Wondering what it’s really like to study abroad at UC Berkeley? For Aoife Haines (IH 2024-25), an exchange student from Trinity College Dublin, it starts with where you live. She chose International House Berkeley — and found a community she never expected.
“It was so easy to meet people. I’ve never been in a place that was so open,” says Aoife (pictured above, center), who studied English at Trinity College and came to Berkeley through the UC Education Abroad Program (UCEAP). The I-House Dining Commons became an early revelation. Unlike most university cafeterias, where students eat and move on, dinner at I-House felt like a nightly gathering.
“I would just go up to people I’d never spoken to and say, ‘Can I join you?’ And they’d be like, ‘Yeah, of course. Where are you from?’ That really made it for me. It was a community of people I didn’t even know, but it was still a community.”
International House Berkeley — known as I-House — is a residential community that brings together more than 600 students from around the world, including exchange students, international students, and US students, all living under one roof. It’s that diversity — combined with programming designed to bring residents together — that makes I-House something different from the typical student housing near UC Berkeley.
DiversiTEA & Coffee Hours quickly became a highlight of the week. “I’d be like, ‘Yes, it’s Wednesday,’” Aoife says. She attended nearly every one, drawn by the dancing, the energy, and the way the event pulled the whole house together at the end of the day. At one, she sat down to play the drums alongside a resident from Denmark who played a Romanian flute he had made himself. It was, she says, a perfect I-House moment.
That same spirit animated the I-House band Aoife helped start. The “Sunday Suppers” grew from five to 15 members, drawing players from seven countries, with Aoife always on the drums. They played the first Sunday Supper of the year, the Resident Benefit Concert, and the I-House Prom. Their finale — a flash-mob performance of It’s Raining Men at last spring’s Sunday Supper, with 30 residents rushing the stage to flex their muscles — captured everything she loved about I-House. “It was a community project,” she says. “Meeting everyone and organizing something together was so much fun.”
Holding our candles and friendships close to our hearts at Sunday Supper
Cara being carried offstage at the end of 'It's Raining Men.'
The social life extended well beyond I-House events. Aoife quickly found herself part of a group that had a standing weekly rotation of places to go out together, a tradition that grew organically out of the connections she made in the building. A favorite was the Starry Plow, a Berkeley pub with enough of an Irish feel that Aoife felt at home. Nights out sometimes extended across the bay into San Francisco, where she and her bandmate would walk into bars with live music and ask if they could join in. More often than not, the answer was yes — and they’d find themselves playing alongside professional musicians on a San Francisco stage. “It was just a really nice vibe,” she says.
The incredible sunset from Cara's 8th-floor bay view room.
The band in costume for 'Teenage Dirtbag' at the Resident Benefit Concert.
Shirts gifted to us by the Starry Plough at the end of the year for our Irish dancing.
The Amtrak up to Olympic National Park (Thanksgiving).
I-House friendships have a way of turning into adventures. One of her first Bay Area memories is sleeping under the redwoods at a friend’s cabin in Muir Woods, mattresses dragged outside into the forest. From there, the adventures kept coming, always with different I-House friends. She explored California on weekend excursions and took the Amtrak train up to Olympic National Park in Washington.
Before heading home to Ireland, she and I-House friends spent three weeks on a road trip visiting national parks across California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming — a journey she had dreamed of and one of the reasons she decided to study abroad in the United States.
Skiing in Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe group photo
Campfire at Grand Teton National Park
The friendships have endured. Aoife now lives in Dublin with her former roommate, Beth Sinclair (IH 2024-25). When the two hosted a housewarming, former I-House residents from across Ireland showed up along with friends from France and the UK. For New Year’s, a group of I-House friends celebrated together in Scotland, and last summer, Aoife traveled across Europe visiting still more I-House friends in different countries.
“I think I did everything I-House offered,” she says. “And it really was life-changing because of that — in terms of who I met, and the fact that now I just have friends all over the world. That’s really cool.”
Planning your exchange year at UC Berkeley? International House Berkeley offers exchange students a one-of-a-kind living experience — student housing unlike any other, with a built-in global community and programming designed to make your year unforgettable. Learn more about living at I-House and how to apply.