sequoia National Park. It’s a 4 hour drive north, but it’s totally worth it. It was beautiful!

During the last weeks of school, I went to Disneyland! Right now, Disneyland is holding Pixar Fest, where they have a Pixar themed parade and special Pixar merchandise. I hadn’t been there for several years, so I was really excited to go! It was a weekday, so the lines weren’t too long. We also used our Fastpasses effectively, so we only really had to wait in line once :) The costumes for the parade were all really well designed! I especially liked the Up costumes :)

During 3rd term, Page hosts a beach trip to Carlsbad, which is about 2 hours south of Caltech and 30 minutes north of San Diego. Everyone stays in a huge beach house, and we go to the beach during the day. Over the same weekend, my boyfriend and I visited San Diego since I’d never been! San Diego has amazing tacos (and amazing Mexican food in general). I ate so many fish tacos over that weekend, and they were all delicious. I keep thinking about them now that I’ve come back to Pasadena :P

Temescal Canyon lies in the Santa Monica Mountains, right next to the beach and about an hour away from Caltech. The trail itself is a 3 mile loop, with 860 ft elevation gain. After climbing to the top, we could see the Pacific ocean!

While I don’t always enjoy the beach, I had a ton of fun going with friends. The first evening, we just enjoyed the views offered by the sunset (and took a ton of photos in the meantime). However, the second day was really when the majority of people had arrived to enjoy playing at the beach.

Although there are a lot of smaller things, such as midterm smoothies and milkshakes (Blacker does something similar to this) and some larger things like Faculty Dessert Night, the soc team usually agrees that beach trip is the most work.