Learning in an online-only environment is certainly a different way to soak up knowledge than being in a physical classroom. But for Kyle Cameron, his determination to excel in the Certificate Program in Accounting—which he is set to finish with distinction—makes the process much smoother.

"I'm sitting at home, and I can work at my own pace," he says. "From the first class, it was about the support I got from the teachers and the open discussion forums with the students. I've always done live classroom learning, and with online classes, you're doing the same reading from a textbook, but you are reading the lecture as opposed to listening to them. If you have a question, you send an email rather than raise your hand—and you get the response from the instructor very quickly."

Planning on becoming a certified public accountant (CPA) after passing the Uniform CPA Examination, Cameron says that the breadth of courses offered at UC Berkeley Extension empowers him to enter just about any field in accounting—from auditing to taxation to controllership. "I can really do anything with the education that I'm getting here," he says. "When I took the Introduction to Managerial Accounting course, it was focused on the efficiencies of a business, how to turn numbers into a decision-making process. That's how I've been thinking my whole life. This course was just putting it on paper."