University of California Berkeley Review (21)

University of California Berkeley Review (21)

North America

University: University of California Berkeley

City: Berkeley

Country: United States

Continent: North America

Field of study: International business administration, project management

Study type: postgraduate studies

International project management in Berkeley Extension

First of all, I would like to thank Kristin, who got my application through for the UC Berkeley Extension with a lot of commitment and was also helpful during the one-semester study.

About a year before I started my studies, I became interested in international project management at Berkeley. For this I had to go to the language course again to achieve the required Toefl score. San Francisco and London were on the plan. A language school in London proved to be excellent. (Hampstead School of English London). Visit liuxers.com to get information about GCD study abroad program.

I still had various application documents in stock, so I had less to do with the formalities and could then apply for the spring semester in the fall. It was all pretty tight in terms of time. The good thing about the Berkeley Extension and MicroEdu was that it worked. I then trembled a bit as to whether they would take me too, and at the beginning of December I had the confirmation from the elite university at Berkeley in my e-mail inbox.

I was less afraid of the visa. I was even really lucky because I got an appointment at short notice. I went to Frankfurt, stayed in a simple hotel and queued at the counter and got my visa for 5 years. “I want this” I said to the friendly American at the consulate. And told me something about my scientific field.

My problem was the accommodation and it stayed that way until almost the end. The I House was too expensive for me and I didn’t want to be cooked for. The BERK said yes and no. So I reserved a luxury room in one of the Vantaggio Suits in San Francisco. You can get to the institution from San Francisco in 30 minutes by BART. The Vantaggio Suits are designed for students and language students, offer a small kitchenette in the room and a breakfast with delicious muffins, coffee, etc. every morning. However, the daily distance of 30/60 minutes is noticeable in a fast-track study. Advantage: You live in SF and not in the small town of Berkeley, in other words, you can go shopping, drive to the beautiful beach or do nice sightseeing. The people at the front desk were super friendly and the deposit, which wasn’t even that high, was returned.

After a month I moved to a private student residence in an American house (Kluegelhouse). Unfortunately, since I didn’t get along with the people that well, I switched to the expensive U1122. There I had my own room in a shared flat until the end of my stay, with a rooftop, which invited to parties and a body gym. However, the part was also expensive and the people were far too smart. I hardly got into conversation with the flatmates and the management still took half of the deposit, even though the room was left in a tidy condition. Café Yesterday, which was attached to U1122, is nice. You can get a cappuccino for breakfast in the morning.

I want to say that I know San Francisco a little bit. San Francisco has been through an economic crisis in recent years and despite a lot of progress, you still see countless poor people. Well, not in SF, but in Berkeley there was one sitting on the bus who seemed very normal, only at second glance did I notice the dirty outfit and the desolate situation. San Francisco still seems to me to be a safe city, ie I’ve never been robbed or mugged there. I’m sure I have some kind of emergency credit card insurance, but it’s only been used in Europe so far.

Sightseeing: The Golden Gate Bridge is not to be missed and is the symbol of the city. China Town invites you to go shopping, for example porcelain, silk items or silk by the meter, you can get everything there. If you would like to travel to China, you can do some training there. Sometimes you can also find Chinese street musicians playing traditional music and the stations are also announced in Chinese on the bus. The port is very touristy, you can find a lot of souvenirs there, for example the typical colorful SF cups. The sea lions at Pier 39 can be admired for free and one or the other restaurant there invites you to linger in the area. Not far away you will find Lombard Street with its numerous curves.The beach is gorgeous, sandy, long and with lots of waves. There is also the Japanese Tea Garden, the 5 Sisters, a row of houses, the famous trams that run up and down the streets, Union Square. Many museums, eg the Museum of Modern Art or the Jewish Museum. If you want to do a lot of normal shopping, you will find a fantastic shopping center on Market Street, where you can find everything.

Berkeley is “on the rocks”, the houses are beautifully situated on the slope despite the Andreasgraben (San Andreas Fault) and only part of the city is on the plain. Berkeley is less a city and more a university, which forms the center with its sprawling campus. I know Berkeley to be particularly well known for its science traffic and the humanities such as philosophy. This time I noticed that the small town has gained two Wholes Food Market. The food is certainly enough for the European palate. (By the way, right next to the Berkeley Extension is a supermarket with groceries for everyday needs.)

The course is well organized, from the orientation day to the final event. The administration is sometimes very nice, but sometimes not that helpful when there are difficulties. A lady is responsible for keeping students under control when there are difficulties and that with the costs. Altogether we had buffets 3 times. One on the orientation day, one at the introductory party and one at the closing event, some with a wine bar or at least with drinks. If you are familiar with the German compulsion to save money, you will start to relax here. In addition, each student gets a large bag with high-quality reference books that he or she may keep. These are English books that are easy to read and introduce you to the positive side of American thought and business. Quick book purchases somewhere or waiting lists at the library are no longer necessary and I took all the books home with me. I didn’t find the invitations from the lecturers to private parties so recommendable.

The course is tightly organized, but we had Friday off, which I found very pleasant. You learn from 9: 30 am to 4: 30 pm – and that for 4 months only with a one-week spring break. In addition to the full day, there are still a lot of tasks. Group work with students from different countries like Japan, South America or Spain, which resulted in solving tasks or giving presentations. Quizzes, individual presentations, intermediate tests, graded homework, final tests round off the demanding workload of several courses at the same time. At first I just went along with everything, regardless of whether I thought it was high quality or not, just to get a good grade get.

In particular, the areas of risk management, project management and quality management, but also negotiating and the helpful Microsoft skills take you further in the area of ​​business/project management. For example, we were shown how to create a Gantt chart to clearly calculate time and costs. Negotiating was brought closer to you using numerous examples that were practiced in the form of role plays and objectified using forms from Harvard. In addition, one could and should read books.

Quality management was trained through regular participation and group work with presentations. Excellent books were also available to us, and we were asked to look for texts on the subject of Quality and Scope ourselves from the Internet or the newspaper on a weekly basis, and “he” also helped out with an interesting specialist article. What about quality in chaotic situations? Our group took Quality in Education as the topic of the group work.

At Risk Management we had a nice lecturer who taught us the basics of risk management and d. taught business administration. For example, you practice naming risks and calculating their possible occurrence.

In the project management course, since the basics of project management were referred to in particular, I took stakeholding as a topic using the example of Starbucks, which was well received in the USA, so I got almost full marks for the seminar paper, which was written in English. I made do with e-books, which I downloaded in German and then correctly quoted in English and included in the text, and I also included my background in the humanities.

I didn’t always find it easy to assess the lecturers. I’m used to understanding someone as good who has a fair amount of theoretical knowledge, while here in business it seemed to me that theoretical knowledge is also important, but the much-vaunted and desired practical relevance was more required.

What also struck me was that anything I was able to bring to the table in the humanities field was valued and valued positively at Berkeley Extension.

It is important to remember, however, that the Berkeley Extension is not Berkeley’s Haas School. Also, you cannot do an MBA at Berkeley Extension, but at most an MBT, which corresponds to two diplomas and an internship.

I didn’t accept the offer of an internship after my studies and flew back after 4.5 months. For this I relied on several websites that also offer paid internships in Europe and the USA. I thought it would be easier then. One organization got in the way, another only offered me a paid internship in London, a third organization was nice, I had already accepted a better offer that I had noticed and that is now relevant.

I also inquired about the recognition of the Berkeley Extension diplomas here. I was told that you don’t need to have your degrees recognized.

At the end of my studies I visited Yosemite Park and stayed there in the Curry Village. It’s beautiful there and you can drive through the valley with a shuttle bus. I hiked to Yosemite Upperfall and Vernal Falls. Below the famous Half Dome there should also be a campsite, since you can climb Half Dome with a two-day tour. There is always some warning about the bears, but I haven’t encountered any yet.

Personally, I miss the USA again, including the Anglican area.

University of California Berkeley Review (21)