Hearst Mining Building Berkeley

What the Hearst Mining Building Actually Is

The Hearst Mining Building at UC Berkeley houses geological and environmental science departments. It sits on the north side of campus near the Campanile. The building is older, heavily used, and not particularly user-friendly if you're navigating it for the first time. You won't find a pristine lobby. You'll find students carrying rock samples, faculty rushing to meetings, and a general sense that everyone here has somewhere else to be. If you need access for a class or research, you'll go through the main entrance on the Kittredge Street side. That's the one most people use. ID card readers are stationed near the elevators on certain floors. Floor 3 and above are mostly department offices and classrooms, so if you're a student without a class scheduled in that wing, you'll likely be turned around at the turnstile. I ran into this exact issue last semester when I was trying to track down a professor on the 4th floor. I had a class on the 2nd floor but needed to cross over to office hours across campus. The elevator only goes up to floor 3 from the main stairwell on Kittredge. I ended up walking through the basement corridor connecting to the adjacent earth sciences building, which is a narrow hallway with fluorescent lighting and zero signage. It took me ten minutes to figure out, but once I knew the route, it cut my transit time in half.

If you're visiting for a seminar or department event, just tell the receptionist where you're headed. They'll buzz you through. Don't try to tailgate someone. It doesn't work well here because the doors stay locked during class hours and people notice. There's a secondary entrance on San Pablo Avenue that's mostly used by maintenance and faculty with keycards. It's faster if you have access, but if you're a visitor without credentials, stick to Kittredge. The building has had HVAC issues in the past few years. The upper floors get warm in April and stay warm through May. If you have an exam or presentation scheduled there in late spring, bring water. The air conditioning in room 310, where most introductory geology lectures happen, is adequate but loud. The hum makes it hard to hear anything whispered, so seat selection matters more than you'd expect.

For anyone doing field work preparation—packing rocks, laptops, and sample bags—the ground floor loading dock area near the back has a small staging space. It's not advertised. If you need to stage equipment before heading out to a field trip, ask the grad students in room 205. They know where it is and they don't mind helping. Most people just try to carry everything through the main entrance and deal with the afterwards.