Berkeley Summer Sessions

Welcome to Summer Session B!

Whatever reason that you're here, we are happy that you are. You belong at Berkeley!

The goal of the Research in Education is to introduce students to educational research and the methods and frameworks used to examine key educational topics related to educational inequity and educational possibility. Students also will develop robust understandings of relevant theories and methods by engaging with research focused around the set of core topics. In this way, students will become ‘re-searchers’ of enduring educational issues.

To learn more, click the link in our bio or visit: https://classes.berkeley.edu/content/2026-summer-educ-153-001-lec-001

ARMENI 122
Explore how language, identity, and history collide, using the Armenian global context as a guide. You'll look at dialects, language survival, and how these forces play out in your own life. No prior experience in Armenian or linguistics required!
✨ Meets International Studies OR Social & Behavioral Sciences

🇺🇦 UKRAINI 168
An eye-opening look at Ukraine’s past three decades. Explore student movements, environmental history (from Chornobyl to today), and how art and film tackle trauma and resilience.
✨ Meets Arts & Literature OR International Studies

Are you ready to explore San Francisco? Hop on BART to meet us at Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco at 2 PM to pick up a scavenger hunt sheet and get ready to explore!

We'll have lots of challenges that will take you all over the city to discover the classic tourist sites as well as special local places. We'll pair you with a group of 5 new friends the day of the event. Bring a fully charged smartphone to submit your answers (only one submission needed per team). The winners will get a prize!

IMPORTANT NOTE: You must be 18 years or older to participate in this event.

The event will take place rain or shine.

Click the link in our bio to sign up or visit: https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/ucb-summer/2026-san-francisco-scavenger-hunt-session-a-12w

Music has been described as the perennial migrant, following the movements and migrations of communities throughout the world. This course explores music's own migrations, probing the ebbs and flows of music across national, regional, ethnic, and other borders across Latin America. We will focus on some of today's most crucial borderlands, such as the US-Mexico or Venezuela-Colombia borders.

Additionally, the course will examine the transnational flows of styles such as salsa, tango, cumbia, reggae, reggaetón, and samba.

Throughout, we will ask what the affordances and limits of music and/in migration are.

Click the ink in our bio for more information or visit: https://classes.berkeley.edu/content/2026-summer-music-139-002-lec-002

This introductory course uses psychedelics as a three-part case study to examine a) how educational institutions and broader society have adjudicated among competing ways of knowing (i.e., epistemologies, or worldviews); and b) how this process of adjudication has limited psychedelics education and risk reduction efforts that stand to equip students with critical knowledge and scientifically-based tools; and c) how comprehensive knowledge and appropriate campus-based and other tools might support the navigation of complex, real-world contexts safely, rather than assuming pure avoidance of psychedelic substances.

Join us for an orientation webinar before Session B begins so you can hear updated announcements, important information regarding enrollment, Berkeley course expectations, and ways you can get involved with other students at UC Berkeley!

The presentation will be hosted by our Summer Sessions advisors who will help answer questions after a 30-minute presentation. For international students joining us from abroad, we will also present relevant information regarding your F-1 visa and maintaining your international student status.

This event is held on Zoom. A link will be shared with you 24 hours prior to the event.

Click the link in our bio for more or visit: https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/ucb-summer/orientation-webinar-session-b

Whether you want to decode the mysteries of the pharaohs or understand the complex tapestry of global history, the MELC department has you covered.

MELC 18: Introduction to Ancient Egypt
If you’ve ever wanted to know what’s actually inside a mummy's tomb, this is for you. We’re covering everything from the building of the pyramids to the daily lives of the people who lived in their shadow.

👀 Visual learners rejoice: Lectures are packed with deep-dive slideshows.

🏛️ We’re heading to the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. It houses the best collection of Egyptian artifacts west of Chicago—and you get a front-row seat.

MELC 146: Islam
The course will cover both medieval and modern Islam and will touch upon all major sects. In reference to the modern period, particular emphasis will fall on the relationship of medieval and modern interpretations and on the emergence of “political” and “liberal” Islam with reference to the history of the modern Middle East.

Topics: The life of Muhammad, the Quran, Tradition, Law, Sufism, Theology, Philosophy, and Politics.

click the link in our bio to learn more or visit https://classes.berkeley.edu/

Trips, visions, psychedelic experiences: this course will trace the theme of hallucinations through literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, with some diversions into film, the visual arts, and music.

Beginning with early attempts by writers and ending with hallucinations in recent film and literature, this course will focus on a broad treatment of the issue, including novel(s) influenced by schizophrenic experience, works inspired by experiences under the influence of drugs, hippies and other countercultural figures, dreams, spiritual and religious visions, and more.

We will look at contemporary discussions of the topic, including science on altered states of mind, philosophical essays, and real first-hand accounts. Students will be encouraged to explore their own interests in the topic, and the culmination of the course will be a research paper due at the end of the course.

Click the link in our bio for more or visit https://classes.berkeley.edu/content/2023-summer-celtic-r1b-002-lec-002