Oaksterdam (Cannabis College)

I finished my business semester at Oaksterdam University, the first and best Cannabis College in North America. Oh, you didn’t think that was a thing? It is…and it’s legit! This was my first time taking an online class and this is also the first time Oaksterdam offered the Virtual Classroom option for its classes.

If you’re serious and passionate about having a career in the cannabis industry, graduating with a certification from Oaksterdam will set you apart from the hundreds of people vying for the same jobs in this niche market. It will also give you the specialized knowledge to start your own cannabis grow/ business.  

Classes

Oaksterdam has two main learning paths: Business and Horticulture. They offer a Live Classroom option and a Self-Paced option. Everyone has different learning styles and financial constraints.  I HIGHLY RECOMMEND doing the Live Classroom if you want to get the most for your money. Yes, it is more expensive, but with that extra cost you get: live lectures, social interaction your peers, networking with your teachers, the ability to ask questions, break-out sessions for discussions to deepen your learning and all the benefits of being in a classroom without having to physically go to class (like not paying for food and housing in Oakland).

If you’re strapped on cash or want to get a feel for the school first, Oaksterdam is currently offering a bunch of classes at a discount until the end of August as an incentive for you all to learn during the covid crisis.

Oaksterdam offers FREE COURSES too! So there is no excuse not to learn. ( Cannabis, Pain & the Opioid Crisis / Advocacy / Horticulture Sample Class)

Btw, these links are just here for your convenience. I don’t make money from you using them and Oaksterdam didn’t ask me to do this blog post. I’m writing about my experience with the hopes you will take a class with them, even if it’s just a free one. I believe it is for the benefit of all of us and the cannabis industry when we educate ourselves and each other.

What I learned:

Networking was strongly encouraged among my classmates, faculty, and teachers. You know what they say: It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know.  I had the chance to learn from professionals in the industry: lawyers, growers, economists, advocates, scientists, business owners etc. They would each teach a class in their respective fields. It’s like Michael Jordan teaching you basketball.

I learned about the history of cannabis, what it takes to grow it (lots of time and resources), the economics of the industry, the science behind the plant, the importance of advocacy, law, politics, legalization and more. Check out the curriculum! I have about a hundred pages of types notes, but if you want to know the info, you’ll just have to go to class ;)

I learned about business through the context of cannabis, most importantly the plethora of hoops a cannabis business must jump through in terms of restrictions, zoning, laws, trademarks/ copyright, and financial investment. It is absolutely daunting and my hat’s off to all those business owners working their asses off to remain compliant, let alone being profitable.

One of my teachers told me, “Your project was fantastic! I could see you making this into a real business and becoming a CEO.”

My response, “Thank you, but no thank you. After taking this course and seeing the mountain of legal and financial hurdles a cannabis business owner has to deal with… I would rather clock in, clock out making 50k a year than making CEO money and dealing with CEO problems. The stress would kill me.” But that’s just me.

Group Project

As part of the class, we had a huge capstone project which my team and I worked on for the entire 14-week semester. Everyone was divided into groups and had to choose a business model to focus on: Retail/ Dispensary, Cultivation, Manufacturing, and Ancillary. We had to make a business from scratch, write a business plan and create a pitch deck for prospective investors. My group chose Ancillary which means we are a business that supports the industry but does not physically touch the cannabis in any way.

The great thing about Ancillary is we don’t have nearly as many legal obstacles to overcome and there’s a lot of variation, for example: legal/ consulting firms, tour experiences and packaging manufacturers. My group chose to do a subscription box curating consumables for the culinary cannabis connoisseur and we called ourselves The Good-Ease Box. We also had an exclusive online community which would set us apart from other boxes in the space.

I’m taking this moment to flex because my team worked hard on this project: On the last day of the semester, we presented our business (Shark Tank style) to a panel of judges who were our teachers throughout the semester and some extra hot shots in the industry. Out of five groups, my team won! Our prizes are: A letter of recommendation, graduating with DISTINCTION on our certificates, an invitation to be on the judging panel for next semester and Oaksterdam swag (shirt, pen, sticker, hoodie).

I am grateful to have worked with Jay, Mike and Dana who contributed, showed up for meetings outside of class and worked countless hours above the call of duty. Our pitch deck and presentation were WOW!

Side-note: I had a friend in the class whose group members did nothing. She’d have to pull teeth to get them to even respond to her attempts at coordinating everything. They ended up kicking one person out and she essentially did the project by herself.

Two of the people in my friend’s group who didn’t help in the project, were initially in my group but the group was too big so my advisor let me choose who to keep. I booted them out because they weren’t responding, and I’m so glad I did. To this day, I still do not know what they looked like because they didn’t turn their cameras on the ENTIRE SEMESTER.

FYI, I know it’s not the classiest thing to talk about someone behind their BACK, but how the hell can you say something to their FACE when they are never THERE. * mic drop *

My advice to anyone taking this class: The people you end up with for your group project are going to be your default friends for the semester and you will spend the most time with them out of all your class mates. They will make or break your experience. Choose wisely! Be vicious and kick slackers off the island within the first week. Choose the people who RESPOND to texts/emails and SHOW THEIR FACE/ participate in class. This advice is applicable for choosing BUSINESS PARTNERS and life partners as well.

Hold yourself and the people you work with to a high standard. Do not be sorry.

Other Fun Stuff:

My classmate Victoria had the idea of an After School Smoke Session and Luke would organize it. When class was over, a few of us would hop on Zoom, smoke and chat. Most of us being locked down for Covid-19, we all appreciated the social time.

Last Smoke Session of the Semester

We took two virtual field trips. One was a personal medical garden with Jeff Hickey. He told us his story of how CBD oil helped his immense pain and shared some golden tips like how to keep pests away naturally. The other trip was to a commercial cultivation site with Consultant Dr. Mike Jenkins and Horticulture Department Chair Joey Ereñeta. I was so impressed with the size and all of the nuanced considerations they made for…everything. You can tell these people are PASSIONATE about what they do.

Memorable Bits:

-Be precise with wording for marketing your cannabis business because some words will automatically be flagged in Google and Facebook ads.

-Use the word “cultivars” instead of “strains”. Use the word “Cannabis” instead of marijuana/ weed/ pot.

-Suppositories are an effective method of ingestion.

Last Thoughts:

Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have altered how we live life, how we view people, how we choose to educate ourselves, the state of the economy and how we choose to spend our money. I won’t extrapolate on the specifics here, but I want to leave you with a quote in regard to the “war on drugs”. Of all the things I learned this semester, this one stuck with me:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that had two enemies: The antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but my getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

-John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s Chief of Domestic Affairs.

Never stop learning. Please check out the FREE courses Oaksterdam has available, like the one on Advocacy. Keep fighting the good fight!