‘One guy offered to pay me in weed’: The best UC Berkeley tour guide stories

We’ve all seen those bustling tour groups wandering Berkeley’s campus, comprised of earnest prospective students, helicopter parents with varying degrees of aggression, middle schoolers on field trips, and tourists sporting Cal gear, to name a few. They gaze fervently at landmarks like the Campanile and Doe Library, and point at Evans Hall asking if that’s where the dorms are.

While most tours go relatively smoothly and guests to the university are respectful and enthusiastic, a job with this degree of customer service is bound to bring some interesting moments. We talked to some of UC Berkeley’s campus ambassadors, who are responsible for leading tours and working at the Visitor Center and Campanile clock tower, and asked about their best stories.

Jimmy Draper, 19, Public Health & Political Science, Palos Verdes CA

A guy yelled at me for not getting them to the bathroom within 2 minutes, and blamed it on public college institutionalized brain-washing of sub-par performance being okay.

Jamie Ferrell, 20, English & Creative Writing, Santa Cruz CA

One mom handed me her son’s resume at the end of a tour and asked me his chances of getting into the school (while he looked on in horror).

Another time, a little kid on one of my tours asked if the statue of Pappy Waldorf, renowned Cal football coach from 1947-1957, was a statue of Arnold Schwarzenegger. When I replied that it wasn’t, he spent the rest of the tour interrupting me to ask where Arnold Schwarzenegger was.

And once while I was giving a tour to a middle school group and explaining about the Free Speech Movement, some lady walking by yelled, “That’s why we’re allowed to say ‘fuck’ in our school papers!” All the kids just stared.

Lexi Goldwyn, 19, Polital Science & Legal Studies, Sacramento CA

One time an elderly Turkish couple came to class with me. I said I was in a Middle Eastern policy class and they asked if they could join and darn it they came.

And on my second tour ever my whole tour group and I got free horchata from one of the Latin@ orgs on campus, which was cool.

 Jeremy Saraie, 19, Political Science, Encino CA

This one time a mom was picking me apart about what kind of residence hall Foothill was. She wasn’t clear if it was freshman housing or upperclassmen housing and she starting raising her voice and getting aggressive and her daughter put her head in her hands and walked away. I had to answer the mom’s question like 3 times until she noticed her emotionally destroyed daughter walking away from the group and abruptly stopped talking.

Rosemarie Alejandrino, 20, English and American Studies, Vallejo CA

So I’ve given a lot of middle school tours and I’ve learned that middle schoolers really do love memes. I asked one of them how many libraries they think we have and someone screamed “1738!”

Another tour there was like a stray shoe on the ground and a whole group of them ran over to it just so they could scream “WHAT ARE THOSE” …so my faith in the next generation has been repeatedly restored.

Ryan Cosner, 19, Mechanical Engineering, Manhattan Beach CA

I was working at the Campanile once and one guy only had two dollars, not three, so he offered to pay me in weed. I declined laughing.

Once, same day I think, a guy came into the Campanile and asked me where he could find the trees. I got confused and just said “…everywhere”

Samantha Stegman, 20, Astrophysics, San Diego CA

I once had a middle schooler ask if we branded our football players.

Caroline Smith, 19, Rhetoric, Burlingame CA

My favorite tour memory by far is the tour I gave to a group of middle schoolers that I wrapped up with, “Any last questions?” and one kid instantly goes “What’s your number?” I struggled to break it to his 12 year old self that we weren’t meant to be.

Dana Alpert, 18, Political Science, Templeton CA

On a high school tour I was giving someone said, “There are so many stairs here! The students must be jacked.” And then a few minutes later, “How many stair-related accidents occur here every year?”

Kyle Hwang, 19, Intended Business & Statistics, Potomac MD

On Wed 8/10 at 2pm a wave of red arrives on Sproul Plaza. The middle school group had just finished its campus visit at the university that should not be named. Berkeley students stared at the red cardinal shirts concentrated in front of Sproul Hall. The middle schoolers realized the lack of red on campus and wished they brought a change of clothes.

Students: “If you gave us Cal shirts, then we would change. Stanford gave us free shirts, why don’t you?”

Me: “Because we’re a public university.”

Rachel Marcus, 19, Molecular and Cell Biology, Los Angeles CA

It was a normal weekday summer tour, where I was wearing my usual Cal Day shirt, Campus Ambassador jacket, leggings, and running shoes combo. (aka perfectly in correct attire) After the tour, one of the dads asked a few questions and then walked away. A few minutes later he came back with his son and asked if I was on the gymnastics team.

I politely replied no, I was on club lacrosse (which I had mentioned multiple times throughout the tour) and then asked if he wanted to know for any particular reason.

He replied that my legs were amazing and that I was the sexiest tour guide he had so far. After he continued to talk about my body, while his son just stood there, he proceeded to give me his business card so that ‘when his son gets into Cal he has a connection.’ Needless to say, that business card was recycled as soon as I got back to the Visitor Center.

Alexis Montoya, 20, Public Health, Atwater CA

When I was on Sproul Plaza talking about the Mario Savio steps and how they are used for dance shows, spirit rallies, cultural performances, social and political protests, etc. I got the follow up question “do you have any pro ISIS protests?”

Kylie Mulvaney, 21, Public Health & Integrative Biology, Newport Beach CA

I got a t-shirt from a Norwegian tour group of the most attractive blond humans who were way cooler than me. They thought I was going to be larger so it’s an XL and I kept it (whoops). Also, they all audibly, simultaneously sighed when I told them we are a tobacco-free campus.

Telling people that Marsh and Osborn (the dinosaur skeletons in VLSB) are only casts of the real fossils is without fail the most depressing part for at least 2 visitors on every tour.

And once, after I told a middle school tour they could ask me tons of questions, they asked me how many tiles there are on Sproul Plaza.