Berkeley Astronomy Department Graduate Students

Welcome to the GitHub home of the UC Berkeley Astronomy Department graduate student community — affectionately known as BAD Grads.

This repository serves as a shared space for:

• 🧭 Institutional knowledge
• 📚 Internal documentation
• 🛠️ Shared tools & resources
• 🧑‍🚀 Grad-student–run projects
• 🗂️ Things we wish someone had told us earlier

Whether you’re brand new, deep into your PhD, or about to defend, the repos in this organization are here to make life a little easier.

Typical contents may include:

• Onboarding & survival guides
• Department norms, timelines, and expectations
• TA / GSI resources
• Observing & computing tips
• Conference, fellowship, and funding info
• Social + community initiatives
• Living documents maintained by grads, for grads

Nothing here is official department policy — this is a peer-maintained resource.

The BAD Grads GitHub organization is more than just a wiki — it’s a shared home for graduate-student–maintained resources, tools, and documentation.

Contributions are encouraged, but we follow a few light guidelines to keep things organized and sustainable over time.

Any current or former UC Berkeley Astronomy graduate student

Contributions typically take one of two forms:

Use the wiki for:

• Text-based guides
• Living documents
• Onboarding and institutional knowledge
• Resources that benefit most students

If it’s primarily documentation, it probably belongs in the wiki. The rules for contributing to the wiki can be found in the corresponding repository and are somewhat different than those for individual repositories.

Create a new repository for:

• Code or software tools
• Data-processing workflows
• Larger projects that evolve over time
• Anything that benefits from versioning, issues, or releases

If it’s code-heavy, reusable, or growing, it likely deserves its own repo.

Ask yourself:

• Is this mostly text? → Wiki
• Is this code, scripts, or a long-term project? → Repo

If you’re unsure, that’s totally fine — ask an admin.

• New repositories are created by BAD Grads admins
• This helps maintain continuity as students graduate
• To request a repo:
  • Open an issue, or
  • Email the current BAD Grads admin(s)

Admins can also help decide whether your contribution fits best as a wiki page or a new repository.

We aim to keep this space:

• Useful over time
• Easy to navigate
• Low-barrier to contribute
• Maintained by grads, for grads

Perfection is not required — clarity and kindness are.

If you have ideas, questions, or improvements, start a conversation.
This organization grows with each cohort.