All students at Berkeley are welcome to take a number of courses (taught in English) and language courses that fulfill breadth requirements in Arts and Literature, Philosophy and Values, Historical Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and International Studies, as well as courses in the University program of Freshmen and Sophomore seminars.
The department offers instruction in BCS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian), Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian as well as the non-Slavic languages Armenian and Hungarian. The department offers special classes for heritage speakers of Russian and courses in Russian/English, English/Russian oral and written translation.
Non-UC Berkeley Students
During the Summer
Our summer courses are generally open for registration by anyone — not just UC Berkeley students. We offer a variety of language and culture courses each summer, taught by qualified UCB instructors. All summer course registration goes through the Berkeley Summer Sessions office, whose website outlines the enrollment process, tuition fees, and more.
During the Academic Year
This is UC Berkeley’s official auditing policy, effective January 2020. Auditing courses is subject to the instructor’s approval and is not guaranteed.
Students from other UCs, California community colleges, and select institutions can enroll in UC Berkeley courses through a visitor or reciprocal enrollment program. See details from the UC Berkeley Office of the Registrar here. Registration forms and reciprocal enrollment policies may also be available through your home campus.
UC Berkeley Extension makes it possible for non-UC Berkeley students to enroll in UC Berkeley classes through their Concurrent Enrollment program, pending instructor approval.
Courses through Concurrent Enrollment can be taken for credit/letter grade, pass/no pass, or no credit; registration costs vary depending on the grading option. For details on Concurrent Enrollment requirements, deadlines, applications and fees, please visit their website or call 510-642-4111.
For registration purposes, you will need the class number from UC Berkeley’s official online schedule of classes.
A few weeks before the class begins, it is important that the potential Concurrent Enrollment student e-mails the instructor of the course to introduce him or herself and informs the instructor of his or her plans. Course descriptions with instructor names are posted in the Courses section of this web site. In order to contact our instructors, please see the People page of this website.
If you want to take a language course, especially if you are unsure which level is right for you, please see the Language Placement page.
In general, applications for Concurrent Enrollment are not officially approved and signed by the instructor until the first week of class, as part of the approval is based on the number of spaces available. Once approved by the instructor, the application will go through an approval process between the Berkeley campus and the Concurrent Enrollment office, and finally the student will be officially enrolled and billed by the UC Extension.