HAVING A BALL: CEE freshman Mike Van Winden says that, despite the sleepless nights and cramped schedule, playing baseball makes him happy.

Freshman says the struggle to balance engineering and baseball is worth it

Aside from the usual anxieties and adjustments of freshman year, CEE major Mike Van Winden has a lot to deal with. He is keeping one eye on his grade point average while the other eye is trained on his batting average.

After playing high school baseball in his home town of Napa, California, Van Winden now plays baseball for Cal alongside teammates with baseball scholarships, who aspire to careers as professional athletes.

Getting a spot on the baseball team as a “walk on,” someone who isn’t recruited to play for Cal and must try out for a spot, is tough and competitive.

Regardless, Van Winden demonstrated the skills and promise required to secure a coveted walk-on spot as a utility player on this year’s team. He primarily plays first base.

Van Winden doesn’t want to play ball for a living, he says he is just having fun. But that fun comes with a price. Making the team might have been tough, but now the hard part really begins.

Balancing a serious baseball practice schedule that takes up six afternoons a week, not including game days, with an engineering curriculum heavy in homework is usually too much for most people to handle.

Few engineers have historically played baseball for Cal, most likely because of the strain and intensity of the double commitments.

“I am the only engineer on the team. Other players have told me that they would have loved to study engineering but felt they couldn’t do both, so they chose baseball,” he says.

Game days typically take up to seven hours a day. Two weeks ago he had a mock game on Tuesday, a real game on Wednesday, and two midterms on Thursday.

“It’s very hard to balance both. Baseball takes up the time that other people have to devote to studying. In the last 10 days, we’ve had eight games,” says Van Winden.

Because of his practice schedule, Van Winden misses out on study group meetings and office hours and must do his homework alone late at night. Some mornings he wakes up at dawn to go running with the team.

Sleep isn’t the only thing he sacrifices. His schedule doesn’t leave much time to socialize and relax. In those rare moments of free time he watches movies, plays golf, or goes to San Francisco to unwind.

While it may borrow time from studying, the physical activity and welcome distraction of baseball help Van Winden relieve school-related stress. It also gives him the energy and confidence to tackle his day.

He says the pressure, sleep deprivation, and time crunch are well worth the effort. He feels lucky to attend Berkeley Engineering and to have the opportunity to play baseball in college.

Despite his demanding load Van Winden doesn’t want to choose between the two and plans to work harder to manage both.

“I am optimistic that I can do both, and I will do all I can to make sure of it. There will probably be many sleepless nights and summers of school ahead,” he laughs.

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