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<p>Hey, the vast majority of people in the world do not suffer from daily hunger, but that doesn’t mean that daily hunger is not a problem. The vast majority of people in the world do not have malaria, yellow fever, tuberculousis, hepatitis, or AIDS, but that doesn’t mean that these diseases are not a problem for those who have them. </p>
<p>Berkeley should be trying to eliminate the problem of impacted majors. Nobody at HYPSM has problems with impacted majors, because there is no such concept at those schools. </p>
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<p>I would hardly say characterize the PHD program in AHMA, or any Berkeley PhD program, is ‘watered-down’. As I have always said, the Berkeley PhD programs are among the most best in the world. </p>
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<p>You, I, and greatesteyn strongly suspect that the real problem is within the department.</p>
<p>But this is all part of a STRATEGY. This is about taking away excuses. For example, right now, I suspect that the reason why economics is impacted has nothing to do with resources, but has to do with the fact that the econ department simply doesn’t want to teach more undergrads. But how do we prove this? After all, if we tell them to drop their impaction policy, they will probably respond that they are lacking resources. Ok, fine, so how do we solve this? I think the way to do it is to simply offer them the resources in order to take away that excuse. If they STILL say that they can’t teach more students, then we all know that they were just making excuses. But the key is to exhaust their excuses. </p>
<p>This is the way you solve interdepartmental political problems. You expose departmental excuses for the lies that they are.</p>
<p>Think of it this way. We offer them resources. One of 2 things will happen. Either they will take those resources and drop impaction. Good, problem solved. Or, they will simply throw up another excuse. If they do that, then at least we are closer to knowing what we are really dealing with. </p>
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<p>Oh, I HARDLY doubt that is the case, simply because there is barely an organization in the world that is completely optimized. Even organizations such as Toyota, Dell and Walmart that are famous for their operational efficiency are STILL finding more and more ways to optimize themselves. For example, Toyota has been on the vanguard of lean manufacturing initiatives within the auto industry for several decades now, and yet they are STILL increasing productivity and yield. If even an extremely tight ship like Toyota can still find ways to optimize themselves, then I have to imagine that a far looser organization like Berkeley can do so also. </p>
<p>I’ll give you an example. Not that long ago, Berkeley got rid of all of its undergrad mining engineering programs. These programs had long-standing histories within Berkeley, and specifically within the old College of Mining (which then became part of the CoE). But Berkeley got rid of them, even though they still had students, but just not enough students to justify the programs as ongoing concerns. I am quite certain that other programs like this exist at Berkeley. </p>
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<p>Allright! Now we have gotten to the truth. So why are you even giving me reasons for why Berkeley has to be impacted? The fact is, you LIKE impaction, so to you, it wouldn’t matter if I was able to come up with a way to fix impaction, because you don’t want it fixed anyway. So now I think you ought to explain why impaction is good, and specifically, I would invite you to explain it to those students who couldn’t get the major that they wanted. You may want to do that with some police protection, however, as I’m sure that their response to you won’t exactly be positive.</p>
<p>And, for the record, I strongly dislike impaction and want to get rid of it, because I believe that a fundamental aspect of education is the freedom to shop around majors.</p>