When I was in the Maldives in 2021, I began a year-long program through the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business for Chief Executive Officers (CTOs). As previously related in a previous blog post, I had dedicated the year to upskilling and learning — the CTO program was a part of that initiative. Initially, the program had been designed for extensive in-person learning; however, Covid necessitated a pivot to an online format which was lucky for me — I would not have been able to attend classes from my over-water bungalow on the other side of the world otherwise.
As I am increasingly aware — Covid enacted needed changes for remote productivity. Organizations implemented creative, remote-first solutions and opened the door for more ubiquitous location independence I have been living by example since 2015. So I suppose I should say that while Covid initiated negative changes in my life, it also gifted me some blessings as well — attending my CTO program from an island resort in the Maldives was one of them.
The eleven-month program was completed with a week of in-person, on-campus lectures, activities, and commencement during the first week of April 2022 in Berkeley, California. With the “threat” of the Covid pandemic by now acquiesced by most to be over and masks no longer required inside buildings by the state of California, I was excited to re-enter the United States to partake in a celebration of sorts. Especially because my nephew, Andrew, is a third-year undergraduate at UC Berkeley — I was looking forward to celebrating with him too.
I arrived at Oakland airport after missing my initial flight to SFO out of Mexico city – a black swan convergence of an unexpected, one-hour Mexican daylight savings time change, incorrect airport terminal, and those gosh darn covid procedures that extended my arrival at the check-in counter twenty minutes later than needed to board my flight. It was no big deal though, I spent the day working from an airport lounge and was able to fly out in the late afternoon instead. That Oakland arrival, however — my first time in the USA for fourteen months — was a doozie.
I apparently checked every red flag US entry immigration entry has — coming from Mexico, had been out of the country for 14 months, not apparently traveling for business, my passport had been through Croatia, Bosnia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, UAE, The Republic of the Maldives, Spain, and Brazil — I was also dressed as I usually do — like a fourteen-year-old. I must have been up to something illegal. So they searched my bag and held my passport in a different room for forty-five minutes trying to find something I did that was illegal. They didn’t — and what can you even find from a passport that takes forty-five minutes? Once they let me pass, it was after midnight and the airport was empty. Welcome back to the USA!
For the week that I was visiting Berkeley, I stayed in a cool, classic-chic hotel called The Graduate, across the street from campus and a nine-minute walk to the Haas School of Business. The hotel is styled in a 1960s theme, with photos of campus streakers, a poster of the film “The Graduate” on the wall, and lots of school-inspired motifs including a desk and pencils from sixty years ago. Henry’s, the downstairs restaurant and bar has a drink called The Golden Bear (the University of California’s school mascot is The Golden Bears) which is basically a version of a Long Island Iced Tea somehow mixed to be the perfect golden hue of its mascot namesake. Seems like a typical draught beer might have done the same thing, but hey I am not complaining.
The next five days were filled with fun opportunities to spend time and party with my classmates. We were given multiple campus tours and walking around in the springtime amongst the undergraduate co-eds make me feel like I was a young, wide-eyed backpack-packing collegiate myself.
My cohort had lectures by the professors who taught us during the 11-month program on topics such as IoT, leadership, Data Privacy, and Organizational adaptation in times of crisis. But our favorite parts of the week came after 5 pm when as groups, my classmates and I descended on the bars and restaurants of surrounding Berkeley, California to pretend to be American college students. Representing a stew of nationalities and disparate countries I was happy to be a minority as a white American man in tech. Happier still to share my friends with my nephew Andrew who imparted his knowledge and local customs surrounding places to drink to us 40+ year-olds,
After the school festivities ended, my classmate and friend David and I went skydiving outside the city. Neither of us had done it before, but it was a great way to cap off an exciting week. I hope to see David again in Newfoundland, Canada where he is from and lives. He tells me they have a tremendous blueberry and lobster season during the late summer — stay tuned!
I spent a couple of days working from the Berkeley campus just to get a little taste of what it would have been like to have gone to college at a cool place instead of yucky old Boston University. Remembering my own undergraduate experience was a miserable and sad comparison. I sighed as an athletic, tank-topped 23-year-old California girl wearing athletic shorts a foot above her knee jiggled and bounced on her way past me to class.
I couldn’t have had better luck with the weather — 70 degrees Fahrenheit and sunshine; I am told that it is not always so ideal, but now the week has been indelibly marked in my memory, it will be difficult to imagine it in another way. I was able to spend time with my family — my nephew Andrew gave me a tour of his fraternity house (you can see it too!) and I met my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, James, for brunch and a walk around the Berkeley Botanical Gardens.
The next time I visit my family in California, I think I’ll spend a day or two at The Graduate Hotel in Berkeley.
