Berkeley, Bay Area Connections
February 6, 2008
Many of you know that my wife Sarah applied to PhD programs last fall. Well, in the last few days, we found out that she was accepted into the Christian Spirituality PhD program at Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley. This is great news as we are interested in the possibility of heading out west. Unfortunately, we don’t know that it will be financially feasible for us to make the move and live in the Bay area. So, this is the fun part - this is where you all come in - you my faithful readers of pomomusings. We would love any possible ideas, leads, contacts or suggestions about the following things:
- I need a job. I’ve heard there are really not many positions available in the San Francisco Presbytery. And at this point, I’m open to plenty of different possibilities (Presbyterian or other). Ideally I’d love to be doing something in campus ministry, but I also know there are plenty of Apple stores around - though I’m not sure that would be enough of an income for us to both live and eat in the Bay area. So I’m interested in ministry positions, but I’m open to tech jobs, non-profit work, or other creative possibilities (although Starbucks is becoming more and more a viable alternative).
- We need somewhere to live. Obviously, after two years of married seminary housing, we know we won’t be able to find a place for $500 like we’re used to. But we are hoping to find someplace reasonably priced, and a place that allows dogs. We briefly looked at some co-housing options, but the rent for one of those units was $1800/month. If you know of anything in the area, or have any connections with people, please let us know.
- Scholarship & Grants. Sarah got a scholarship that covers tuition and a very minimal stipend, but it’s certainly not enough to live on. If anyone knows of any scholarship, grants, fellowships, or free money, please let us know (you can email Sarah here).
- Lifelong advice.We are always interested in free advice, if you have no other useful information for us. Thanks!
We’ve already had a few friends who have connected us with some people in the Bay area. Any other helpful advice would be so much appreciated. We have some pretty big decisions to make in the next month or two and would appreciate your prayer, advice, connections and money (that’s right, I’m not afraid to ask).
Tags: Berkeley, GTU, Housing, San Francisco
Posted in General
Adam Walker Cleaveland: I am a 28 yr old 
February 6th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Random act of adviceness:
Contact the EP, GP, and the COM chair, whoever the head honcho in San Francisco Presbytery is, send them your PIF and describe your situation to them. There are, just like the real world, more opportunites out there than are posted on the denomination’s official call system. They just might be looking for someone to serve as temporary/stated supplydesignated pastor somewhere and were just waiting for you to come along.
February 6th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Adam, I have a friend who is the youth director at First Pres Berkeley. His name is Mat Grover. He got to Whitworth when we graduated. I can get you his contact info if interested.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Adam — I would certainly contact First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. That’s a great church–with lots of people in the area. They may know of inexpensive housing–or housing sitting–or whatever. I am willing to introduce you and Sarah to Mark Labberton, the pastor there, if you desire.
February 7th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Adam, it would be AWESOME for you and Sarah to head out this way! I graduated from Pacific School of Religion in 2003 and still get over to Holy Hill occasionally. As has already been said First Pres. Berkeley would be a great place to begin your search for more tangible possibilities. Housing is indeed primo expensive in Berkeley (I was fortunate to be in PSR student housing all four years), but head down the road toward Albany or El Cerrito and you might have more options. I definitely believe you can find something under 1800.00 though Adam. Depending on enrollment at PSR they’ll make their available housing open to GTU students and I think a couple of the other schools do that too. I know GTU has an apartment building but no doubt getting in there is probably slim.
Hope it works out for you!
February 7th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Adam,
My friend, Scott Loo, is the Evangelism pastor at First Pres. I bet he could hook you up with a place to stay. He and some other friends of mine are involved in community development in Oakland. They do a lot of communal housing and stuff like that. They might have some openings. I’d be happy to contact him if you’d like. Drop me an email and let me know.
February 7th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Hey buddy, congrats to your lady - that’s awesome! I don’t have any leads (having never been there before) but i do know that if you like thunderstorms with pretty lightning, then you have to visit the Jo’burg highveld. Apparently we have meterologists from all over the planet coming to check out our lightning.
Ps - looks like i’m also following my lady across the world without a job. She may go work in Aus for 2 years - i’ll do gardening or design or perhaps parish stuff. we shall see!
take care…
February 7th, 2008 at 3:46 am
Adam, Bay Area pricing is coming down a lot, especially this last year. If you need to be near Berkeley you can simply commute in and live in the surrounding areas.
The other option is to consider South San Francisco and try and get a design job in the city. Lots of great companies with money in the SOMA. Berkeley is just over the bridge. If you have a good portfolio I can pass it a long to a few people. But there’s lots of good jobs to be found in the city. Try Monster or Dice.
February 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
A few years ago, we moved from Jersey to CA for my husband to do post-grad work. Now we are at home (w/o) the masters and trying to get ourselves out of the debt we accumulated while in CA.
Things you can learn from us:
Make sure you have jobs before you go, the population is high therefore the competition for jobs is insane. My husband got a composing job and by the end of his phone conversation with the producer he (the producer) had received 200 more messages of interest.
The cost of living is high! I live outside of NY, and thought I knew what expensive was, apparently I didn’t. Even things like food are much more expensive. Also, we lived in an intentional community set-up by the university in a shady portion of the city and still paid about a $1000/mo, (about 3 years ago) which I might add was cheap compared to other housing.
Gas is expensive and traffic is the worst I have ever seen…now the Berkley area may be better in that respect then the LA area.
Last but certainly not least, moving costs are VERY expensive for a cross country move. Take only what you really want long term and factor in the cost of moving it one way and then to wherever you want to end up. We made the mistake of taking what we thought was important to hold onto and ended up selling off more then half of our stuff on the way home…we couldn’t justify the cost of moving it back.
I wish you guys the best of luck! Please learn from our stupidity! Everyone, we met prior to moving was so encouraging, and just kept telling us things would work out. That wasn’t the case, I wish we and others were more realistic about such a big move. SO not to be a total downer, but the above are things to consider.
February 9th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Hi Adam,
The GTU married housing is really nice at least for the Episcopalians. The prices are great and the location can’t be beat. Check out the CDSP housing and see if they let any other GTU people live there.
Good Liuck,
Lisa C.
February 11th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Adam,
Looks like you’ve already got some good leads on jobs, but if you’re interested in non-profit work, I know there are a few intern positions open in that area with Young Life. I’m not sure how much they pay, but I guess there’s no harm in looking. younglife.org is the website and I think there’s a link on the home page somewhere for Job Opportunities. Best of luck!
-Stefphan