<p>You can’t really compare the average GPA at Berkeley to the average GPA at a community college and say that Berkeley has more grade inflation. The students at a community college typically aren’t going to be the same caliber as the one’s at good schools so why wouldn’t they generally have a lower average GPA?</p>
<p>ucbalumnus - this is the first time I have seen Univ. of Wisc. - LaCrosse on CC</p>
<p>To respond to a question posed by sakky a while back: I don’t know any engineering/science faculty who actively think of themselves as “weeding” students out. To the contrary, most want to encourage students to develop the skills to succeed in the majors. However, it seems really ill-advised to pass anyone who shows up, with an interest in the subject. In some fields (e.g., civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, nuclear physics), there is a certain level of capability that a student must attain, or the student will present a deadly hazard to other people, while on the job. The worst possible misunderstanding of material by an American Studies student is unlikely to endanger anyone–unless you count choking while laughing, reading the student’s work.</p>
<p>I graduated in May a couple of months ago in the rain (sigh) along with my other 500+ MCBers. Since that time I have been working as a microbiologist at one of the big medical device companies (pay >60k), learning new skills and finding interests in cardiovascular disease. However, the downside is that I originally had hoped to obtain a research assistant position that tied more closely to my degree (Immuno) but opted for this position because the job was flexible. The manager knows I’m interviewing for medical school, so we work out a compromise. Now u may think I’m bragging, but ppl need real stories, not wishful thinking. I studied hard my 4 yrs at Berkeley, and those of u who know me will have an idea of my overall GPA. When I interviewed for jobs, they did comment about that, but more importantly they asked me about my research experience and future goals. Since I was interested in medicine, ideally I wanted experiences that would get me involved in these things. I did not beat around the bush about my alma mater/academics/or other irrelevant things; I just told them that I wanted to learn new things. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from Berkeley is that you will only set yourself for failure if you can’t find what interests you early on.</p>
<p>bleh eff this school’s academics. i mean i guess in reality, it does prepare u if u wish to succeed at law or medicine or something. but for those of us who don’t want that, it’s putting a little bit of stress on us to get where we would like. medical school is not so bad if u come from berkeley because you already know how to manage your time and how to achieve what u want by the time you are there. and i have to say…if u know u REALLY know your material, i guess it would be possible to get a B or an A in these “weeder” classes but most of us don’t take it that far. and if we were at another college, we wouldn’t have to. so i dont really have a big point to sum it all up but that’s what it is.</p>
<p>Thanks MisterB7K for telling me how to do the quote. Now to apply my knowledge…</p>
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<p>Because that’s like asking “Why did Albert Einstein come up with the theory of relativity instead of Rush Limbaugh?” That question has an obvious answer so there’s no point in asking it. That’s my opinion anyway. Obviously a kid from the same school with a higher GPA and the same extra cirrics/internships and communication abilities will have a much better chance at getting a job. That’s why the GPA system was created by academia in the first place. Grades are the closest to non-discriminatory judgement as we will get.</p>
<p>The only other alternative would be for companies to come up with “Engineering mousetraps systems” where you have to practically apply your specific engineering major to solve a problem (like disarming a bomb circuit) or die in the process. I think I’ll choose grades over this but this method would be pretty awesome (if you didn’t die and succeeded)</p>
<p>bottom line: if you’re not getting the grades you need you’re not good enough whether at harvard or chico state, sure some other student from lower name university with 4.0 will be getting jobs over you but you’re only competing with them for jobs that are average in nature, in the long run, whether you are from berkeley or chico state, the system will weed you out and people with real ability with the HIGH grades and from a great name school will rise to the top because they’re the few gems among the millions of average joes out there. If you have real ability, whether that is through being real smart intellectually or being good at navigating the real world and have a plan of execution, don’t even stress.</p>
<p>^^ Actually untrue. GPA and the job that you get coming out of EECS are not as correlated as one might think.</p>
<p>With EECS, you can get a 2.8 and still get a great job at google (has been done). Simply because great coders are no necessarily great test takers. For EECS especially, GPA is one of the lesser determinants.</p>
<p>I think GPA isn’t as important as some people make it out to be. A lot of the great minds of our time didn’t graduate with a 4.0 from harvard. They were suave people who probably spent more time doing other things than concentrating on school work. But they learned the skills they needed to actually succeed in life.</p>
<p>The GPA gets you the interview. After the interview, it’s all about how well you interview and the GPA is no longer a factor.</p>
<p>Berkeley GPA is not deflated as most people already posted.</p>
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<p>My thoughts exactly.
I think a better way to address this is most of us feel the grade we receive doesn’t represent how much the effort we put in towards the class when you ‘could’ve gotten an A if this was [name of other school]’. I believe most of the students in Berkeley are well-disciplined and put some degree of effort to do well in a course. You can’t really give C’s or D’s for students who are trying, but at the same time there can only be so many A’s in class, so a lot of people end up with B’s even though those guys worked harder than students who would go to CSU and other public universities with less rigorous expectations.</p>
<p>If you’re just concerned low GPA is directly related to less chance of getting a good job, that is not really true. If you want a good job, make a really good resume that somehow stands out and apply at least 50 companies starting now. If you still don’t get any offers, you can PM me and bash at me all you want. Just remember that companies care about what you know rather than how well you did. Even if you got a ‘B’ in class but can explain the concepts and what you learned in class to someone, that means you are qualified.</p>
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<p>I’m not so sure that it’s not being followed, considering that the policy, in its latest incarnation, was published in 2007 and Hilfinger’s survey was from 1999. The Statfinder unfortunately does not provide sufficiently fine-grained analysis to determine what the grading policies are within lower-division EE/CS courses. </p>
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<p>Then the history department should either implement a prereq sequence in the manner that English has English 45AB, or they should implement a department wide policy of rigor that stretches across all history courses (or at least all lower-division courses) so that no one instructor is singled out. </p>
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<p>Or we could take our complaints to the engineering departments that are too rigorous.</p>
<p>But I don’t think we even need to do that. The purpose of this thread, or so I thought, was to provide information to others. Even a casual observer of Berkeley, or any other school, will readily note that some majors are easier than others. I am not aware of even a single school where engineering is considered to be the ‘gut’ major filled with the least motivated and least talented students who couldn’t hack it in other majors. </p>
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<p>That is indeed extremely hard to understand, for just because a major requires prereqs doesn’t mean that it becomes a ‘weeder by default’. Sociology 1 (along with 3) serve as a prereq to the vast majority of upper division sociology courses (note that Sociology has very few lower division courses). Is anybody prepared to call Sociology 1 a weeder of the same intensity as a natural science or engineering weeder? Psychology 1 serves as a prereq to practically every other psychology course. Is anybody prepared to call Psychology 1 a weeder? </p>
<p>Weeding is not a status attained by ‘default’ as a prereq course, but has to do with the grading. A prereq course that involves relatively little work and where grading is uniformly high is not a weeder. Is that so hard to understand?</p>
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<p>I’m afraid that I have to profoundly disagree. History has demonstrated time and time again that the greatest death and destruction has been wreaked by far not by faulty science or engineering knowledge, but rather by faulty social and even artistic ideas. While it may sadly be the natural state of man to commit violence against his fellow man, it is precisely when that violence is bolstered and justified by ideology stemming from a (perhaps deliberately) deficient knowledge of social forces and humanities, that opens the door to atrocities. A building or a ship based on a poor understanding of engineering or physics can collapse, resulting in the deaths of thousands. But ideologies based on a poor understanding of social science, history, and even humanities can and have resulted in the deaths of millions. </p>
<p>If you still disagree, then ask yourself why many of dictatorial regimes in history carefully control their people’s knowledge of social science and humanities while at the same time heavily investing in natural science and engineering knowledge? Nazi Germany was among the most eminent science/technology powers in the world, producing major advances in aircraft, rockets, chemistry, and nuclear physics while at the same time widely suppressing numerous artists and writers as “degenerate art”, burning the works of Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, and H.G. Wells; causing painters Max Ernst and Paul Klee to flee; and even proscribing jazz music. The USSR rose from being a largely peasant-dominated nation to becoming a leading science power, winning 8 Nobel Prizes, all the while heavily censoring its artists and proscribing the types of humanities and social science knowledge their people were allowed to learn. Boris Pasternak was forced to decline his Nobel Prize in Literature, Solzhenitsyn had to wait until after deportation to receive his, and Mikhail Bulgakov was forced to write his masterpiece (The Master and Margarita) in secret. Even today, China is extensively investing in its science and technology base while continuing to suppress its people’s knowledge of humanities and history. Artists such as Ai WeiWei are harassed and the Chinese educational system (along with the government) acts as if the events of June 4, 1989 never happened. </p>
<p>It seems to me that that demonstrates the importance of proper education in humanities and social sciences. A society that is miseducated in science and engineering might build bridges and buildings that fall down. But a society that is miseducated in humanities and social science can easily fall sway to a seductive ideology run by dictators who will then ensure that their people continue to be miseducated in order to maintain power.</p>
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<p>Which is what happens now (without the death component). Google used to run billboards with coding/mathematics puzzles, which, if solved, allowed access to a website with a further sequence of puzzles which would eventually lead to a job interview. </p>
<p>[Googol:</a> Google Billboard Puzzle](<a href=“http://google-tale.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-billboard-puzzle.html]Googol:”>http://google-tale.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-billboard-puzzle.html)</p>
<p>Even more interesting are the X Prize and other such competitions where a cash prize and/or recognition (and almost certainly a high-end job offer) is provided to whoever can win a certain technological challenge. For example, Netflix awarded a million dollar prize to a team that developed the algorithm that best predicted user ratings for films. Topcoder runs a coding competition every week. Those competitions don’t care what university you attend or what your grades were. You could even be a high school dropout. All they care about is whether you can produce winning code.</p>
<p>Interesting point, sakky. But doesn’t that suggest that people should be encouraged to pursue studies in the humanities and social sciences, even if they are doing quite poorly at first? In turn, that would tend to make the grading gentler in those courses. In fact, your comments would tend to argue for universal, obligatory course work in the humanities and social sciences–and then for making sure that people understand their content. How do you include the people who do not go to college in your analysis? Or those whose choice of major permits them to side-step the humanities and social sciences almost entirely?</p>
<p>It is also an issue of heart, of moral education, and of developing personal bravery–none of which the typical courses in social science address very deeply.</p>
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<p>Well, actually, easy grading is actually antithetical to the notion of actually learning humanities and social science. There’s a fundamental difference between taking a course and *putting in effort into actually learning the material *within the course. Sadly, many students take HASS courses while putting in minimal effort into actually learning the material for the courses, because they know that there is no need. The grading is inflated enough that they know they’re going to pass, and probably with a decent grade, even with low effort. </p>
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<p>Exactly right - a mandated and rigorous class or sequence that every student, regardless of major, would be required to take. The grading would be rigorous, with a legitimate chance of failing, to require students to actually put forth proper effort. </p>
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<p>In this thread, I was simply concentrating on just what Berkeley should do. To change the entire system from K-12 would be a monumental undertaking, for the sad truth is that plenty of K-12 students are stuck in poor schools where they learn basically nothing at all, whether humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences. </p>
<p>But to your point, ideally, such learning would be inculcated within the entire K-12 curriculum. Ideally, every high school student should be mandated to be exposed to classic works of literature, world history, and some social sciences. </p>
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<p>And I would not allow that. Everybody would have to do it. Yes, even the engineers. </p>
<p>Outrageous, some of you might say? Well, think of it this way. Berkeley requires that every student - regardless of major - must pass the American Cultures requirement. If Berkeley can do that, is it really so outrageous that Berkeley might require that every student take a course that provides a concentrated blend of the best humanities and social sciences? In fact I am open to the (probably politically infeasible) idea of such a course replacing the American Cultures requirement. Or at least, folding much of it into this new course. {I understand that the impetus of the AC course is to promote knowledge of multiculturalism, but it seems to me that you can foster that goal through a required course that includes rigorous sub-modules on world literature and art.} </p>
<p>To be fair, I believe that basic technical knowledge should also be required of everybody. It is simply bizarre and, frankly, embarrassing, to me that students can successfully graduate from a world-famous school such as Berkeley without ever having learned how to calculate even a basic derivative (which you can do by fulfilling your QR requirement via Math 32). This is not some low-end university; this is Berkeley we’re talking about there. Berkeley also probably needs to strengthen the rigor of such commonplace science breadth courses such as Physics 10. The upshot is that every Berkeley graduate should be armed with some non-embarrassing baseline knowledge of natural science, math, and HASS coursework.Otherwise, to put it bluntly, they shouldn’t be allowed to graduate. They shouldn’t be given Berkeley degrees. </p>
<p>That may sound harsh, but look at it this way. The graduates are going to be representing Berkeley to the outside world. People are going to be making judgements about Berkeley based on the interactions with those graduates. When those graduates are unfamiliar with even basic concepts, that doesn’t make the Berkeley look good.</p>
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<p>The link that you quoted says that it was last updated in 1989, not 2007. However, even that refers to course numbers that no longer existed in 1989 (CS 40 and 41).</p>
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<p>That may mean that Sociology 1 and Psychology 1 are only nominal prerequisites, where very little of the material is actually needed in order to understand and do well in the later courses. While prerequisites that are only nominal exist everywhere, prerequisites where the material is actually needed for the later course are more common in engineering than in other subjects.</p>
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<p>A prerequisite course where the material is really needed for a later course becomes a weeder by default because the instructors of a later course will not like it if the instructors of a prerequisite course pass students who do not understand the prerequisite material.</p>
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<p>Usually, that is more due to choice of school. Consider Amherst and Brown.</p>
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<p>And I presume that references to CS 40/41 would refer to their equivalents (whatever they are). </p>
<p>Nevertheless, what matters is what grading is now. Not 1999. I don’t think many current students care about the grading of more than a decade ago. </p>
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<p>Well, I suspect that students really do ‘need’ to know (or at least,will find highly useful) the knowledge provided in Psych/Soc 1 in order to proceed to the upper division. </p>
<p>The real issue seems to be that the grading and workload in upper division psych/soc courses seems to be so lax that it doesn’t really matter whether you have that prereq knowledge or not.</p>
<p>Berkeley isn’t particularly known for grade deflation. I think you mean UCLA?</p>
<p>I mean you go to our forum, you see so many stressful threads… You go to UCLA and there’s nothing much about these sort of threads. Either we’re really whiny or it is stressful here at Cal :(! Just saying!</p>