As new students arrive on the Berkeley campus this month, they may be preoccupied with spiraling concerns and tempted to forget what lies outside classrooms and labs.

They will be greeted with a campus reeling from setback after setback: a structural deficit, a spate of sexual harassment investigations and a chancellor at the brink of resignation.

Meanwhile, off campus, a contentious city election is brewing, and one-of-a-kind restaurants await students’ discovery after they exhaust their options — and their meal points — at dining halls.

Your Berkeley experience is just that — yours. Students will divergently navigate this intricate, diverse community with its infinite twisting routes to friendship, adventure and knowledge. Don’t be hesitant to change your hair, your music taste, your major or, most likely of all, your perspectives. Berkeley is waiting for you to play a part in its legacy just as much as you expect it to shape yours.