Does grade deflation really exist at Berkeley?

[latecoder]

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Of course, a lot of pre-meds (not just at Berkeley) major in biology, which has poor job and career prospects but probably does not grade inflate as much as humanities (sciences are generally the least grade inflated, while humanities are the most, with social studies and engineering in between; this is not unique to Berkeley), so they get the worst of all worlds – less grade inflation worsening medical school admission chances, courses which are more work (labs and such), and poor job and career prospects if they do not get into medical school.

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<p>Im guessing you weren’t an engineer, nor did you go through the engineering weeders. You really think that social studies and engineering are in the middle of the grade inflation spectrum? Engineering is probably more grade deflated than the sciences. Really, what happens in the hardcore sciences, like say physics or chemistry, is that many of the courses are crosslisted with engineering classes. Here are some easy sciences to consider:</p>

<p>Earth and Planetary Sciences
Integrative Biology
Plant Biology
<insert biology=“” program=“” thats=“” not=“” mcb=“”>
…etc. </insert></p>

<p>So there are soft science majors. Can you name any soft engineering majors? Even IEOR is pretty tough given you have to take engineering weeders and compete with Haas kids. And the real problem with engineering, despite the workload, is the projects. In true engineering fashion, classes will be heavily based on technical projects that coincide with finals. Take BioE104 for example. It had the standard midterm, 3 hour final, weekly problem sets, labs, and final project. Thats crammed into 4 units. </p>

<p>Now to your point about job prospects with a degree in the basic sciences. These fields don’t necessarily have poor job outlook, but necessitate a graduate degree. In fact, some of these jobs, might even be what the students like to do (ie. get a graduate degree and consult for the government on managing marshlands, monitoring seismic activity, preventing soil erosion, the list goes on). </p>

<p>However, I generally agree with your point that science majors tend to have lower job prospects and lower GPAS, having a doubly saddening effect. Since Berkeley anyway curves most of their classes, they could start by curving each major to the same GPA. This is still not a perfect system, because certain majors attract smarter, more hardworking people, and feature a more time-intensive curriculum. However, its still better than having the highest GPAs awarded to the majors with the generally more apathetic students.</p>

<p>I’m pretty sure its a ploy by administrators in other departments to attract these pre-law pre-med students to boost their enrollment, and consequent funding.</p>