UC Berkeley targets Chinese engineers

http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_6805354?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com

By Matt Krupnick, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 09/05/2007 02:35:45 AM PDT


BERKELEY - University of California, Berkeley, Extension will make its
first foray into bilingual courses in January with a slate of classes
aimed at Chinese engineers.
The dozen or so online courses will be offered in English and
Mandarin, covering subjects such as circuit and semiconductor design.
Manufacturing companies had asked the university program for help
training the growing number of Chinese engineers in the Bay Area,
Extension administrators said.

"This is pretty much getting to be a must-speak-Mandarin situation at
many semiconductor-design companies in the Silicon Valley," said Jim
Connor, who directs Extension's engineering portfolio.

Extension leaders also hope the courses will help the program tap new
sources of revenue. Beset by sharp enrollment drops brought on by the
dot-com bust, the off-campus, 116-year-old program owes more than $30
million in borrowed money to its parent campus.

In addition to serving Chinese engineers in the United States, the
program will attempt to attract students in China as well, Connor
said. Extension planners have puzzled over how to price the online
courses, however, since the two countries have different currencies
and living costs.

"We haven't been able to do market research in China," said Extension
Dean Diana Wu. "We don't know who the target audience is in China."

UC Berkeley engineers are helping to design the classes, but they've
come across their own stumbling blocks, Connor said.

"The translation is a bit of a challenge," he said, adding that
students will be able to choose which language they use.

Extension administrators had no estimate for the number of students
they hope to enroll. Demand for the high-level classes could be ample,
however - the Silicon Valley Chinese Engineers Association has more
than 6,000 members, according to its Web site.

Depending how the Mandarin-language experiment goes, Extension leaders
might branch into other languages, they said. The Silicon Valley has a
strong contingent of Indian immigrants and, as with China, is
dependent partly on engineers in India.

But the most pressing need is for Chinese-language courses, Connor
said.

"It's a very big world," he said. "We have to start somewhere."

.

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