Thank you for visiting our Berkeley Changemaker courses page.
We'd love to hear what you think and what future courses you might like to see: changemaker@berkeley.edu.
(See below for course descriptions)
This course is rooted in the belief that all Berkeley students are in the process of becoming Berkeley Changemakers. Changemakers make their impact everywhere on the campus intellectual landscape – through scientific breakthroughs, artistic imagination, social action projects, and entrepreneurial ventures. It is a course for entering students, who will learn to employ creative and critical thinking to imagine better futures, and then develop leadership skills to mobilize others to help create them. The ultimate goal of the course is to help incoming students discover their own identity as Berkeley Changemakers through shaping their educational experience at UC Berkeley.
Class #28409/19947
As part of the Berkeley Changemaker, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) hosts the A. Richard Newton Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series: A Berkeley ChangemakerTM Course. The newly relaunched Series will highlight a diverse set of changemakers who have made breakthroughs in entrepreneurship, innovation, artistry and social impact. During the course, keynote speakers will share their insights on critical thinking, communication and collaboration as it relates to innovation and entrepreneurship. They will focus specifically on success and failures around crafting their business idea and story, building a team, creating the trust necessary for investment/collaboration and breaking boundaries to create change.
As BERKELEY CHANGEMAKERSTM, how do we apply ethics to critical policy questions? Designed for students who have had, or are currently taking, PS 124C Ethics and Justice in International Affairs, this 1 unit course allows a small group of students to select and engage deeply with a critical policy question that emerges from the course. Working in groups to develop a specific question, you'll craft solutions grounded in the ethical theories of the course while gaining a new perspective on how to lead change by engaging with the practical implications of implementation. This course also features practitioners in areas such as humanitarian intervention, international criminal justice, etc. who provide their perspectives on both the ethics and courses of action required for implementing change.
The Berkeley Changemakers' inclusive curriculum activates your passions and helps you to develop a sharper sense of who you want to be, while providing you the tools to take those next steps. Our curriculum focuses on critical thinking, communication, and collaboration complemented by an emphasis on creativity, community, and belonging.
In conjunction with PS124C, the two courses meet the following requirements:
U.C. Berkeley has long been a place for innovative ideas and creative, out-of-the-box discovery. What role might you play on campus, in your communities and beyond as a passionate writer and thinker?
In this special R4B course, in collaboration with The Berkeley Changemaker™ series, we’re going to roll up our sleeves and get into the thick of some of the most interesting and complex issues of our time. We’ll explore the extraordinary opportunities and ethical quandaries of CRISPR and bioengineering. We’ll look at big tech and social entrepreneurship in the Bay Area, balancing connectivity and access against privacy and the flood of misinformation online. We’ll learn about social justice in a time of polarization; environmental threats and opportunities for impact; public health and the rebuilding of trust in science; internet culture and personal identity; street art and social change; distance learning and the rethinking of what a liberal arts education can be.
Most importantly, this course is increasingly choose-your-own-adventure: what are the issues and ideas that most motivate you? We’ll engage with an array of inspiring and provocative talks by thought leaders across U.C. Berkeley. We’ll play with new tools and practice some vital skills: gaining confidence as a writer; learning to navigate digital resources; mapping ideas with visual thinking; learning to flexibly listen while interviewing others; persuading and engaging peers with public speaking; designing dynamic slides and an interactive writing website of your own. We’ll return to this core question: what does lasting change look like — and how might your own writing serve as a means to enact it?
This Reading, Research, and Composition Course satisfies Part B of the College of Letters & Science's Reading and Composition Requirement(
Everyone at Cal should be required to take this course. It gives an optimistic and change-making perspective to any discipline. It has genuinely changed my outlook on the world and how I want to go through life. Even if you think you are already a good leader, this class will teach you so much about being not just a leader, but a changemaker, wherever you go in life.Upperclass student, describing Berkeley Changemaker pilot course
Photo credit: Jim Block
February 24, 2021 | 1-2:30 p.m. | Zoom
How might you lead by setting culture? Whether you are a team member or leader, this dynamic workshop will introduce you to the levers you can use to shape culture at UC Berkeley. Together, we'll spend the first hour exploring strategy and tactics that set and shape culture. The optional additional half hour will enable you to explore these concepts in greater detail in small breakout sessions while you meet and engage with your colleagues across campus.
October 28, 2020 | 1-2 p.m. | Zoom
Regardless of role or title, we can all lead from where we are. When we recognize opportunities for impact and agency, we have greater power to be intentional, to affect our culture and the world around us. This is the concept of the Berkeley Changemaker. Values like impact beyond oneself and questioning the status quo have drawn people to Berkeley for generations — this narrative doubles down on those values and is part of a suite of new courses being taught to UC Berkeley students. Our faculty are expanding these offerings through a customized workshop for staff. In this 60-minute workshop you will discover what it means to be a Berkeley Changemaker, learn how to build the changemaking skill of resilience, and leave inspired by stories from UC Berkeley faculty and staff.
Over 120 staff members from across the UC Berkeley campus registered for this workshop.
Thank you for visiting our Berkeley Changemaker courses page.
We'd love to hear what you think and what future courses you might like to see: changemaker@berkeley.edu.
See our dedicated Summer Sessions 2021 page to learn more.
Being a part of this class is life changing and it truly shapes your identity, and I am so glad to be a part of this community.Milo Harmon Maurer, Class of 2024
Photo credit: Jim Block
I'm thankful that I've been able to learn so much from this course! I truly believe this is the greatest preparation I could have received going into my first year at Berkeley. I'm sad this has come to an end, but excited to apply the lessons and principles I learned into my Berkeley journey and my life!Grace Kelly, Class of 2024, L&S12 Student, and Berkeley Changemaker