<p>…so this whole thread is based on the opinion of one athlete and the few who made some comments in the quoted article. Success depends on the individual, not whether they go to Berkeley, Michigan or Flank Steak University; yes, sure let’s compare those who get cool jobs as investment bankers out of elite schools but also compare the starving child in Africa…and whether these will-be successful individuals choose to attend Harvard or not… it’s their problem not anyone else’s. In the end you, you want Cal to recruit smart athletes so you won’t complain in your American Studies class about how stupid they are or superior athletes so you can brag and be proud of about how your college reigns supreme in sports…really? Oh, so Berkeley is not living up to it’s supposed reputation? Life is too short.</p>
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<p>uh, what??</p>
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<p>Actually, I think your posts ironically only seem to illustrate the point further. Out of the entire football team - which is the sport of discussion - the final article could find only one Cal engineer? Just one? That’s it? (Actually, I suspect there may be more than 1 engineer on the football team, but that nevertheless hardly distracts from the main point that football-playing engineers seem to be few and far between). </p>
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<p>Yeah, well, at the end of the day, who’s the highest paid employee at Cal, by far? It’s not any of the Nobel Laureates on the faculty, nor it is Robert Birgeneau. No, it’s football coach Jeff Tedford. In fact, he makes more money than all of Berkeley’s Nobel Laureates combined. </p>
<p>Now, the counterargument is that while Tedford may be paid a bundle, he also draws substantial revenue for the school, such that his employment represents a net profit for Cal. (I’m not saying that I agree, I’m just acknowledging the counterargument). After all, the Cal football team can draw 70k fans to Mem Stadium for every home game, along with substantial TV revenue. How many Nobel Laureates can say the same? Whether we like it or not, the football team, in terms of TV viewership, is the most publicized feature of the university. Surely more people watch the Cal football team on TV than watch anything else that happens at Cal. {Heck, how many Cal non-sports activities are ever televised at all?} </p>
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<p>I agree, but the problem is that once social institutions are entrenched, they are nearly impossible to uproot, and individual actors are then entirely rational to conform to the incentives of those institutions, however deleterious they may be for the rest of society. At the end of the day, the NFL pays its stars - and even plenty of non-stars - stratospheric salaries, and at a young age when the money can be invested for maximum lifetime benefit. Sam Bradford not only made enough money in his very first season in the NFL that only does he never have to work a day in his life ever again, neither likely (with prudent investing) do his great-grandchildren, he made far more money in that single year than did Tom Brady in his first five years in the NFL, which happened to include 3 Superbowl championships. Highly talented high school football players are therefore well advised to rationally prioritize football over academics if they can’t have both, because football offers the alluring financial incentives that academics, sadly, doesn’t. </p>
<p>The real way to change the system is to match the incentives that the current system provides. What if the best science graduates were paid millions in guaranteed contracts right out of college? What if science fair competitions were nationally televised, with entire TV channels serving as counterparts to the NFL Network that broadcast science fair commentary and footage every moment of the day? What if the final annual competition round was the biggest media event in the world with the best advertising firms paying millions and saving their best work to be broadcast during that competition? What if Kardashian sisters and other groupies were dating leading science fair competitors, with their travails plastered all over TMZ and PerezHilton? You better believe that kids would be coming out of the woodwork to learn science. </p>
<p>But that’s sadly never going to happen. As long as the best science graduates continue to be toil in obscurity for unremarkable salaries, then students will continue to not really want to study science. </p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Who here has ever heard of Terence Tao? Probably nobody. Yet he’s a Fields-Medal-winning math professor at UCLA and who undoubtedly is one of the most brilliant mathematicians alive today. But the truth of the matter is, society doesn’t really care about him, compared to how much we care about athletes, movie/TV stars, and singers, even if untalented. Snooki alone is surely more famous than all of the world’s mathematicians put together. The social incentives are crystal clear: rather than being a star mathematician, you should be Snooki.</p>
<p>Who has heard of Tao? </p>
<p>Me me me!!! </p>
<p>Even worse, I recall that hundreds of people take Borcherds for Math 1A or 1B, and don’t realize he’s a Fields Medalist. </p>
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<p>I have a hard time imagining how this can change though. People aren’t paid because they’re intelligent - they’re paid because someone thinks they can make them money or provide immediate service. I hope you can correct me on this sakky, because it might be encouraging. </p>
<p>People aren’t paid just for being good at football - they’re paid for being good at football and in a position where they entertain tons of people. Roger Federer is a superstar tennis player, but he’s not paid for how good he is - he’s paid for the crowds he draws probably (sure, marginally he gets paid more for winning a tournament than being the runner up, maybe, but that’s probably not how most of his money accrues). And arguably, appearing in advertisements, etc, is a significant monetary addition, because again, someone thinks his doing so is going to make them money. </p>
<p>This is why many people whose skills are not anywhere as rare as those of a world class professor at Berkeley may still make more money - due to demand, or perceived demand, and because they play into the hands of people who simply have a lot of money to throw in their direction.</p>
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<p>Our teaching might be worse off on average than what can be found in schools who hire primarily based on teaching. But the breadth and depth of classes and research are another factor which is huge in undergrad studies. Getting exposed to a lot of extremely interesting stuff can be harder at many smaller schools who simply don’t have the same resources. I would say our selection of interesting stuff going on easily compares to that of top schools. And in fact, top research schools tend to select their faculty in a huge way based on their research capabilities, in order to stay competitive. </p>
<p>Berkeley has an assortment of really bad and really good teachers, and one has to pick and choose.</p>
<p>@mathboy98: I’m taking math with Borcherds and I know he’s a Fields Medalist. When I found out (end of first week), I was like OH MY GOODNESS AHHHHHHH…</p>
<p>yeah.</p>
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<p>What’s odd is that “value” as defined by the ability to draw interest is not an inherent quality of the activity in question but is rather a pure social construct that can and has been reshaped and redirected by various cultures. </p>
<p>Take chess, an activity that shares numerous connections with mathematics, where former world champions such as Emanuel Lasker and Max Euwe having been professional mathematicians, and which has itself spurred significant mathematical research in combinatorics, topology, computational algorithms, and (naturally) game theory. Yet chess, like mathematics, tends to be an activity derided in US culture as being the preserve of antisocial nerds (or even mentally ill anti-Semitic cranks in the sad case of Bobby Fischer). But professional chess is considered to be a popular sport in Europe ,especially the former Soviet Union, and Asia. The 2010 World Chess Championship split a prize fund of 2 million euro, not to mention the significant brand endorsement fees earned by the top contenders. For many years, current champion Viswanathan Anand was the richest ‘athlete’ in India - richer than even the nation’s top cricket stars. </p>
<p>Yet it’s hard to argue that chess inherently has any more social “value” than does mathematics in general. In fact, it almost certainly has less. Chess is just two guys mentally battling about a fixed set of rules. Sure, more strategies and more insights can be discovered, but only within the preset rules. But mathematics as a whole can be used to discover a wide swath of insights. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, chess pays far more than does pure mathematics, and indeed, Emanuel Lasker resorted to financially supporting his mathematics work through playing chess exhibitions. For whatever reason, mathematics work doesn’t really seem to capture the imagination of the public such that people would pay to watch mathematicians work - almost certainly due to a lack of marketing promotion. As much as I appreciate chess, I have to admit that a live championship match is pretty boring. Nevertheless, the world chess championship attracts large TV audiences throughout many regions of the world.</p>
<p>Something else about comparisons with Stanford.</p>
<p>Stanford is known to have considerable [grade</a> inflation](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/Stanford.html]grade”>Stanford), with an average undergraduate GPA of 3.55 in 2005.</p>
<p>Andrew Luck’s 3.51 GPA (qualifying for the second team in the [Pac-10</a> All-Academic team](<a href=“http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/216028/marecic-mohamed-highlight-pac-10-all-academic-football-team.aspx]Pac-10”>http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/216028/marecic-mohamed-highlight-pac-10-all-academic-football-team.aspx)) is pretty much average at Stanford. While it certainly is better than the stereotype of football players as being below average students, it is not as impressive as it may look to outsiders.</p>
<p>But the grade inflation may help Stanford recruit athletes who are somewhat more serious about academics because they can place more athletes in athlete academic lists to show how the school takes athletes’ academic performance seriously. And note that some sports columnists were impressed by Luck’s GPA in their opinions as to why Luck should win the Heisman Trophy.</p>
<p>Come on sakky, you know why Cal isn’t able to do it. You probably know more about Berkeley than most of these posters. You’re just picking on Cal for ****s and giggles.</p>
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<p>People have this weird idea that because Stanford is grade-inflated, it’s easy. It is not. Professors spend 10 weeks beating the crap out of you. It seems like we have midterms right after the term starts, and then more midterms, and then bam! finals. Throughout that time, there are problem sets, essays, projects, programming assignments, etc. and often, you get back assignments/quizzes/midterms with poor grades on it. So you work harder, and by the end of the quarter, you think you’re definitely going to get a C, and then you get your grades, finding that you got a B instead. The inflation doesn’t really happen until the end of the class. In the meantime, you’re so damned scared that you’re not going to do well that you work hard and master the material. Then Stanford rewards you with grade inflation. Much better than curving the class to a B- like many classes at Cal do. The point is, students at Stanford are naturally very high-achievers and are not going to slack because they think “oh well at the end of class it’ll be curved in my favor” (those curves are really unpredictable too). So since we never know just how inflated the curve will make all our grades, we err on the safe side and work hard. Because the students are smart and work hard on their own, Stanford doesn’t see any point in punishing them with a low grade.</p>
<p>Andrew Luck’s 3.51 in an engineering is impressive, especially given that he’s also the best player on the team and should’ve won the Heisman.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, interesting. The name of the major “architectural design” makes it seems significantly less impressive until you actually look it up and find that it consists mostly of civil engineering courses.</p>
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<p>Well, chess is a game, a competition between people. Perhaps people would watch math competitions in some regions of the world (which is probably what your point is), but mathematicians don’t get publicized the same way someone working a standard engineering job that may pay well doesn’t. When it’s a career that isn’t about entertaining people and produces stuff that isn’t in immediate demand for someone, chances are it’s going to be less immediately rewarded.</p>
<p>I submit though, that when it comes to famous figures, probably more people know who Bill Gates is than know who Terence Tao is. Then again, tons of people use products that can be traced in some way to Bill Gates, but not even all top mathematicians understand Terence Tao’s work.</p>
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<p>I’m one of the people who strictly doesn’t believe much in this - engineering at Stanford is very hard, from what I hear. And I also know the whole thing about ‘competition’ at Berkeley is more for some majors than others. In the math department, the professors are free to grade around as harshly or easily as they want in the upper levels, to my knowledge. </p>
<p>Perhaps in more commonly pursued tracks like premed, economics, etc, there is some observable difference.</p>
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<p>At least, those who take the hard classes are probably just like that. And the ones who want to take things easier may do so as well - but at Cal it’s no different. </p>
<p>To be fair though, sakky is referring to the potential to fail out of school, to my understanding (i.e. referring to the weakest students and what happens to them). I think it’s pretty clear that getting an A in engineering at Stanford is easily as hard as it is here. Or at least very comparable. You might be presenting the viewpoint of a successful student.</p>
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<p>Actually, no I don’t know why Cal can’t do it. Like I said, it seems to me that Cal is replete with resources, academic and financial, to do it - perhaps not as many resources as does Stanford, but certainly far more than most other football programs. </p>
<p>Again, keep in mind that Cal football has plenty of funding that it is committed to paying anyway. Cal is committed to offering 85 football scholarships every year anyway. Why not try to offer some of those scholarships to entice players who are both academically and athletically talented? Or consider this: Jeff Tedford actually made higher pay in 2010 than did Jim Harbaugh at Stanford or - get this - even Gene Chizik at national champion Auburn. That’s right - higher. Hence, Cal clearly has plenty of money to lavish on the football program. Again, why not use some of it to attract better players? </p>
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<p>If I’m picking on Cal, I am only doing so because I want Cal to improve. I want Cal to qualify for a BCS bowl. I want Cal to be a school noted for the intellectual quality of its football program. </p>
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<p>Whatever level of Stanford’s grade inflation may be, I would argue that Luck’s academic achievements clearly surpass that of, say, Marcus Perry with a 3.38 GPA in “Exercise and Sports Science” (in other words, he’s majoring in gym) at Oregon State. Yet Perry was also named to the Pac-10 All Academic Team. </p>
<p>[Marecic</a>, Mohamed Highlight Pac-10 All-Academic Football Team > Pac-10 > News](<a href=“http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/216028/marecic-mohamed-highlight-pac-10-all-academic-football-team.aspx]Marecic”>http://www.pac-10.org/News/tabid/863/Article/216028/marecic-mohamed-highlight-pac-10-all-academic-football-team.aspx)</p>
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<p>But that’s the rub: mathematics could be converted into an entertainment activity and competition. Why not? We already have game shows that award prizes to contestants who can demonstrate a wide range of intellectual talents, whether they be pure trivia (i.e. Jeopardy, Who Wants to be a Millionaire), word/phrase guessing (Wheel of Fortune), knowledge of consumer goods pricing (The Price is Right), or even probability theory (Deal or No Deal). So why can’t we have entertaining game shows that award prizes according to your mathematics skills? That would surely encourage more American kids to study math. </p>
<p>Nor do these game shows award prizes for skills that necessarily have any clear social “value”. Honestly, who really cares whether you can remember who FDR’s 3 Vice Presidents were? That’s something anybody can easily look up through Wikipedia at anytime. What social value is actually gained by remembering that fact? As smart of a guy he is, Ken Jennings is surely not as smart as Terence Tao, yet Jennings is laughing all the way to the bank. </p>
<p>Again, the real issue is that mathematics lacks a marketing engine. There’s no outlet to promote the talents of the world’s best mathematicians such that people would actually want to watch them perform. Jennings’ winning streak produced a notable ratings bump for Jeopardy and hence represented millions of dollars worth of additional advertising exposure for the sponsors of the show.</p>
<p>I guess the kind of math that can be approached in a competition is very different from what someone like Terence Tao does, which is not understandable to most professional mathematicians. However, it is true that the general public could be made more aware of this kind of star if mathematics were even on the people’s minds, which your proposed kind of game show would help with.</p>
<p>There are of course math competitions like the IMO, but I don’t know how one would ‘watch’ those, so much as await results. But I guess competitions based more on speed than on difficulty could be on TV.</p>
<p>Simple answer is to fire Tedford. We’re always going to be just an average team with him coaching. And I think most people would agree that we are overpaying Tedford.</p>
<p>Before you say “Fire Tedford,” I suggest you wikipedia Cal’s football history. I assure you it is absolutely RICH in tradition and history. I mean, the school is claiming at least 4* national champions!!//sarcasm. Without Tedford, Cal football would still be irrelevant crap like Washington State. I mean the last time Cal played in a Rose Bowl was about 50 years ago. Tedford almost took Cal to the Rose Bowl like 6 years ago, but the BCS polls suspiciously voted Texas above the Bears in a huge controversy. When you guys had Aaron Rodgers, Cal was one of the best teams in the Pac 10.</p>
<p>Tedford, for now at least, is basically the closest thing Berkeley has to a Paul Bear Bryant or Knute Rockne.</p>
<p>*all championships were won in the 1920s.</p>
<p>Cannot fire Tedford right now. He just had 8 winning seasons in a row before this last abysmal year. He’s one of the main reasons why Cal is going to boast some of the best facilities in the country very shortly as well a newly renovated stadium. These, combined with Tedford’s (and his assistants) ability to produce NFL talent has put Cal in a great position to excel are collegiate football, which would be great for the university. (Think money)</p>
<p>Cal has just closes 2 incredibly talented classes the last 2 years and a 3rd is on it’s way in 2012, things are in motion and Cal will probably be a lot better very soon, recruiting is the lifeblood of college football and Tedford, Tosh Lupoi, Ron Gould and company are VERY good at it. I would advise giving Tedford a couple more years and if he continues a downward spiral, cut the cord.</p>
<p>@Notaznguy</p>
<p>While I agree with your post, I have a problem with the National Championship rant. Just because they were accomplished a long time ago doesn’t make them any less relevant today. Also, Cal’s 4th NC actually happened in 1937. There are 5 NC’s on the table for Cal and 4 are awarded to the school using the college football data warehouse.</p>
<p>Cal has a lot of tradition, followed by a complete lack of (mostly self induced) and now it’s in a position to come back. College football is cyclical like that.</p>
<p>Winning seasons don’t mean anything if the number one or number two spot isn’t ours. Tedford took a team that was meandering in the bottom of the Pac 10 and brought them to the the middle. He’s only tied for first once and gotten second once (Desean Jackson years, and Aaron Rodgers years). Otherwise, most of our bowl games have been lulzworthy. We haven’t beaten SC since … Tedford’s first year or so? And we’ve lost to Oregon State for the past 3 or 4 years. Basically, we can’t beat the teams that count. I mean, I don’t even care about football that much, so whether Tedford stays or goes, I’m apathetic.</p>
<p>Athletics are a priority for these schools because having good athletics means more interest in the school and more pride for alumni. They generate revenue for the school… yeah even a genius won’t make a school like athletics do for some.</p>