In response to the many debates on ugrad quality

[sakky]

<p>

I kind of assumed you had a point. If you in fact didn’t, that’s fine. I figured your train of logic was something like this: easy to get high GPAs attracts bright students who want an easy way to get into law/med school, therefore your peers are better, therefore education is better. It looks like you were just saying something completely irrelevant to the discussion, though, which IMO looks much more ridiculous.

</p>

<p>No, you are exactly right - that IS my train of thought. But my point is, giving out high grades is not the ONLY way to attract top students. MIT and Caltech certainly don’t give out lots of high grades, yet they seem to attract plenty of star students anyway. The point is, there are MULTIPLE WAYS to skin this cat. The problem is that Berkeley doesn’t seem to want to enact any of the possible ways. </p>

<p>

What? You mean a Stanford professor won’t tell you to do better if you’re getting a D in his/her class? Really? Wow, because that professor must be completely useless as a result. If a professor doesn’t honestly tell a student that s/he needs to improve his/her grades, that professor isn’t doing his/her job as an advisor. Likewise, if a professor excessively insults a student, s/he also isn’t doing his/her job. You’ve also shown no reason for me to believe that Berkeley professors berate their students more often than Stanford professors, except “I’ve heard someone say so”.

</p>

<p>There won’t be any need for beration because it’s simply difficult to get a D at Stanford in the first place. Simply put, if you go to Stanford, you basically know you’re going to graduate, as long as you do the work. No such guarantee exists at Berkeley. </p>

<p>Sure, I don’t have any “hard data” to show that Stanford profs don’t excessive berate their students, except to show evidence that Stanford students seem far happier than Berkeley students. But you know and I know that such data is impossible to find. Nobody is going to keep statistics on ‘beration’. So you’re asking for the impossible. Anecdotes are obviously the best you can do in this context. The fact remains that Berkeley profs have a reputation for being rough with undergrads. Stanford profs don’t. In the absence of impossible-to-obtain evidence, that is the best you can do. I have never seen any evidence (hard evidence or anecdotes) that Stanford profs are harsher than Berkeley profs. If you have some, please present it. </p>

<p>

Okay, fine, your advisor insists on trying to help you. So go to your advisor and ask for your advisor code. If you show them your class schedule, they’re required to give you your code. They are also required to meet with you and shouldn’t give you your code without you at least talking to them. You think you’ll be a significantly worse student because you, once a semester, have to see your advisor for 10 minutes? Please.

</p>

<p>It’s 10 minutes of possibly painful beration. </p>

<p>The question is not whether you will be better or worse off. The question is, why put yourself through any pain if you don’t have to? Who really enjoys pain? </p>

<p>

Look, there are a couple options here.</p>

<h1>1: School allows everyone into the major they want by dramatically increasing class and discussion sizes. Quality of education goes down. This is the “community college” solution.</h1>

<h1>2: School allows everyone into the major they want by never allowing students that couldn’t make the cut attend Berkeley in the first place. The quality of the education of those kids goes down. This is the “more selective” solution.</h1>

<h1>3: School takes in as many as it can without degrading education with current student numbers. Quality of education remains on par, while students that couldn’t get in at least had a shot at competing, and now may move on to a different major or transfer.</h1>

<p>It’s the best for everybody. Once again, you confuse “what I prefer” with “what’s best”. Look at this nonsense:

</p>

<p>No, I think you are the one that is confused. Again, I am looking at the situation from the eyes of the potential student. Again, take a student who got into Berkeley and also to one of the top private schools. Given the fact that Berkeley has impacted majors and the others don’t, why should he choose Berkeley and risk not getting into the major he wants? It all comes down to another reason not to choose Berkeley. </p>

<p>And furthermore, I dispute your characterization of the 3 choices. I would posit that there is a choice #4 - namely, the optimization of resources. It’s not like the impacted majors are randomized every year. For the past few years, it’s basically the SAME MAJORS that have been impacted. For example, engineering has been impacted for the last 20 years. Next year, guess what, I am sure that engineering will be impacted again. Economics has been impacted for several years. Guess what, next year, economics will almost certainly be impacted again. </p>

<p>I can understand that maybe in certain years, interest in certain majors exceeds expectations, and so in those years, those majors are impacted. Fine. But this is not what is happening. The impaction is consistent. It’s predictable. </p>

<p>Furthermore, these majors that are impacted aren’t even the largest majors on campus. Not even close, actually. For example, economics graduated about 320 BA students last year. But poli-sci graduated about 500. So why is economics impacted, but not poli-sci? Why can the poli-sci department handle so many more students, but doesn’t have to be impacted, but econ cannot do this? The largest single major on campus is MCB with about 580 graduating students every year. Yet MCB is not impacted. Why can MCB do this, but not impacted majors like psychology or computer science? Heck, do you realize that MCB by itself confers almost as many bachelor’s degrees as the entire College of Engineering does? So why is engineering impacted, but not MCB? </p>

<p>So it seems to me that what Berkeley should do is simply optimize resources. You shift resources from less popular majors to more popular (impacted) ones. If more students want to study economics than the economics resources can handle, then the answer is to create more economics resources. And if that means taking resources from other departments, so be it. If one department has resources for 100 students, but only has 50, then that department should be made to give up those extra resources so that the economics department can expand capacity. </p>

<p>You can even shut down certain unpopular majors. Why not? Berkeley closed down all of the old mining engineering/petroleum engineering majors to undergrads despite Berkeley’s long-standing history as a mining school (the College of Mining was one of Berkeley’s original constituent colleges, and was merged into the CoE in the 1940’s). You can even see the legacy of Berkeley’s mining tradition in a building called the Hearst Mining Building and the Hearst Mining Circle. I can’t complain about the fact that these majors got banked, because simply put, they weren’t popular. You just can’t efficiently run a major where only a handful of students were graduating every year. So Berkeley made the decision to shut these programs down to repurpose resources for other programs. </p>

<p>But anyway, the analogy is that you should be managing capacity to meet demand. That’s Operations Management 101. If Apple finds that demand for the Ipod Nano is exceeding production capacity, and demand for the Shuffle is lower than expected, then what Apple should do is have the factories that are manufacturing Shuffles instead start manufacturing Nano’s. In other words, you optimize resources capacity to meet as much demand as you can. You don’t keep having your factories continue to make Shuffles that nobody wants while at the same time not producing enough Nanos. You repurpose your factories. Hence, Berkeley can and should optimize resources to meet demands of impacted majors.</p>

<p>In any case, I would really really like to hear of reasons why a major like economics should be impacted, yet even bigger majors like MCB and poli-sci are not impacted. Why is it that the MCB department can handle all of its students, but economics can’t? If the MCB department is managing its resources better, then the answer ought to be that the economics department should import those best practices of the MCB department.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Try convincing a 2-year old that the shot he’s about to get is good for him. That even though it’ll sting and he’ll cry, that it’s a good thing. Try explaining to the poor people of America that competition is a good thing, that it results in the best coming forth for the lowest prices, even if that means some people, meaning THEM, had to fail. It’s a sign the system works, not that it doesn’t.

</p>

<p>That’s not the right analogy. The right analogy is that the two-year-old would obviously prefer to live in a world without disease, where he wouldn’t HAVE to get a shot. Poor people would prefer to instead live in a world where they aren’t poor. </p>

<p>In my example, that’s exactly the choice that is provided. Those people who are admitted to Berkeley and to a top private school will probably prefer that top private school if, for no other reason, they won’t have to worry about impacted majors. That’s analogous to the 2-year-old having the choice to live in a world without disease, such that he doesn’t have to get a shot in the first place. </p>

<p>

And the poor people of America aren’t doing so badly. I’ve worked at a homeless shelter and the conditions are quite good. The living quarters were clean and well-kept. The cooking was honestly better than what I get at home. There were games like chess to keep you busy and professional help to get you a job. There is also compensation from the government for the unemployed. If you have been to other countries in Asia or Africa and see the poor people there you would see how faulty your argument is.

</p>

<p>Oh come now. I too have seen extremely poor people in the Third World. Certainly we can all agree that going to Berkeley is a lot better than being poor in the Third World. But is that really the best that Berkeley can do? Why should somebody choose Berkeley if he has a choice to go to one of top private schools. At this juncture, there really aren’t that many good reasons. </p>

<p>

Sorry, I’m kind of jumping around here. I agree with this, but we can certainly agree on some common ground as to what the purpose of an advisor is. It is to meet with a student approximately once a semester to guide that student toward his/her goal, which is typically a degree. That means an advisor should inform the student what are good classes to take to keep him/her on track, and should let the student know if his/her performance is sufficient for graduation. That’s all a good advisor has to do. You haven’t shown how Berkeley’s advisors are bad by any standard, and especially not this pretty reasonable one.

</p>

<p>Conversely, you haven’t shown that Berkeley advisors are good by any standard. The point is, I have heard plenty of advising horror stories. This is a problem at Berkeley, even if they are just mere anecdotes. Nobody should feel fearful of their advisors. Yet that is what evidently happens, at least to some people. </p>

<p>

I don’t know, but people do, and there are a lot of extremely smart people here (that compete with HYPSM people). The reason is because the problem is insignificant. And for good students, it’s irrelevant. If you’re an exceptional student, guess what? You don’t care that you need a 3.0GPA to transfer into whatever major. Because you have a 3.7. Otherwise, you aren’t an exceptional student, and you wouldn’t have been exceptional at HYPSM either. </p>

<p>Now, this is something with which I really agree, which is to say that for a student choosing between Berkeley and HYPSM, the impacted majors don’t matter that much because in all likelihood he will get into them anyway. In fact, I don’t think impacted majors is much of a factor at all in a prospective student’s decision to choose a school like HYPSM over Berkeley. I don’t think most students are even aware of it. I think it’s mostly due to prestige, which I guess could have stemmed from not having impacted majors…mmmm probably not though.

</p>

<p>I have always agreed that the top Berkeley students do just fine. My beef has always been - what about those that DON’T do well? There are a lot of Berkeley students who aren’t doing that well. </p>

<p>Furthermore, the characterization of needing just a 3.0 to switch majors is flawed. That 3.0 is often times just a minimum. Just because you have a 3.0 doesn’t mean you will get into the major. </p>

<p>To give you an example, the CS major rejects some people with 3.5’s. If you are getting a 3.5 in CS classes, you are pretty good. Yet even some of them get denied. Do you think that’s what ought to be happening? Clearly these students would have been better off at another school where they could have majored in CS with no problems. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Peer/lowerdivision/admissionsstatistics_data.html#sp02_tech[/url]”>http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Peer/lowerdivision/admissionsstatistics_data.html#sp02_tech&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>However, regardless of whether students choose or don’t choose Berkeley because of impacted majors, it’s still a problem. It’s a matter of optimization. And it’s something that will continue to pull students to other schools.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

But that kind of defeats the purpose of the grades Ds and Fs because now it’s essentially as if no one is receiving them. And it kind of defeats the “you must maintain a 2.0” because now everyone will have at least a 2.0. So in this sense, no one will drop out, right?

</p>

<p>Come on vicissitudes, you gotta read my posts more carefully, because I had already addressed this point. The present rules at Berkeley already state that you have to pass a certain number of units every semester, and if you don’t, you eventually won’t be allowed to register in later semesters (without appeal), because you are simply taking too darn long to graduate. So if you don’t pass enough classes every semester, you will not be allowed to register and that will basically be just like being forced to drop out. </p>

<p>So the point is, those students who are lolly-gagging around now and are currently getting C’s in creampuff majors will instead start getting (hidden) D’s and F’s. Those D’s or F’s won’t count, but neither will those classes be counted as units, and so eventually their registration will be stopped, which will basically mean that they will have flunked out. The only difference is that they will have flunked out without any external evidence of bad grades. That frees that student to transfer to some other school. That’s a lot better than having a bunch of visible D’s and F’s on your transcript that hinders your chances of transferring elsewhere. </p>

<p>Why I believe this is a good tactic primarily has to do with the engineers. Plenty of engineering students get pocked with D’s and F’s all over their transcript, and then they got thrown out. So not only can they not graduate from Berkeley, their bad grades prevents them from transferring to any other decent school. I think should not be. It’s one thing to throw out a student who is not meeting your standards. That’s fine. But it’s quite another thing to then actively preventing that student from pursuing a degree elsewhere. It’s like if you run a bar, and you tell your bouncers to kick out an unruly patron. That’s perfectly fine. But it is not fine at all for your bouncers to then chase that patron across town and beat the hell out of him. That’s clearly illegal. You’ve already proved your point by kicking the guy out of your establishment. You don’t need to pursue the issue any further. </p>

<p>Put another way. Bad college grades exist FOREVER. They are part of your PERMANENT record. Even personal bankrupticies are expunged from your credit rating by law after 7-10 years. That means that even if you have to declare bankruptcy, you are not going to be haunted by that fact forever. Evidence of traffic violations and accidents are expunged from your driving record after about 5 years. But bad grades WILL haunt you forever. So if you want to go to graduate school 30 years later, your bad undergrad grades can still haunt you. Yes, you can try to explain that that was a long time ago, and how you are different person now, etc. etc., but the fact remains that you still have to answer to those bad grades forever. </p>

<p>I think this should not be. So perhaps one thing that Berkeley can do is simply expunge all your bad grades after a certain grace period. Either that, or Berkeley should simply be more careful about handing out bad grades in the first place. That’s why I propose instead of handing out bad grades, just don’t hand out anything at all. Just wipe the course away completely. You’ve already kicked the guy out, so what more is to be gained by also riddling that guy’s academic record with bad grades?</p>

[sakky]

<p>

sakky, I asked you to explain that, not that they’re comporable. If you disagree with this statement, fine, if you agree, care to explain?

</p>

<p>I said that they COULD actually be considered to be better, not that I personally think they are. The point is that the evidence is inconclusive either way, and depending on how you interpret it, one could say that the law school data is better, another person could say that the med-school data is better. It’s completely inconclusive. </p>

<p>

Do you not realize this will cause extreme grade inflation? What do you think the consequences of that will be? Really, I don’t know if this proposal solves many concerns.

</p>

<p>Even if it does cause grade inflation, so what? I don’t think that grade inflation is necessarily a bad thing. What I want is for the lazy students to work harder, or else be kicked out, and if one of the side effects is grade inflation, then so be it. </p>

<p>The problem stands is that, right now, students in the creampuff majors who are in the lower ranks of their class really have no reason to work hard at all. They know that they don’t have the grades to go to graduate school. On the other hand, they also know that they won’t get bad grades that will expel them either. So, really, they have no incentive to work hard at all. Hence, the system has basically given these students the perverse incentive to do nothing. Berkeley ought to remove that incentive.</p>

[greatestyen]

<p>

So it seems to me that what Berkeley should do is simply optimize resources.

</p>

<p>Do you have data showing how many kids aren’t allowed into impacted majors? From what I’ve heard, read, and observed, it doesn’t seems like there is a larger number of students failing get their first choice of major than there are in small, non-impacted majors. So say if you have 50 kids graduating from the German department and 50 kids who can’t get into Econ in a single year, should the econ kids be favored? And if so, why? Where is the evidence that supports your implied theory that students negatively affected by impacted majors outnumber students in non-impacted majors? </p>

<p>

You shift resources from less popular majors to more popular (impacted) ones.

</p>

<p>How do you do this? A couple of months ago you claimed that humanities and social science departments occupied too many buildings and should be forced to “go somewhere else.” Of course, that claim is ridiculous. Humanities and social sciences (17,000 UG students) occupy about 10 relatively smaller buildings out of like 55. If you want to look for a program that has too much physical space, look no farther than the Chemistry department/college. Those buildings are huge. Yet, not a lot of UG students are in chemistry. If the engineering department (2,500 UG students) needs more space, it should take it from chemistry, not the humanities or social sciences. </p>

<p>

If more students want to study economics than the economics resources can handle, then the answer is to create more economics resources.

</p>

<p>But the real question is, what’s “more”?</p>

<p>Is it…10 “more” students want to study economics and nothing else? Or is it, hundreds of students? Why should these hypothetical 10 “more” students be favored over another 10 “more” hypothetical students who want to major in American Studies this year? </p>

<p>

And if that means taking resources from other departments, so be it.

</p>

<p>There are so many problems with this constant argument of yours. </p>

<p>What in the world are “resources”? The resources of the history department are very different than the resources of the chemistry department. If we’re talking of resourses as in dollars, the chemistry department has WAY more resources than the history department. Yet, the history department has more students. If you’re consistant in your beliefs, sakky, do you believe that chemistry should be forced to give its dollar resources to the history department? </p>

<p>

If one department has resources for 100 students, but only has 50, then that department should be made to give up those extra resources so that the economics department can expand capacity.

</p>

<p>But that is just poor planning. If that were to happen, the quality of Berkeley PhD education would drop faster than Bush’s approval ratings. So, in creating a “better” undergraduate program, you’d be sending many of the grad programs to hell. Is that what you want to do? </p>

<p>

In any case, I would really really like to hear of reasons why a major like economics should be impacted, yet even bigger majors like MCB and poli-sci are not impacted.

</p>

<p>Department heads (not “Berkeley”) decide when and if their major becomes impacted, why don’t you ask them?</p>

[greatestyen]

<p>

Hence, the system has basically given these students the perverse incentive to do nothing. Berkeley ought to remove that incentive.

</p>

<p>You constantly use the collective pronoun “Berkeley” to refer to Cal’s administration. I dont like it. </p>

<p>“Berkeley” is a very decentralized entity. Other than the Chancellor, there is really no other official who can make decisions like the ones you want. And the Chancellor doesn’t really deal with UG matters. Neither do the senior administrative officials. The only ones who do on a large scale are the deans. They like to use the Office of Student Research to get a general feel for how undergrads are feeling. And since the OSR largely gets its “research” done by students, maybe you should go after said students and ask why they haven’t voiced these issues. Maybe they have, maybe they haven’t. But even if they did, no carreer-conscious dean would support downsizing non-impacted departments. It’s bad politics.</p>

[greatestyen]

<p>Sakky, on this forum, you have stated that Berkeley has too many humanities and social science faculty members. To “fix” this “problem,” you suggested that it would be best to hire more professors in large and/or impacted majors since you believe that those students don’t get enough personal attention. </p>

<p>Well, I went ahead and researched faculty numbers at different departments and colleges. The results were shocking.</p>

<p>For about 17,000 UG students, L&S has about 800 professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/college/LS_factsheet.pdf[/url]”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/college/LS_factsheet.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For about 2,500 students, the College of Engineering has about 300 professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/faculty_staff/index.html[/url]”>http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/faculty_staff/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For about 700 student, the College of Chemistry has 60 professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://chem.berkeley.edu/people/people_faculty.html[/url]”>http://chem.berkeley.edu/people/people_faculty.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>(This only counts tenured and tenure-track faculty. No Emirati or Lecturers, etc.)</p>

<p>It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that whereas there is approximately one Engineering and one Chemistry professor for every 8 COE students and every 12 COC studentS, respectively, there is only one L&S professor for every 21 L&S students. Talk about underrepresentation, huh?</p>

<p>And don’t even claim that non-large and/or non-impacted humanities and social science departments are hogging up L&S professors which impacted departments within L&S need. </p>

<p>There are about 100 MCB professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://mcb.berkeley.edu/site/content/blogcategory/13/86/[/url]”>http://mcb.berkeley.edu/site/content/blogcategory/13/86/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are exactly 100 physics-related professors. </p>

<p><a href=“Home | Physics”>Home | Physics;

<p>^^this number is just horrible. UG physics is nowhere near large enough as to merit such a high number of faculty in physics. (Assuming we aren’t concerned with graduate education.)</p>

<p>There are about 70 Economics professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://emlab.berkeley.edu/econ/faculty/facmaster_a.shtml[/url]”>Faculty profiles | Department of Economics;

<p>There are about 60 English professors.</p>

<p><a href=“http://english.berkeley.edu/contact/faculty.html[/url]”>http://english.berkeley.edu/contact/faculty.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are about 50 Poli Sci professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.polisci.berkeley.edu/faculty/faculty.asp[/url]”>http://www.polisci.berkeley.edu/faculty/faculty.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are about 50 History professors.</p>

<p><a href=“http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/[/url]”>Current Faculty | Department of History;

<p>There are about 50 Psychology professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/psychology/faculty/faculty_directory.html[/url]”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/psychology/faculty/faculty_directory.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are about 40 Sociology professors.</p>

<p><a href=“http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/index.php[/url]”>http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/index.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are about 30 Anthropology professors. </p>

<p><a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/anth/people.html#RegularFaculty[/url]”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/anth/people.html#RegularFaculty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are about 30 IB professors. </p>

<p><a href=“Faculty | Integrative Biology”>Faculty | Integrative Biology;

<p>There are about 30 Statistics professors.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=89&Itemid=284[/url]”>http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=89&Itemid=284&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In other words, about 3/4 (610/800) L&S faculty are in pretty popular majors, serving what I am pretty sure is about 3/4 of the L&S undergraduate student population. The other 190ish faculty are thinly spread out in a variety of humanities/social science programs which a variety of students choose to major in. I don’t see anything wrong with that. </p>

<p>But I do see many things wrong with the student-faculty ratios of the College of Engineering and the College of Chemistry when compared to L&S. Students in all three programs pay the same amount or get the same financial aid. Yet, they do not have as many faculty “resources” to go to. According to you, sakky, “resources” (faculty) should be moved around based on UG demand. So how can this student-faculty discrepancy be “fixed”? By firing some COE faculty? After all, they are the most overrepresented relative to UG majors in their discipline.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Do you have data showing how many kids aren’t allowed into impacted majors? From what I’ve heard, read, and observed, it doesn’t seems like there is a larger number of students failing get their first choice of major than there are in small, non-impacted majors. So say if you have 50 kids graduating from the German department and 50 kids who can’t get into Econ in a single year, should the econ kids be favored? And if so, why? Where is the evidence that supports your implied theory that students negatively affected by impacted majors outnumber students in non-impacted majors

</p>

<p>First off, when did I ever say that one group ‘outnumbers’ another? Please point to the quote where I specifically put numbers to the problem.</p>

<p>In fact, I obviously cannot, for the simple matter that plenty of students don’t even TRY to switch to the major that they want, because they know they won’t get in. For example, it is rather well understood what the stats are to switch into the Haas School. You basically need about a 3.5-3.6. These are published figues. Even so, about half of the students who apply to Haas do not get in. And that’s just those that apply. Plenty of other students don’t even apply because they know they won’t get in. Let’s face it. If you have a 2.5 in Haas pre-reqs, you’re even not going to apply because you know you stand no chance. The same is true of engineering. If you get a 2.5 in engineering pre-reqs, you’re probably not going to apply. </p>

<p>But as to your greater point - optimization is in fact the name of the game. If the German department has capacity for 100 kids, but only 50 kids show up, then the department should give up that extra capacity that it has. You can’t just hog capacity that you’re not using when other departments have too many students to handle. </p>

<p>

How do you do this? A couple of months ago you claimed that humanities and social science departments occupied too many buildings and should be forced to “go somewhere else.” Of course, that claim is ridiculous. Humanities and social sciences (17,000 UG students) occupy about 10 relatively smaller buildings out of like 55. If you want to look for a program that has too much physical space, look no farther than the Chemistry department/college. Those buildings are huge. Yet, not a lot of UG students are in chemistry. If the engineering department (2,500 UG students) needs more space, it should take it from chemistry, not the humanities or social sciences.

</p>

<p>Uh, first off, read my posts a little more carefully. I never said that ALL humanities/soc-sciences departments are taking up too much space. What I said is that too many humanities/soc-science departments are taking up more space than they need. But that by no means that all of them are doing that. In fact, one social science department, economics, clearly needs MORE SPACE, as evidenced by the fact that they seem to have an impaction problem. </p>

<p>What I propose is that all departments ideally should have to report how much space they actually have, compared to how much they actually need, and those with extra space ought to give it up for those that have too much space. That may indeed mean cutting back on some engineering departments. In fact, that’s precisely what happened to the mining engineering department. I don’t have a problem with that, because frankly, they didn’t have enough students to keep themselves as a going concern. We should do the same to those humanities/social science departments that also don’t have enough students to reasonably be run. </p>

<p>

But the real question is, what’s “more”?</p>

<p>Is it…10 “more” students want to study economics and nothing else? Or is it, hundreds of students? Why should these hypothetical 10 “more” students be favored over another 10 “more” hypothetical students who want to major in American Studies this year?

</p>

<p>Your response contains an inherent paradox, because right now, in your analogy, 10 American Studies students are CURRENTLY being favored over 10 Economics students. So I could ask you the same question , but in reverse, - why should those AS students be favored over the 10 Econ students?</p>

<p>Furthermore, what I propose, I don’t think you actually have to reduce the number of students in any given major, because I strongly suspect that extra capacity exists in many departments - capacity that is going unused and that could be used by Econ. Or CS. Or any other impacted major. Like I said, if people are not fewer Shuffles and buying more Nano’s than Apple is making, then the answer is for Apple to adjust factory capacity to make fewer Shuffles and more Nano’s. Why make more Shuffles than people want? Why make fewer Nano’s than people want? You have fungible factory capacity, so you should adjust your production schedule accordingly. To do otherwise is to deliberately not provide what the customer wants. </p>

<p>Hence, why should AS have the capacity for 100 students if it only has 50, especially when Econ needs capacity? Or any other department besides AS? </p>

<p>

What in the world are “resources”? The resources of the history department are very different than the resources of the chemistry department. If we’re talking of resourses as in dollars, the chemistry department has WAY more resources than the history department. Yet, the history department has more students. If you’re consistant in your beliefs, sakky, do you believe that chemistry should be forced to give its dollar resources to the history department?

</p>

<p>No, because neither history nor chemistry is impacted. So history apparently has all of the capacity it needs.</p>

<p>But other departments do not, and that’s the problem. When I say resources, I mean money, I mean classrooms, I mean faculty, I basically mean everything that is stopping you from taking every single Berkeley student who wants to complete your major. Whatever the limiting factor is, let’s lift it. I don’t know what is stopping Economics from lifting its impaction, but whatever it is, let’s find out what it is and then solve it. Economics should not be impacted. Neither should any other major at Berkeley, for that matter.</p>

<p>Now of course, I don’t expect to eliminate all impaction overnight. This would be a long process. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with the single step. You may not be able to eliminate impaction, but you can reduce it. That is, if certain countervailing forces and certain people want to reduce it. I get the very strong feeling, especially from you, that you don’t WANT Berkeley to fix the impaction problem, that you actually like it. If that is the case, then perhaps you ought to explain why you like impaction.</p>

<p>

But that is just poor planning. If that were to happen, the quality of Berkeley PhD education would drop faster than Bush’s approval ratings. So, in creating a “better” undergraduate program, you’d be sending many of the grad programs to hell. Is that what you want to do?

</p>

<p>Huh? How’s that? Since when are Phd and undergrad quality so tied to each other? </p>

<p>First off, plenty of majors don’t even HAVE a PhD program. There is no PhD program in American Studies. So if I was to take away resources from American Studies, then exactly how am I hurting PhD quality, when there is no PhD program in the first place? Conversely, Berkeley has plenty of PhD programs for which there is NO corresponding undergraduate program. For example, Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology (AHMA) is a pure graduate group only. There is no undergraduate program at all. The same thing is true of Public Policy, Education, and many other programs at Berkeley for which there is no corresponding undergraduate major.</p>

<p>So if AHMA, Public policy, Education, and the like can run a perfectly fine and respected graduate programs without any undergraduate resources whatsoever, then how is it that if I reduce undergrad resources in certain other majors they don’t need it, that automatically hurts the graduate program? </p>

<p>

Department heads (not “Berkeley”) decide when and if their major becomes impacted, why don’t you ask them?

</p>

<p>Yes, maybe we should. And if they say that the answer is resources, then we should give them extra resources. But if they say that it is something else, well, then that’s a whole 'nother story.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Sakky, on this forum, you have stated that Berkeley has too many humanities and social science faculty members. To “fix” this “problem,” you suggested that it would be best to hire more professors in large and/or impacted majors since you believe that those students don’t get enough personal attention.

</p>

<p>Once again, your premise is false. I never said that there were “too many” humanities/soc-science faculty. I said that there were perhaps too many in unpopular disciplines. Certain soc-science faculty, especially economics, are arguably too FEW in number, especially due to the impaction problem. </p>

<p>

But I do see many things wrong with the student-faculty ratios of the College of Engineering and the College of Chemistry when compared to L&S. Students in all three programs pay the same amount or get the same financial aid. Yet, they do not have as many faculty “resources” to go to. According to you, sakky, “resources” (faculty) should be moved around based on UG demand. So how can this student-faculty discrepancy be “fixed”? By firing some COE faculty? After all, they are the most overrepresented relative to UG majors in their discipline.

</p>

<p>See, there you go again. I never said anything about equalizing the number of resources per student. Obviously certain majors require more money to teach than others. Science and engineering majors in particular require rather expensive lab equipment and that seems to be a strong limiting factor towards increasing enrollment in those majors.</p>

<p>What I am talking about is very simple - I want to eliminate impaction. Impaction hits a wide spectrum of majors. Some are technical (i.e. engineering, CS). Some are in the social sciences (Econ, psychology). Some are even in the humanities (Mass Comm). The point is, it is these majors that need to have more resources, possibly by taking some from the majors that have more capacity than they need. Obviously I would prefer to not have to take resources from anybody, but I am willing to consider that option if no extra resources are forthcoming from the state or anywhere else. You, on the other hand, seem to be an apologist, if not an outright defender of impaction. You actually seem to LIKE it that majors are impacted. Why is that?</p>

[greatestyen]

<p>

First off, when did I ever say that one group ‘outnumbers’ another? Please point to the quote where I specifically put numbers to the problem.

</p>

<p>I never said you said it. I said your general stance implies that you are more likely that the average Berkeley CCer to say it. </p>

<p>

But as to your greater point - optimization is in fact the name of the game. If the German department has capacity for 100 kids, but only 50 kids show up, then the department should give up that extra capacity that it has.

</p>

<p>But I just don’t understand how you can objectively measure capacity. I’ll be the first to admit that the German department has a very low undergraduate student-faculty ratio (3:1) but other than that, it doesn’t really have much else. It has graduate students, some books in the library, and the Dwinelle classrooms it uses. If it were judged to have “extra capacity,” what would be taken away? Perhaps faculty should be fired so that their salaries can go elsewhere? But how to do it without a major lawsuit?</p>

<p>

You can’t just hog capacity that you’re not using when other departments have too many students to handle.

</p>

<p>“Capacity” is just too tough to measure. It can’t be reduced to generalizations. The psychology department is impacted and it has about the same number of students as the history department, which isn’t capped. Both departments have an equal number of faculty. I would say that psychology has more resources, since it has the most money. So here you have a department that DOES have resources but doesn’t want to share them with undergraduate students. Perhaps somebody should protest the psychology department? </p>

<p>

What I said is that too many humanities/soc-science departments are taking up more space than they need.

</p>

<p>Whatever the case may be, you are fictionalizing the Berkeley campus. There is not one department in humanities/social-science that takes up more space than it needs. Engineering and Chemistry however, do take up more space than they need. </p>

<p>

But that by no means that all of them are doing that. In fact, one social science department, economics, clearly needs MORE SPACE, as evidenced by the fact that they seem to have an impaction problem.

</p>

<p>I just don’t think this is true. I’ve been to Evans Hall. Many “spaces” are entirely empty. If anything, Economics needs more faculty to make themselves at home in those empty spaces.</p>

<p>

What I propose is that all departments ideally should have to report how much space they actually have, compared to how much they actually need, and those with extra space ought to give it up for those that have too much space.

</p>

<p>I think you have a flawed understanding of department-needed “space.” There are several kinds of education-related “spaces” at Berkeley and only one of them is problematic. </p>

<ol>
<li>Small classrooms - there is no shortage of these for any department. </li>
<li>Student labs - there is no shortage</li>
<li>Large lecture halls - there is no shortage</li>
<li>Faculty offices - there is a shortage in the humanities. Not in engineeging. Not in chemistry. Not in natural resources. In the humanities. This is due to the fact that there are really only 4 buildings which house humanities departments (Dwinelle, Wheeler, Moses, and Stephans.) To alliviate this problem, I believe the campus should build a new building in the back of Dwinelle. </li>
<li>Faculty labs - there is no shortage. </li>
<li>Departamental offices - these are usually next to the faculty offices. </li>
</ol>

<p>I don’t think there is any “space” problem other than offices for humanities faculty. Professors should not have to share offices. And neither should other departments have to pay for this. Berkeley should do it, in the form of a new building. But I don’t really think this is as big an issue as you make it out to be. </p>

<p>

That may indeed mean cutting back on some engineering departments.

</p>

<p>But doesn’t engineering require lots of space? </p>

<p>

We should do the same to those humanities/social science departments that also don’t have enough students to reasonably be run.

</p>

<p>No, you shouldn’t. Those departments are doing just fine where they are and so are most of the other humanities/social science departments. Although it would be good if Berkeley built another humanities building. And what do you mean by “reasonably be run”?</p>

<p>

Your response contains an inherent paradox, because right now, in your analogy, 10 American Studies students are CURRENTLY being favored over 10 Economics students. So I could ask you the same question , but in reverse, - why should those AS students be favored over the 10 Econ students?

</p>

<p>I’m not the one to aswer that. Email Benjamin Hermalin, the head of the Economics department, <a href=“mailto:hermalin@econ.berkeley.edu”>hermalin@econ.berkeley.edu</a> to find out. </p>

<p>

Furthermore, what I propose, I don’t think you actually have to reduce the number of students in any given major, because I strongly suspect that extra capacity exists in many departments

</p>

<p>Not in the humanities. </p>

<p>

• capacity that is going unused and that could be used by Econ.

</p>

<p>Econ is getting a brand new building so stop complaining about it. </p>

<p>

why should AS have the capacity for 100 students if it only has 50, especially when Econ needs capacity? Or any other department besides AS?

</p>

<p>What do you mean by capacity? If you mean space, econ has plenty of it. If you mean money, it has more than enough. If you mean faculty, it has plenty and could hire more. </p>

<p>

No, because neither history nor chemistry is impacted. So history apparently has all of the capacity it needs.

</p>

<p>If you defined what you mean by capacity, perhaps I could stand a chance at figuring out just how wrong this is. </p>

<p>

But other departments do not, and that’s the problem. When I say resources, I mean money, I mean classrooms, I mean faculty, I basically mean everything that is stopping you from taking every single Berkeley student who wants to complete your major.

</p>

<p>There is no shortage of classrooms. There is no shortage of faculty in any impacted major. There are money discrepancies everywhere. But I don’t think any of those factors are what’s “stopping you from taking every single Berkeley student who wants to complete your major.” That’s a decision departments make when they want to make it. Some, like Psychology, chose to do it. History, which is equally popular, chose not to. It’s all about the department chair, his/her predecessors, and commmittee votes. It’s not an issue of “resources” as you define them. </p>

<p>

I get the very strong feeling, especially from you, that you don’t WANT Berkeley to fix the impaction problem, that you actually like it. If that is the case, then perhaps you ought to explain why you like impaction.

</p>

<p>It would be nice if the problem went away. But what I really think is that you blow it out of proportion. I sympathize with the students who are not able to major in what they want to major in, but I just don’t think this issue is that important to that many Berkeley undergraduate students. </p>

<p>

Huh? How’s that? Since when are Phd and undergrad quality so tied to each other?

</p>

<p>Sakky, if you take away resources from what you perceive as resource hogging departments, you will affect the graduate students in those departments. How can you not see that? </p>

<p>

First off, plenty of majors don’t even HAVE a PhD program. There is no PhD program in American Studies. So if I was to take away resources from American Studies, then exactly how am I hurting PhD quality, when there is no PhD program in the first place?

</p>

<p>Ugh. The AS major does have a PhD equivalent. It’s taught by the same faculty who preside over dissertation committees for PhD candidates in the field of American Cultural History. That applies for most if not all of the majors that don’t explicitly have PhD equavalents. </p>

<p>

Conversely, Berkeley has plenty of PhD programs for which there is NO corresponding undergraduate program. For example, Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology (AHMA) is a pure graduate group only.

</p>

<p>Ugh. You are wrong again. The corresponding UG program for AHMA is Near Eastern Studies. </p>

<p>

The same thing is true of Public Policy, Education, and many other programs at Berkeley for which there is no corresponding undergraduate major.

</p>

<p>Ok. I’m unclear, do you think these deparments/schools/groups should be included when tallying up “space”? If so, how would the findings affect them? </p>

<p>

how is it that if I reduce undergrad resources in certain other majors they don’t need it, that automatically hurts the graduate program?

</p>

<p>It’s funny that you accuse me of misremembering statements you made months ago when you misread my post from today, in which I never said of graduate programs would be affected by your proposals. I explicitly said “many,” not all as you are trying to make it seem. </p>

<p>

Yes, maybe we should. And if they say that the answer is resources, then we should give them extra resources. But if they say that it is something else, well, then that’s a whole 'nother story.

</p>

<p>I’m fine with giving them resources. But not another department’s resources, especially when many departments may not have any resources to offer.</p>

[greatestyen]

<p>

I never said anything about equalizing the number of resources per student.

</p>

<p>I never said you did. All I did was ask a question. Could you answer it? Even if you think I misinterpret your posts, you should still be able to answer at least part of the questions I ask without resorting to pointing out how flawed I am for asking said questions. </p>

<p>So, after I listed the number of profs in each of those subject areas, you still think that out of the impacted majors and large majors I listed, some need more resources in the form of faculty? It’s a simple yes/no question.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

I never said you said it. I said your general stance implies that you are more likely that the average Berkeley CCer to say it.

</p>

<p>Why don’t you debate what I actually say, rather than what you think I am going to say. Otherwise, you don’t even really need me at all, you can just tell me what you think I will say and then respond to that. </p>

<p>

If you defined what you mean by capacity, perhaps I could stand a chance at figuring out just how wrong this is.

</p>

<p>Capacity is simple. Capacity is about being able to take all of the undergrads who want to declare your major. Poli-sci doesn’t seem to have a problem with capacity. Neither does MCB. Those are the 2 largest majors on campus. So if they can handle all the students who want to major in those subjects, why shouldn’t economics? Why shouldn’t CS? </p>

<p>

There is no shortage of classrooms. There is no shortage of faculty in any impacted major. There are money discrepancies everywhere. But I don’t think any of those factors are what’s “stopping you from taking every single Berkeley student who wants to complete your major.” That’s a decision departments make when they want to make it. Some, like Psychology, chose to do it. History, which is equally popular, chose not to. It’s all about the department chair, his/her predecessors, and commmittee votes. It’s not an issue of “resources” as you define them

</p>

<p>Exactly. That’s what I suspect it is too. Then we have to confront these department heads and ask them to justify why they should be allowed to restrict entry into their majors, but other majors do not.</p>

<p>After all, you guys said it yourself. You guys take the position that Berkeley undergrad is supposed to provide wide access to education. Yet here are these departments, who are taking public money, not refusing to provide wide access to their undergrad majors. Do you think that squares with Berkeley’s mission? </p>

<p>

It would be nice if the problem went away. But what I really think is that you blow it out of proportion. I sympathize with the students who are not able to major in what they want to major in, but I just don’t think this issue is that important to that many Berkeley undergraduate students.

</p>

<p>Then let’s go ask some students, current and former, who couldn’t get into the major that they wanted. Would you like me to introduce you to them? Maybe you could ask THEM whether they think this issue isn’t that important to many Berkeley undergraduate students, or whether I am blowing this all out of proportion. I’m sure they would be able to give you quite an earful. </p>

<p>

Ugh. You are wrong again. The corresponding UG program for AHMA is Near Eastern Studies.

</p>

<p>No, you are wrong, again. Near Eastern Studies has its OWN PhD program.</p>

<p><a href=“http://neareastern.berkeley.edu/docs/graduate_study.html[/url]”>http://neareastern.berkeley.edu/docs/graduate_study.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now, it is true that AHMA draws upon some of the resources in Near Eastern Studies. But it also draws upon the resources of many other departments, such as History, Religion, Classics, Anthropology, and so forth.</p>

<p><a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ahma/faculty.html[/url]”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ahma/faculty.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Come on, greatesteyn, do your research before you come to debate me. </p>

<p>

Ok. I’m unclear, do you think these deparments/schools/groups should be included when tallying up “space”? If so, how would the findings affect them?

</p>

<p>If they have more ‘space’ than they really need, then, yes, they might have to give it up. It’s all about trying to help out those departments who apparently don’t have enough space to accomodate interest. </p>

<p>

It’s funny that you accuse me of misremembering statements you made months ago when you misread my post from today, in which I never said of graduate programs would be affected by your proposals. I explicitly said “many,” not all as you are trying to make it seem.

</p>

<p>I think YOU are the one who is continuing to misread posts. Did I ever say that you said “all”? Point to the quote where I said that. Can’t do it, right?</p>

<p>You said that by reducing undergrad resources, grad quality might be reduced. I question that assertion. If you still believe in it, please defend it. </p>

<p>

I’m fine with giving them resources. But not another department’s resources, especially when many departments may not have any resources to offer.

</p>

<p>Why not another department’s resources? Like I said, if they’re not using it, why shouldn’t they give it up? ‘Use it or lose it’ is a good axion here. You shouldn’t be allowed to hog resources you are not using.</p>

<p>Now, that doesn’t mean that I advocate taking resources from departments who need it. If your department really is utilizing all the resources you have, then fine, you don’t have to give anything up. But if you’re not, then you ought to give it to those departments who need it.</p>

<p>Consider this analogy. You have a starving man. Surrounding him are people who have food they are not eating, but they refuse to give any to the starving man. Come on, as a matter of compassion, if somebody is starving and you have extra food that you’re not eating, you ought to give him some.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

never said you did. All I did was ask a question. Could you answer it? Even if you think I misinterpret your posts, you should still be able to answer at least part of the questions I ask without resorting to pointing out how flawed I am for asking said questions. </p>

<p>So, after I listed the number of profs in each of those subject areas, you still think that out of the impacted majors and large majors I listed, some need more resources in the form of faculty? It’s a simple yes/no question.

</p>

<p>I believe that the biggest issue on hand is the problem of impaction. Whichever major needs more resources to solve problems of impaction ought to get those resources. If that means taking extra resources from other departments who aren’t using them, then so be it. I’d prefer not to have to resort to this step, but if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes. </p>

<p>Let me ask you a yes/no question. Do you think impaction is good? Yes, or no.</p>

[vicissitudes]

<p>

Oh come now. I too have seen extremely poor people in the Third World. Certainly we can all agree that going to Berkeley is a lot better than being poor in the Third World. But is that really the best that Berkeley can do? Why should somebody choose Berkeley if he has a choice to go to one of top private schools. At this juncture, there really aren’t that many good reasons.

</p>

<p>No it’s not the best Berkeley can do, but that’s not a valid analogy. Because like you said, someone poor would prefer to live in a world without poverty. Now, if we were comparing poverty to impaction, then in terms of college students, yes they can go to HYPS where there is no impaction. However, a poor man in this world cannot go to a place where there is no poverty, because that place doesn’t exist. There is no HYPS-equivalent. So in this case, the poor man can’t really complain about competition because that’s really the best we have. It’s like saying if there is no college that has no impaction, then obviously Berkeley is probably the best a prospective student can do. Thus, I don’t think the original analogy was valid.</p>

<p>

I have always agreed that the top Berkeley students do just fine. My beef has always been - what about those that DON’T do well? There are a lot of Berkeley students who aren’t doing that well.

</p>

<p>And I’m fine with helping those who don’t do well. However, sometimes you say a student will choose HYPSM over Berkeley because of say, impaction. Well, that student will probably be a top Berkeley student anyway, and will do just fine. Impaction mostly affects those who don’t do well. So, students won’t really choose HYPSM over Berkeley because of something like impaction.</p>

<p>Of course, I’m not trying to defend impaction or anything. I still think it should be fixed. And of course there’s always a chance that you will do badly and be affected by impaction even if you are a “top student” so there is an advantage in choosing HYPSM, but I don’t think it’s that big.</p>

<p>

Come on vicissitudes, you gotta read my posts more carefully, because I had already addressed this point. The present rules at Berkeley already state that you have to pass a certain number of units every semester, and if you don’t, you eventually won’t be allowed to register in later semesters (without appeal), because you are simply taking too darn long to graduate. So if you don’t pass enough classes every semester, you will not be allowed to register and that will basically be just like being forced to drop out.

</p>

<p>Okay, thank you for explaining that to me. I wasn’t clear about that rule. Still, I don’t think eliminating Ds and Fs is such a good idea, nor will be implemented anytime soon. </p>

<p>Now, let’s say under that policy, a student drops out but has no Ds or Fs on his transcript. He applies as a transfer to another college. Will the other college SEE that he has flunked out, or just see his transcript? If the college only sees the transcript, that seems to me a little like deception because the student essentially got a bunch of Ds and Fs that don’t show up. If the college sees that he has flunked out, then whether the Ds or Fs show up or not doesn’t really matter that much, in my opinion.</p>

<p>I like your other proposal better, which is to simply wipe the slate clean after a few years or something.</p>

<p>Another solution I thought of is just to accept less students so that Berkeley doesn’t need to weed out all these students in the first place. Have say, 20,000 undergrads instead of 23,000. Let the bottom 3,000 filter down to the lower UCs (obviously they applied to them), some of which are under capacity.</p>

<p>Or, just equalize the playing field a little and maybe hand out a few more Ds and Fs in some easy majors and fewer in majors like engineering.</p>

[Golden_Boy]

<p>

Why I believe this is a good tactic primarily has to do with the engineers. Plenty of engineering students get pocked with D’s and F’s all over their transcript, and then they got thrown out. So not only can they not graduate from Berkeley, their bad grades prevents them from transferring to any other decent school. I think should not be. It’s one thing to throw out a student who is not meeting your standards. That’s fine. But it’s quite another thing to then actively preventing that student from pursuing a degree elsewhere. It’s like if you run a bar, and you tell your bouncers to kick out an unruly patron. That’s perfectly fine. But it is not fine at all for your bouncers to then chase that patron across town and beat the hell out of him. That’s clearly illegal. You’ve already proved your point by kicking the guy out of your establishment. You don’t need to pursue the issue any further.</p>

<p>Put another way. Bad college grades exist FOREVER. They are part of your PERMANENT record. Even personal bankrupticies are expunged from your credit rating by law after 7-10 years. That means that even if you have to declare bankruptcy, you are not going to be haunted by that fact forever. Evidence of traffic violations and accidents are expunged from your driving record after about 5 years. But bad grades WILL haunt you forever. So if you want to go to graduate school 30 years later, your bad undergrad grades can still haunt you. Yes, you can try to explain that that was a long time ago, and how you are different person now, etc. etc., but the fact remains that you still have to answer to those bad grades forever.

</p>

<p>I’ve heard you use this argument a lot. It’s a scary thought. Forgive any ignorance on my part, but if someone has a horrible transcript from Berkeley can’t that person apply to another university and go through undergrad again? Get a fresh start? I mean, you can choose to not inform the new school that you ever attended Berkeley, can’t you? Then if you want to go to grad school, you could forward the transcript from your new school?</p>

[sakky]

<p>

No it’s not the best Berkeley can do, but that’s not a valid analogy. Because like you said, someone poor would prefer to live in a world without poverty. Now, if we were comparing poverty to impaction, then in terms of college students, yes they can go to HYPS where there is no impaction. However, a poor man in this world cannot go to a place where there is no poverty, because that place doesn’t exist. There is no HYPS-equivalent. So in this case, the poor man can’t really complain about competition because that’s really the best we have. It’s like saying if there is no college that has no impaction, then obviously Berkeley is probably the best a prospective student can do. Thus, I don’t think the original analogy was valid.

</p>

<p>I’m talking about a student who DOES have the choice of Berkeley and one of the top private schools. With the situation the way it is, why would that person want to go to Berkeley? Again, he could choose “the world without disease”, rather than go to the world that does have disease and then have to take a vaccination shot. </p>

<p>

And I’m fine with helping those who don’t do well. However, sometimes you say a student will choose HYPSM over Berkeley because of say, impaction. Well, that student will probably be a top Berkeley student anyway, and will do just fine. Impaction mostly affects those who don’t do well. So, students won’t really choose HYPSM over Berkeley because of something like impaction.

</p>

<p>I disagree. Profoundly. My old friend from Oakland immediately comes to mind. Came to Berkeley EECS and got completely killed, and eventually was expelled. If he had gone to one of the private schools (for which he got into some), I’m quite certain he would have graduated. Maybe not with the best grades. But he would have graduated. </p>

<p>

Now, let’s say under that policy, a student drops out but has no Ds or Fs on his transcript. He applies as a transfer to another college. Will the other college SEE that he has flunked out, or just see his transcript? If the college only sees the transcript, that seems to me a little like deception because the student essentially got a bunch of Ds and Fs that don’t show up. If the college sees that he has flunked out, then whether the Ds or Fs show up or not doesn’t really matter that much, in my opinion.

</p>

<p>Let me put it to you this way. This is EXACTLY what MIT and Caltech do, for their freshmen year. Grades below C’s in your freshman year are automatically wiped out of your external transcript, and it is this external transcript that is sent out if you want to transfer out. </p>

<p>So are you going to accuse MIT and Caltech of deception? </p>

<p>And then of course there was the practice of Stanford to, until just recently, not even hand out any failing grades at all. It wasn’t even a matter of handing out such grades and then hiding them. Stanford would simply not hand them out - automatically waiving the class if you got such a grade. So is Stanford deceiving people? The same thing happens with all grade inflation, INCLUDING the grade-inflated majors at Berkeley. Like I’ve been saying, at Berkeley, there are certain majors in which it’s practically impossible to get anything lower than a C. </p>

<p>I would argue that if anything could be accused of deceit, it is THOSE majors who just simply never hand out bad grades ever.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

I’ve heard you use this argument a lot. It’s a scary thought.

</p>

<p>Yes it is. </p>

<p>

Forgive any ignorance on my part, but if someone has a horrible transcript from Berkeley can’t that person apply to another university and go through undergrad again? Get a fresh start? I mean, you can choose to not inform the new school that you ever attended Berkeley, can’t you? Then if you want to go to grad school, you could forward the transcript from your new school?

</p>

<p>There are ways, notably by going to a community college, building a good academic record there, and then transferring to a CalState or so forth. </p>

<p>But my position is, why should they have to go through this rigamarole. After all, anybody who is good enough to get into Berkeley was obviously good enough to get into a lower UC or a CalState. So if Berkeley was just too hard, I think you should be given an automatic and free transfer to a lower UC or to a CalState, even if you get terrible grades at Cal. In other words, Cal should never make anybody WORSE off. At worst, you should be in the same condition as you were before you ever went to Cal, but no worse. </p>

<p>Again, I think of my friend who is now working as a bank teller (after quitting FedEx) who flunked out of Berkeley. He was made worse off by going to Berkeley. CalState or a lower UC like UCDavis will take him only if he rebuilds his academic record at a community college. So he has to spend years doing that. But why? He was obviously good enough to get into CalState or UCDavis right after high school. It’s just that because of his difficulties at Cal, he can’t even easily go to Davis or a CalState. In other words, he was actually made WORSE off by going to Berkeley than if he had never gone to college at all. </p>

<p>Think of it this way. He freely admits that he was immature at Berkeley, and that caused hiim to get bad grades. Sure, he made stupid mistakes. But think about what would have happened had he just gotten a job right after high school. He actually thought about it, because he was the first in his family to go to college - all of his siblings and cousins went to work right after high school. So let’s say he decided to work right after high school. And let’s say he was immature at his job. He probably would have gotten fired. But at least his academic record would still be pristine. So now he would be able to apply to (and get into) a school like UCDavis or San Jose State. </p>

<p>But because he chose to go to Berkeley, and was immature there, his academic record is trashed. Sadly, the truth is, he would have been better off had he never gone to Cal at all. Not only can he not get a Cal degree, he probably can’t even get a UCDavis degree now. He might be able to get a CalState degree, but only if he goes through the community college process, and even then, there are no assurances. </p>

<p>But even if he does all that, he still doesn’t really get a “fresh start”. For example, if he ever applied to graduate school, then he has to submit his failing Berkeley grades. Whenever anybody ever asks whether he has even been placed on probation or been dismissed from a school, he has to answer “yes”. If he lies, by not showing his Berkeley transcripts, or by denying that he was dismissed, his application could be dismissed for lying, or even worse, his graduate degree might be revoked for lying on his application. So in that sense, he is NEVER made whole. His decisions to go to Cal has, sadly, irrevocably made him worse off. Forever. And I think that’s wrong. Like I said, even a declaration of personal bankruptcy is, by law, wiped off your credit report after 7-10 years. Why can’t bad grades or records of academic probation/dismissal be like that? </p>

<p>Look, it’s now more than a decade since all of this happened. He is a completely different man now - far more mature. He’s married now. He’s probably going to have a kid soon. He’s not the same immature kid that he used to be. Yes, he was a screwup before. He freely admits that he was a screwup. But that’s more than 10 years ago. Who cares about that now? Yet Berkeley will still not let him off the hook. Why is that? Just leave the guy alone and let him move on with his life with a clean slate.</p>

[greatestyen]

<p>

After all, you guys said it yourself. You guys take the position that Berkeley undergrad is supposed to provide wide access to education. Yet here are these departments, who are taking public money, not refusing to provide wide access to their undergrad majors. Do you think that squares with Berkeley’s mission?

</p>

<p>It is true that they take public money. However, don’t the capped departments take less public and more private money? Maybe that’s their explanation? </p>

<p>

Then let’s go ask some students, current and former, who couldn’t get into the major that they wanted. Would you like me to introduce you to them? Maybe you could ask THEM whether they think this issue isn’t that important to many Berkeley undergraduate students, or whether I am blowing this all out of proportion. I’m sure they would be able to give you quite an earful.

</p>

<p>When I describe what you say as “out of proportion” I do not mean that it is not a serious issue for many individuals. But you must surely recognize that the vast majority of Cal students do not run into problems due to the impacted majors. </p>

<p>

No, you are wrong, again. Near Eastern Studies has its OWN PhD program.</p>

<p><a href=“http://neareastern.berkeley.edu/doc...uate_study.html[/url]”>http://neareastern.berkeley.edu/doc...uate_study.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now, it is true that AHMA draws upon some of the resources in Near Eastern Studies. But it also draws upon the resources of many other departments, such as History, Religion, Classics, Anthropology, and so forth.</p>

<p><a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ahma/faculty.html[/url]”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ahma/faculty.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Come on, greatesteyn, do your research before you come to debate me.

</p>

<p>But NES undergraduates are instructed in the same, though wattered-down, subject matter as AHMA students. It is more than fitting for me to describe NES as AHMAs “corresponding UG program.”</p>

<p>

You said that by reducing undergrad resources, grad quality might be reduced. I question that assertion. If you still believe in it, please defend it.

</p>

<p>Well. This is just one example. But what if the administration took up your plan and noticed that barely any (probably less than 3) UGs are enrolled in say, Cuneiform. So what does the administration do? Under your plan, perhaps it could “shift” resources in the form of faculty numbers to impacted departments. If that happened, who would instruct PhD students in AHMA and NES and related fields on Cuneiform? There is after all, only one professor of Cuneiform at Berkeley. The same thing would happen all over the campus. </p>

<p>I just don’t understand. If you were to shift faculty resources, who would go and who would stay? Would a publish or perish worldview determing your selection?</p>

<p>Please comment on the number of faculty in each of the colleges I listed. Obviously, lots of Engineering professors would have to go if faculty resources were shifted in order to provide increased personal attention to neglected students in L&S. Do you support that? Could you blacklist some engineering professors right now? </p>

<p>

If they have more ‘space’ than they really need, then, yes, they might have to give it up. It’s all about trying to help out those departments who apparently don’t have enough space to accomodate interest.

</p>

<p>But I thought you were in agreement in that space wasn’t a problem outside of certain areas and departments? I thought you thought, like I do, that the reason some departments are impacted and others are not is simply because the department decided to do things like that. </p>

<p>You did say::</p>

<p>

Exactly. That’s what I suspect it is too.

</p>

<hr>

<p>

Why not another department’s resources? Like I said, if they’re not using it, why shouldn’t they give it up? ‘Use it or lose it’ is a good axion here. You shouldn’t be allowed to hog resources you are not using.

</p>

<p>I would agree with that, if I thought any departments had extra resources. I don’t. You could say I think resources in terms of faculty, physical space, and money, is fine as it is currently distributed. </p>

<p>

Now, that doesn’t mean that I advocate taking resources from departments who need it. If your department really is utilizing all the resources you have, then fine, you don’t have to give anything up. But if you’re not, then you ought to give it to those departments who need it.

</p>

<p>I just don’t understand how any organization the campus created to “objectively” measure “resources” could actually “work.” There is too much diversity in terms of needed “resources.” </p>

<p>And I would still like to hear how you propose to shift resources in the form of faculty numbers. It’s next to impossible to fire tenured faculty unless they have committed academic fraud or some equal offence. </p>

<p>

Let me ask you a yes/no question. Do you think impaction is good? Yes, or no.

</p>

<p>Yes. </p>

<p>Now it’s your turn. </p>

<p>Since I have shown you that Chemistry has too many faculty members relative to undergradute enrollment, would you support the firing of several Chemistry faculty members? Yes or no.</p>

[Golden_Boy]

<p>I agree…that’s pretty messed up.</p>

<p>

But even if he does all that, he still doesn’t really get a “fresh start”. For example, if he ever applied to graduate school, then he has to submit his failing Berkeley grades. Whenever anybody ever asks whether he has even been placed on probation or been dismissed from a school, he has to answer “yes”. If he lies, by not showing his Berkeley transcripts, or by denying that he was dismissed, his application could be dismissed for lying, or even worse, his graduate degree might be revoked for lying on his application. So in that sense, he is NEVER made whole.

</p>

<p>Out of curiousity, how would anyone ever find out? If he says “No”, how will anyone know the difference? Berkeley isn’t allowed to give out grades or transcripts without the students permission, doing so would be a breach of privacy.</p>

[vicissitudes]

<p>

I disagree. Profoundly. My old friend from Oakland immediately comes to mind. Came to Berkeley EECS and got completely killed, and eventually was expelled. If he had gone to one of the private schools (for which he got into some), I’m quite certain he would have graduated. Maybe not with the best grades. But he would have graduated.

</p>

<p>So then, either the top students at Berkeley aren’t exactly doing fine, or those who were admitted to HYPSM shouldn’t automatically be considered a top student…right? (I’m asking)</p>

<p>

Let me put it to you this way. This is EXACTLY what MIT and Caltech do, for their freshmen year. Grades below C’s in your freshman year are automatically wiped out of your external transcript, and it is this external transcript that is sent out if you want to transfer out.

</p>

<p>Actually, I was told by MIT that they do all of their first semester grades on a P/NP basis.</p>

<p>And yes, I do think it’s a little deceptive. If the student received a D, then let the transcript show that he received a D. That’s why grades are given out. If you only show the good grades (A/B/C) and not the bad (D/F) then that kind of defeats the purpose of grading.</p>

<p>

And then of course there was the practice of Stanford to, until just recently, not even hand out any failing grades at all. It wasn’t even a matter of handing out such grades and then hiding them. Stanford would simply not hand them out - automatically waiving the class if you got such a grade. So is Stanford deceiving people?

</p>

<p>Well, there’s a difference between not handing out failing grades and hiding failing grades.</p>

<p>But yes, I would consider that to be deceitful in nature too. If the student is doing F work but the University gives him a B, and that is shown to employers, then of course it’s deceitful in that it doesn’t reflect the student’s true abilities. I think you can agree that what Stanford is doing (not handing out failing grades) isn’t right. Furthermore, I am going to use (if you’ll excuse me) an argument that you use often, which is to ask why are we talking about Stanford in the first place? It shouldn’t matter what other schools are doing wrong. If Stanford continues its problem of grade-inflation but Berkeley fixes it (for example, making the easy majors harder) then all the better for Berkeley.</p>