The University of California, Berkeley has always been ahead of its time. As early as the 1890s, students from distant corners of the world, especially Asia and South America, were already trickling into its campus halls. More than a century and 26 faculty Nobel Prize winners and 35 alumni winners later, the top-ranking public university in the U.S. continues to draw scores of talented students from around the world to join the Golden Bear community.
Today, there are even more opportunities for international students to add “UC Berkeley” to their resume. Berkeley Global is part of UC Berkeley Extension, the continuing education branch of UC Berkeley that prepares students for a new career or graduate school through flexible courses and certificates that take a shorter time to complete than a full degree. It offers three programmes for university students: the Berkeley Global Access (BGA), an entrepreneurship programme at the Haas School of Business, and Berkeley Physics International Education Program.
Boost your degree or career with UC Berkeley Global’s programme, the best opportunity for ambitious students and professionals. Source: UC Berkeley Extension
Expanding academic and research horizons
Visiting students at Berkeley Global experience either a semester or a full academic year at the university. That may be short and sweet, but the time spent is nothing short of life-changing. Just ask Jeongseo Kim, a South Korean student in her last semester at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. She loved her UC Berkeley Summer Sessions experience in 2022 so much that she returned a year later for UC Berkeley Global.
During Kim’s first visit, she was blown away by the university’s research arm. Not only was this the place that discovered a revolutionary gene-editing tool that allows scientists to rewrite DNA, but it also had seemingly countless more scientists addressing the biggest challenges of the day to create a better world.
That experience would prompt Kim to join UC Berkeley once more in spring 2023 as a Berkeley Global Access (BGA) programme student. The programme gives access to more than 1,000 courses where you can earn credit toward your university degree back home. In a semester, you’ll take between 12 to 18 credits of courses across fields like computer science, humanities, statistics, social sciences, mathematics, and more.
As a life science major, Kim picked courses that she was interested in. She took Molecular Immunology, the impetus for her application to BGA in the first place. Stem Cell Biology, Ethics and Social Impact, which led her to pursue stem cell research. The other two were Bacterial Pathogenesis, which paired well with her biomedical research, and The (Secret) Life of Plants, which gave her insight into a life form unrelated to her field.
“Berkeley has so many exceptional professors that even within a specific subject—such as immunology—multiple courses are offered, each providing different insights and perspectives,” she says. “This variety allowed me to explore the subject in more depth.”

Berkeley Global is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet some of the most talented students from around the world. Source: UC Berkeley Extension
From BGA to a top tech internship
Passionate about production, engineering, digitisation, and data science, Sören Lange-Klapproth knew he had to join Berkeley Engineering. It was consistently ranked among the top engineering schools in the nation and the world by many measures. Impressed by the school’s prestige, the industrial engineering major at the International University of Applied Sciences Cologne in Germany was convinced he had to seize the chance to take data science courses unavailable in his home university.
“The opportunity to attend classes with American full-degree students, choosing freely across departments, was also exciting,” he says. “I was also really drawn to California and particularly the Bay Area—it’s quite advanced when it comes to technology and the surrounding nature.”
For Lange-Klapproth, the skills he garnered in the Berkeley Global Access Program were the result of a challenging and active learning environment. He experienced a culture where students were empowered to lead with their individual characters, and an interactive learning style that encouraged ideas and debates. He took the hard and people skills he gained at UC Berkeley, and applied them to an artificial intelligence-based internship at DEUTZ AG, a leading manufacturer of innovative engine drive systems.
“In general, AI technology is more highly talked about in the Bay Area than here in Germany, so I thought I could have a positive impact by talking about adapting production by using the potential of AI with my team,” he says.
Unlocking “a lot of opportunities that you might not be able to take advantage of anywhere else”
For Eduardo Brigagão Fatio, joining the Berkeley Global Access Program was one of the best periods of his life. He had joined this visiting-student opportunity to learn from the best professors in the world and to live in a city that’s different from São Paulo. But what he gained was so much more than that.
In the mornings and afternoons, he was engaged and inspired in classroom discussions and debating Harvard Business Review case studies. It was a stark difference from his experience at university back home, which was completely grades-driven. Later during the day, he was creating memories with people from all walks of life and exploring everything the U.S. West Coast had to offer.
Brigagão Fatio took scenic cycles across the Golden Gate Bridge into the small town of Sausalito with his friends. He got to play soccer with a German team, and made friends with people across countries like Bulgaria and France. It’s a cultural exchange that broadens your perspective and leaves you with countless filmstrips of memories you’ll never find in another university.
“This experience is really different because it offers an exchange of cultures and communities, and you start learning new things about different countries and being exposed to different beliefs,” he says.
Join ambitious students from across the globe and take the first step toward your future. Learn more and apply today to embark on the journey of a lifetime at UC Berkeley Global!