<p>I've never had a problem with a GSI, but I did have a horrible, horrible reader once. He got his bachelor's from UCLA in creative writing and he wasn't even going to grad school at Cal. I have no idea how he got the job of grading upper division english papers when just a year before he was a senior at UCLA. It baffled my mind. He was a complete idiot as well, which only made things worse. But I complained to my professor and was given an insanely smart reader who already had a masters from Harvard and was getting a phd at Cal, so it all worked out.</p>
<p>yay.........</p>
<p>I must have also received bad intel because I was always under the impression that berkeley had one of the best poli sci programs in the nation, therefore it was a very impacted major. I got into berkeley for poli sci and my biggest fear has always been the amount of competition at berkeley for any major. does this mean that I don't have to worry about the competition so much since I'm doing poli sci?</p>
<p>It's not impacted, but it is supposed to be one of the best poli sci programs in the nation. You don't have to worry about not being able to major in the subject, but you do have to worry if you want a high GPA. How much worry? Probably less than the EECS majors, but they don't just hand out A's in poli sci.</p>
<p>Question: Is there a specifically hard to get in major in L&S?</p>
<p>I always thought poli sci would be, but I guess this thread totally proves me wrong.</p>
<p>Certain majors are, such as computer science, but not poli sci. I think there's a short list, including psychology, and mass comm, which require certain classes be taken prior to entering the major. All of the majors mentioned, and everyone admitted to L and S, has no major until they've fulfilled certain things, though.</p>
<p>thanks Drab for the info. I don't know how I got the impression that everyone in poli sci will be future lawyers and that they will be annoyingly competetive. Perhaps it's because of my distorted bias against lawyers...? I'm just wondering. Are the any poli sci majors out there who don't intend on going to law school? I'm one. Maybe graduate school but law school sounds like more acid added to my already forming ulcers.</p>
<p>Well, many want to actually practice in the field of politics, and some want to go into academia. Some graduates don't want to, or are unable to do something within the field of politics. It varies widely. You can go to the career center website and see who employs recent poli sci grads who responded to a survey (as well as how much they make).</p>
<p>And many more do it as an easy way to get A's ...</p>
<p>Certainly some people do it for that reason. Many more? I don't know. And you must be right, that in the poli sci department, they hand out A's like candy! Candy, children!</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Well maybe an easy way to graduate rather than easy A's. But it was definitely a lot easier to get A's in my poli sci classes than any other major. Lots of unmotivated people that seemed to just want the degree and leave. Good for those that care I guess.</p>
<p>Where you going to law school, PA?</p>
<p>Huh. Poli sci GSI here, undefined class...</p>
<p>Thanks for confirming many of my suspicions about Berkeley poli sci students.</p>
<p>I don't think people here are representative of "Berkeley poli sci students."</p>
<p>Right. Of course. But I think that the reputation of poli sci as a major that makes it easy to get an A directly leads into the pressure put on us for grade inflation for papers.</p>
<p>Sure, amongst other reasons, there's that for many. What sort of distribution of grades have you seen in poli sci classes at various levels, such as introductory classes, lower-division for majors not commonly taken by non-majors, and upper-division classes?</p>
<p>I don't differentiate between my poli sci majors and the non-poli sci majors. In general, I just think of my students as individuals.</p>
<p>I have taught both lower division and upper division students. The upper division students seem more... entitled. Upper division students come in to office hours and haggle with me more. Drives me batty. It's like there's no possibiilty that they are NOT the most brilliant student ever -- you have to earn an A, I am not required to grant that to you. </p>
<p>My general approach is that the average should be around a B-, but this doesn't happen since I am ususally one of several GSIs and frankly, students will never give you great evaluations if you are a hardass grader. The "B-=average approach" was something I saw in my first class teaching and it made sense, so it's not just me coming up with this random standard.</p>
<p>As an undergrad, I got worse grades when I was early in my program. As I took more classes, I got better grades. I learned how to do poli sci. It frustrates me that students at Cal sometimes don't acknowledge that they are limited in their ability to understand politics and that this is a limitation they need to work through.</p>
<p>To temper this claim, I should say that the majority of my students have been great. I just wish I could teach classes of my own where i could set the standards and the syllabus.</p>
<p>Hopefully, you will be able to sometime (if you're interested in going into academia). I'm glad you view all students as individuals. When I put "classes that majors, but not non majors, tend to take," I was just curious if you noticed different grade breakdowns in each. I would be surprised and sort of worried if graduate students looked at majors and non-majors in the same class very differently. </p>
<p>What percentage of A's, and what percentage of A-'s do you seem to see as given out in poli sci classes, generally? It's probably a hard question to answer, and if you arne't sure, or if you don't want to answer, that's fine.</p>
<p>I meant to say that I don't really know what most people's majors are unless I get to know the student well.</p>
<p>Most of the grades are in the Bs, about 60 percent. I would prefer for this grades to be on the lower end but they average probably around an 86 or so. Maybe 10ish percent get solid As and maybe 15 percent get As. It depends on the class, of course. Usually the same for upper division and lower division.</p>
<p>Well to rephrase its definitely easy to graduate in Poli Sci though I suspect I was being overly optimistic about who get A's. And it is true that you will not do as well depending on your teacher. I took one of the basic comp poli sci courses (among others) and hated my first gsi. I transferred to another section which was tault by a boalt student and she was a very good teacher. Insofar as grades are concerned I had no problem getting A's because my high school had been tough on writing. It seems lots of freshman had a lot of trouble (maybe that's why they slapped the SATII writing on the SAT nowadays). </p>
<p>Let's not insult the students too much here, I think a lot of high schools do an awful job of teaching students how to write and a lot of my Berkeley GSI's have been uneven and not given good feedback on exactly what you do wrong or how to improve. I also don't like the quota system of grades though Berkeley is so large, a quota will usually be about 80-90% right on for grades.</p>