UC Berkeley Extension

Address:

1995 University Ave #110
94704 Berkeley, CA, United States

2
Average rating for UC Berkeley Extension
Based on 2 reviews Read all reviewschevron_right
starstar_borderstar_borderstar_borderstar_border
Noel Sithole
Director of Analytics
2
Corporate Financial Analysis and Modeling

"It's hard to fully express my dissatisfaction with the classes I took from the UC Berkeley Extension finance program (Corporate Financial Modeling and Analysis, Business Valuation). I was taking corporate finance classes because my boss suggested they might help round out my skills as a corporate strategy practitioner, so my goal was purely educational, not to meet a certification or achieve a prerequisite. I was only in it to learn. As such, I was highly disappointed.

I took classes at Berkeley Extension because I thought the Extension school would maintain a certain level of quality to protect the reputation of its brick and mortar institution. It did not. While training to deploy to Iraq years earlier, I had taken classes at American Military University, and those classes were atrocious (borderline fraudulent). I thought the Berkeley institution would be significantly better. It was not.

The Corporate Financial Modeling class was particularly bad. The "lecture" videos were literally some intern or research assistant reading boring slides word for word. He would butcher common finance terms like annuity, demonstrating that he had no knowledge of finance whatsoever. It...was...awful. The homework assignments came straight from the book and consisted only of reading the book. I literally would have learned just as much if I had read the book on my own without paying for the class. And the final project was so beyond the scope of the class that asking questions seemed futile because there were so many of them (I did ask some, and the replies from the professor were slow and generally uninsightful. But in general I just had to figure out how to do a valuation on my own). In sum, I came away feeling like I could have just read the textbook on my own and been equally enlightened, but without the annoyance of doing homework and taking a final exam.

So that's my Berkeley experience. I will never take a Berkeley class again (I hear Harvard's online courses are actually much better). Take my advice - if you're looking for corporate finance courses, look elsewhere. Or if you're just in it to learn, go buy a textbook and read it cover to cover, and save yourself the $950 per class.
" - 2019-03-16 10:45

"It's hard to fully express my dissatisfaction with the classes I took from the UC Berkeley Extension finance program (Corporate Financial Mo… read full review - 2019-03-16 10:45

Description

About UC Berkeley Extension

Founded in 1891, UC Berkeley Extension is the continuing education branch of the University of California, Berkeley. Today, Extension offers 1,500 courses each year, including online courses, along with more than 75 professional certificates and specialized programs of study. Free and low-cost public events are also frequently held as part of Extension's service to the…

Read the complete description

About UC Berkeley Extension

Founded in 1891, UC Berkeley Extension is the continuing education branch of the University of California, Berkeley. Today, Extension offers 1,500 courses each year, including online courses, along with more than 75 professional certificates and specialized programs of study. Free and low-cost public events are also frequently held as part of Extension's service to the local community.

2
Average rating for UC Berkeley Extension
Based on 2 reviews
starstar_borderstar_borderstar_borderstar_border
Noel Sithole
Director of Analytics
2
Corporate Financial Analysis and Modeling

"It's hard to fully express my dissatisfaction with the classes I took from the UC Berkeley Extension finance program (Corporate Financial Modeling and Analysis, Business Valuation). I was taking corporate finance classes because my boss suggested they might help round out my skills as a corporate strategy practitioner, so my goal was purely educational, not to meet a certification or achieve a prerequisite. I was only in it to learn. As such, I was highly disappointed.

I took classes at Berkeley Extension because I thought the Extension school would maintain a certain level of quality to protect the reputation of its brick and mortar institution. It did not. While training to deploy to Iraq years earlier, I had taken classes at American Military University, and those classes were atrocious (borderline fraudulent). I thought the Berkeley institution would be significantly better. It was not.

The Corporate Financial Modeling class was particularly bad. The "lecture" videos were literally some intern or research assistant reading boring slides word for word. He would butcher common finance terms like annuity, demonstrating that he had no knowledge of finance whatsoever. It...was...awful. The homework assignments came straight from the book and consisted only of reading the book. I literally would have learned just as much if I had read the book on my own without paying for the class. And the final project was so beyond the scope of the class that asking questions seemed futile because there were so many of them (I did ask some, and the replies from the professor were slow and generally uninsightful. But in general I just had to figure out how to do a valuation on my own). In sum, I came away feeling like I could have just read the textbook on my own and been equally enlightened, but without the annoyance of doing homework and taking a final exam.

So that's my Berkeley experience. I will never take a Berkeley class again (I hear Harvard's online courses are actually much better). Take my advice - if you're looking for corporate finance courses, look elsewhere. Or if you're just in it to learn, go buy a textbook and read it cover to cover, and save yourself the $950 per class.
" - 2019-03-16 10:45

"It's hard to fully express my dissatisfaction with the classes I took from the UC Berkeley Extension finance program (Corporate Financial Mo… read full review - 2019-03-16 10:45

starstar_borderstar_borderstar_borderstar_border
Noel Sithole
Director of Analytics
2
Business Valuation

"It's hard to fully express my dissatisfaction with the classes I took from the UC Berkeley Extension finance program (Corporate Financial Modeling and Analysis, Business Valuation). I was taking corporate finance classes because my boss suggested they might help round out my skills as a corporate strategy practitioner, so my goal was purely educational, not to meet a certification or achieve a prerequisite. I was only in it to learn. As such, I was highly disappointed.

Business Valuation was horrible. The homework assignments were a joke. The weekly lectures were actual lectures, maybe 15-20 minutes in length per week (awfully short to cover a topic as complex as valuation). The vast majority of useful learning (say 90%) was from the textbook. The professor was condescending and arrogant.

The group project. What an idea to have a group project....for an online class....in a non-degree program....where 90% of students don't participate or care. This was the worst project ever. From the second week, I was the only one in the class to post the mandatory weekly discussion posts (that were part of our grades). This did not bode well for my group participants. And sure enough, my group members barely responded to my emails about the project, and they contributed a grand total of ~5% of the total work effort.

Then the final. Ah, the final. There's nothing like walking into a proctored exam and then finding significant and obvious errors in the income statement you have to use for valuation. And in a proctored setting, there is no teacher you can ask for guidance on how to reconcile those errors. These were egregious - one literally said something like "Earnings before taxes: 80, Taxes: 20, Earnings After Taxes: 80". Say what??? After the exam, I emailed the professor immediately to explain the assumptions I made given the errors. He ultimately denied that the test had any errors, and very conveniently refused to show me my exam, citing school policy.

So that's my Berkeley experience. I will never take a Berkeley class again (I hear Harvard's online courses are actually much better). Take my advice - if you're looking for corporate finance courses, look elsewhere. Or if you're just in it to learn, go buy a textbook and read it cover to cover, and save yourself the $950 per class.
" - 2019-03-16 10:43

"It's hard to fully express my dissatisfaction with the classes I took from the UC Berkeley Extension finance program (Corporate Financial Mo… read full review - 2019-03-16 10:43

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