<p>And hopefully your professors don’t clump multiple midterms/paper in the same week.</p>
<p>Before 1966, all UCs were on the semester system. My mom graduated from UCLA undergrad and law school, when both were still on the semester system.</p>
<p>Followed by the suggestion of Berkeley, and a later recommendation by the State Coordinating Council for Higher Education (thinking more money would be made), all campuses, including Berkeley, changed over to the quarter system in 1966.</p>
<p>Needless to say, then Governor Reagan, in his infinite “wisdom” substantially reduced state funding for the UCs (I will hold my comments in check over the fact that UCLA had the temerity of naming the new medical center after him based on this history), the summer quarter was dropped in 1970, so even though it’s called the “quarter” system, it isn’t because of that.</p>
<p>In 1976, the Berkeley faculty voted overwhelmingly to return to the semester system, but wanted all UCs to follow suit. When the others did not, Berkeley faculty voted again and in the fall of 1983, Berkeley returned to the semester system.</p>
<p>UCLA’s two grad schools also eventually reverted to the semester system, namely the law school in 1978 and the school of medicine in 1987.</p>
<p>There has since been substantial debate by the UCLA leaders to return UCLA to the semester system over the years – I believe the last time was in 2002. In fact, the debate was going on at UCLA when I was there back in 1976. There was a student referendum on the subject and the spread was about 70/30 to retain the quarter system. </p>
<p>I was one of the 30% who voted to return to the semester system.</p>
<p>Why? Certain majors are more conducive to the semester system, such as English Lit. When the UCs changed over to quarters, Shakespeare, for example, took a big hit. Instead of two semesters for Shakespeare, the curriculum was shoved with a shoehorn into two quarters. Most English classes were like that, which meant the student was forced to read about 120 pages per night per English class. And God forbid you took two or three English classes – imagine trying to jam through Chaucer in a couple of weeks! To me, it just meant a lot of cramming with little time to digest. And that worked only if you aren’t a big procrastinator which, let’s face it, most of us are.</p>
<p>So what happens? You learn to cut corners. You learn to figure out what you need to read and what you can short-change. Because ordinarily, at least on English exams, you were given a choice – three out of five essays. Which basically meant if you had five books to read, you really only needed to read three, but would be required to write on every single book you read.</p>
<p>Which, academically, to me at least, is a real shame.</p>
<p>^^…okay…</p>
<p>Lakers win. Durant is the next Kobe though…in 2-3 years.</p>
<p>No one is the next Kobe, until Kobe retires. Kobe is the king until that time comes.</p>
<p>King James dethroned Kobe years ago…</p>
<p>first of all durant is never going to be as good as kobe look how thin he is i doubt that he has ever weighted lifted seriously.</p>
<p>second of all james will never be better than Kobe. everytime i hear the debate all the NBA expertsay " ill take Lebron in the regular season but ill take Kobe in the playoffs"</p>
<p>to be the best ever you have to win championships and last time i checked Kobe has 4 Rings James has 0</p>
<p>^ur obviously a bandwagon laker/kobe fan</p>
<p>real fans like me followed bryant since '96. he was just as skinny as durant. i am a huge lakers fan. but ur an idiot if u still think kobe is the same kobe he was back in the former half of this decade. this is the beginning of the end of the kobe era. james will win the 2-3 titles in the next 5 years. when its all said and done (which will be in 10+ years), we’ll see who has more rings</p>
<p>more time to stare at the hottie sitting in lecture</p>
<p>dude i have been a laker fam for over 10 years and yes i know it took about 4 years for kobe to start winning so if Kobe is the same as Lebron that means Lebron is way overdue</p>
<p>Let’s not forgot Lebron has not had the kind of supporting crew as Kobe has had. Who’s Cleveland’s version of shaq? Big Z? No.</p>
<p>someone could argue that kobe had shaq but lebron had both Big Z AND Varejao.</p>
<p>but seriously comparing thje greatness of Kobe versus Lebron is like splitting hairs there are both going to go down as the top 10 nba players of all time</p>
<p>wait, Big Z and Varejao? Let’s not kid ourselves by comparing these two players to Shaq. Shaq was arguably the most dominant player during their title run and Varejao/Big Z are NOWHERE near that or ever will be.</p>
<p>all im saying is Lebron has more options to distribute the ball to. Shaq was the only player Kobe could give the ball to. that worked for a while but eventually teams knew how to stop it</p>
<p>When Shaq was on the Lakers, remember he was the MVP, not Kobe.</p>
<p>Bumping this thread (after reading people’s wrong anti-Lakers predictions) as it is relevant again</p>
<p>One bad thing about semester system: Having to do homework and study for midterms that are scheduled after spring break while all your other UC friends relax for a week after their finals :(</p>
<p>^^ True dat.</p>
<p>^Of course quarter system people get to deal with finals thrice a year, whereas we only have to deal with those demons twice a year.</p>
<p>Is Berkeley on the quarter or semester system? How about UCLA?</p>