Berkeley complete privatization = stronger undergrad (serious conversation)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>Again, I am going to clarify what I think is sakky’s actual point, which is that it’s not all courses that frosh would want to avoid, it is certain courses. For instance, if I were an EECS major, I would probably not care enough to take EECS 40. Not that I don’t think I could get an A in that course if I really wanted, but I wouldn’t care enough to take it fully and endure the grading, even if the subject matter is not totally boring. Now I don’t know if transfers and frosh have equal rights to skip this specific course, so in case someone thinks I am claiming something of such a nature, rest assured I am not. What I do think is if I could skip it, I very well might choose to take it over at a CC, maybe over a summer or something, if it’s easier there; after all, I could focus on interesting stuff that is specialized and not frequently offered during the main term.</p>

<p>That is, even a frosh who isn’t really flunking out of school, with great interest in certain specialized courses may want to dodge taking some hard general requirements at Berkeley, if only to use his/her time more wisely. Sakky is talking for the poor student, and so I’m putting in the word for a not so poor student.</p>

<p>Now you may ask: what is the point of dodging those requirements if one wants a Berkeley education? Well, that’s the thing – maybe they want a Berkeley level education, but parts of it are unnecessary to endure. After all, transfers apparently are not forced to endure the same, and go on to upper level courses which they can freely select from. And they apparently are (by the administration) very much considered to be getting a Berkeley education, and are considered worthy of it.</p>

<p>If all of you who are arguing that the weeding already happens in upper division coursework really don’t care about what you’re required to do in the lower division and/or dodging, would you be OK if, as in Caltech, EVERY one of us had to take hard classes in advanced physics, including quantum mechanics, and be weeded based on it, regardless of scientific/mathematical/engineering major? Or do you actually care about that freedom…</p>

<p>Caltech is an extreme example. But at any hard school with general requirements, invariably people are graded based on material they may care to a limited degree about, and assessed at reasonably harsh levels. </p>

<p>Those of us who have other things we’d like to do with our time would probably want to be assessed based on other things. It’s probably a good thing for us to have that option. At least, so it would seem because other Berkeley students do not have to endure these classes.</p>

<p>Now if one went to Caltech, apparently those <em>core</em> (that’s how they’re officially labeled) classes are so important and integral to the Caltech experience that all students, including transfers are very harshly assessed on whether they fulfill the requirements. I’m not sure if this is still true, but I heard of people having to take rough exams as transfer students to successfully transfer in and make it past their requirements. Hence, it would seem, there is a true sense of equality there.</p>

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<p>EE 40 is a prerequisite to many upper division EE courses; those whose emphasis is CS can do L&S CS instead of EECS and take the less rigorous EE 42 instead.</p>

<p>Seems that only a few CCs offer an EE 40 articulated course (though a few more than with CS 61A, CS 61C, and EE 20N, which are almost non-existent at CCs, Laney’s CS 61A articulated course being the only apparent exception, and Laney does not have an EE 40 articulated course), so most transfer students to Berkeley EECS will need to take EE 40 anyway. None of the CCs that do are near Berkeley, so even if a Berkeley student had the policy option to taking EE 40 at a CC during the fall or spring while attending Berkeley, s/he would have no practical option. Taking it at a CC in the summer would be allowed if successfully petitioned beforehand.</p>

<p>On the other hand, Math (1A, 1B, 53, 54) and Physics (7A, 7B, 7C) are commonly found at CCs. CS 61B articulated courses appear to exist at about half of CCs, though it may take more than one course. So the discussion about transfers not receiving potentially “poor” (since when is a B grade “poor”?) grades going into their GPA that freshmen admits may get really would apply to just these courses, in an EECS context.</p>

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<p>“Think about it. You’re missing sakky’s point here. Even if the upper division courses were harder, sakky would still want”</p>

<p>Mathboy, you can go ahead and just say “I” instead of “sakky”. Really, who does that? Who else cares enough to double-post, editing and re-editing those loooong multiple-posts with the sole purpose of defending another poster? None, except sakky about himself. </p>

<p>Anyway, mathboy, I am not missing sakky’s point at all. Out of all the topics he beats to a dead horse, I am only addressing “terrible, terrible weeders” because it is one I disagree with. I agree with him on some other things, including that freshman admits should be allowed to take classes at community colleges if they choose. I also agree that freshman admits who suddenly take blows to their egos in the lower-division coursework at Berkeley would have been better off at easier schools. </p>

<p>“Is it not true that a lot of biology students think their lower division coursework, especially as premeds, was very painfully graded, depending on what they took?”</p>

<p>Sure, a lot of biology students think so. Just because they think that doesn’t make it true. Please, we’re talking about pre-meds. Do you really trust all of them to be good doctors for your families in the future? Including pre-meds who get Ds on Chem 1A midterms?!</p>

<p>By the way, I agree that grades are not the best indicator of knowledge, and most others probably do too. However, in all my time at Berkeley I have only felt dissatisfied with two of my grades. In the rest of my classes, I felt I fully deserved the scores I got, whether they were good or bad. </p>

<p>The fact of the matter is that if you manage to land yourself on academic probation or get kicked out of school, the blame is completely on you. Almost everyone has had a bad test on an off day, and sometimes that off day is the very day of the final. But having off days on the days of every single test for a class? Having off days on the days of every single test for ALL your classes in a semester?!? Only a freak of statistics would somehow flunk out of school yet still have had enough knowledge to pass all of the classes he failed. Sorry, you just couldn’t cut it at Berkeley for that major, but if you were dead-set on that major, you should have just gone to a CSU. Yes, you won’t get the Berkeley degree, but you should have known before you came here that not everyone makes it, and if you just don’t have any understanding at all of your major classes, do you really deserve to pass them? </p>

<p>(Before you argue that humanities classes are hard to fail, consider that most scientists and engineers are planning to become just that - and doctors. These people are performing a public service. Other people’s lives, health, and well-being are directly affected by their performance.)</p>

<p>All right, I’m done. Note to any readers: If you want to stop every thread of this type from being derailed by sakky in the future, just ignore his posts. As with any type of ■■■■■, they live off attention and have no way to continue if others do not keep feeding the fire… as I have just now done. But this will be the last time.</p>

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<p>Wish I could hit ‘like’ on your posts applejuice</p>

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<p>Thank you flutterfly :)</p>

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<p>@UCBAlumnus – as I conceded, I know little about EECS 40’s transfer in and out policies. I used it just because I personally wouldn’t want to take it if I were an EECS major, not because I couldn’t do well in it, but because it’s stuff I would rather avoid…and I am at least a reasonable student who isn’t afraid of flunking such a class; further, very talented EECS majors have said the work and grading can get annoying in that course.</p>

<p>That is, even if talented and smart enough to ace equally hard (and harshly graded) upper division courses, they may want to dodge the experience of taking a reasonably challenging class which they have little interest in, when they could satisfy the requirement in an easier way. This is in response to those who want to promote the idea that upper division difficulty sufficiently accounts for all weeding.</p>

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<p>I prefer to refer to another’s posts rather than rewrite what I think when a lot of it will be the same. I added my own twist where necessary, and acknowledged as much. Plus, clarifying hopefully will calm this thread down a little quicker. </p>

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<p>But that’s the whole thing: you were describing how one should not be arguing that upper division is easier than lower division coursework, because it’s not universally true. Yes, I agree with you, and said as much. Yet is difficulty the only trait of a weeder? A weeder is probably being referred to as a course which many students have to take, generally at the lower division, which curves at around a B-, i.e. one where a significant portion of the class is in the C range…which * is taken by a general population *. That is, even if a specialized upper division course grades exactly as hard as a weeder, it can still be nice to dodge the weeder, so as to avoid a course which is hard, takes time away from other things one may do, and is onerous enough since it is notorious for giving poor grades. Of course, that class may be useful, but surely we all have seen examples of classes that weren’t quite as harshly graded but still served as just as solid an intro to the material.</p>

<p>In summary, I believe sakky, myself, and many others are making this discussion about equality, and the only element of equality isn’t the precise difficulty of getting good grades.</p>

<p>Last, I don’t think it’s clear that there are no cases when the weeders are actually harsher than the upper division coursework. Like I said, in my major, the difficulty is much greater in the upper level. Perhaps in EECS as well.</p>

<p>But are we fixating on EECS too much? </p>

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<p>Well, that depends on the biology students - we should ask them. I have it from pretty respectable sources that a lot of the upper level classes which need not be taken by premeds are not as competitive in the least. And, in fact, that makes a lot of sense to me.</p>

<p>Have it your way and think that maybe the biology majors I’ve talked to are wrong. It of course doesn’t take away from my point, and was just potential anecdotal support. </p>

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<p>I agree. But the scope of the discussion about weeders wasn’t just dodging probation, but dodging classes that are hard to do well in, which one doesn’t really want to take.</p>

<p>So again, one might ask, why should such a person be awarded a Berkeley degree? Well, apparently sakky and some other posters have observed: there are indeed students afforded special privileges and awarded such a degree. I can’t help but agree there should be equality of the privilege to skip things that one may conceivably not want to take.</p>

<p>Weeders can be time-consuming and not very enriching even if they aren’t impossible to do well in. The fact of the matter is I think someone who is admitted to Berkeley can and should do OK in these, and that by definition, those who were weeded out might have deserved it. But I don’t know that I’m correct that they deserved it. Further, even for those who weren’t weeded out (that is, they passed), it’s important to consider if the coursework was pushed on them when they didn’t want it, and if it makes sense that others didn’t have to endure their level of harshness.</p>

<p>To take an extreme example, consider what I wrote (in bold, no less) about Caltech. Can we really say we don’t care about dodging bullets? I bet there are plenty of Caltech students who eventually realized they wanted to dodge some of what they had to endure, and realized their interest in science and technology lies in very specific areas, and that they certainly didn’t want to be hammered on quantum mechanics. But that’s the thing, transfers to Caltech seem to be held to the same standards better, as this point was brought up earlier and nobody bothered to refute it.</p>

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<p>Re: Caltech</p>

<p>Caltech presumably does it the way that it does because (a) its curriculum is different enough from that of other schools that close equivalent courses are hard to find elsewhere, and (b) it is a small school, with few transfer students (presumably from all over the place). So in that context, individual evaluation of each transfer student’s course work and giving the transfer student placement tests makes sense.</p>

<p>Berkeley, on the other hand, (a) has a much more “normal” curriculum that is similar to that found in a lot of other schools, and (b) takes in a lot of transfer students, mostly from California CCs. So evaluating CC courses ahead of time (resulting in the articulation agreements) makes more sense than evaluating each transfer student’s course work individually. Administering placement tests for each and every transfer student for each and every course taken (consider all of the possibilities in all of the possible subjects) would likely require a lot more logistics than Berkeley would want to handle (imagine administering SAT II like tests, except that there are a lot more possible tests corresponding to all of the Berkeley lower division courses).</p>

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<p>^ Apparently some transfer students do have to retake classes that were close to but not quite up to what Berkeley wants in terms of covering material.</p>

<p>Ultimately I am most in favor of the plan that everyone should be able to take their requirements at these “equivalent” schools. That avoids the restudying for final exams, and introduces equal opportunity. That way, upper division classes need to be taken at Berkeley, and the rest can be left to the discretion of the student. Some students may opt to only attempt to enter Berkeley later. </p>

<p>I agree with ucbalumnus that Caltech’s small, personalized atmosphere makes it easier to be stringent on its “core” curriculum. Indeed, Berkeley’s size is why it does not maintain a core curriculum. And nobody comes to Berkeley for a small, personalized experience where people share similar classes and experiences.</p>

<p>But the Caltech curriculum example still serves to illustrate why not everyone would necessarily view taking a hard class as simply a matter of difficulty or not. Some general requirements can be hard enough that it may be too much to ask someone not particularly interested in them to bother. This is why Caltech encourages people only to come there if they’re really sure. Berkeley obviously structures its curriculum more “normally”, and understandably so. So the best solution in Berkeley’s case is simply to be <em>equally</em> lax, when lax at all, about allowing students to take their requirements wherever they wish.</p>

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<p>Fair enough - if there are truly no such freshman-admits who agree with me, then why not then simply allow them the option to take the counterpart community college courses? After all, if the concept of a Berkeley weeder does not truly exist, then, nobody would ever invoke the option I just described. So then, what’s the problem? </p>

<p>For those who continue to disagree, I just have a simple question for you. * Give me a reason why freshman-admits should not be allowed to take the same community college counterpart courses to skip weeders that the transfer students are allowed. *</p>

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<p>Oh, Applejuice, you are so far off. Even a casual observer should have seen that mathboy98 and I are clearly different people, with different experiences, and - get this - highly distinctive writing styles. I doubt that I could convincingly and consistently change my writing style even if I tried. </p>

<p>But, hey, who goes around making outlandish accusations against other posters about sock-puppetry and astroturfing? I think you’re dangerously close to violating the terms of usage on this discussion board. </p>

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<p>Then I would ask the simple question: if that’s how you feel, * why do you keep responding?* You ought to take your own advice: if you don’t like my posts, then don’t read them, and certainly don’t respond to them. Nobody has a gun to your head.</p>

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<p>I was hoping that Apple didn’t mean that we’re the same people, since that would be ridiculous. I was hoping at least, s/he was deriding my style of referring back to what you say, and clarifying what I thought you’re saying.</p>

<p>Which, of course, I did because I entered this thread much later, and am at this point more interested in helping reach a conclusion based on what other people have said than introducing a whole lot of my own ideas, since a lot of the damage has been dealt already. </p>

<p>If that’s what Apple meant to say, I have to agree that it’s the most hilarious supposition. Someone who has over 12,000 posts, many of which display fairly extensive knowledge of professional schooling and employment opportunities for students vs. someone specializing in math and posting more about graduate schools? Someone arguing for the student who is flunking or having grades ruined for med school, as opposed to someone making lengthy posts clearly relevant to the student who is doing well at Berkeley ? I’m going to keep my faith going and assume you didn’t mean to make any such accusation.</p>

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<p>Well, mathboy98, how else are we to interpret Apple’s amusingly imbecilic quote? </p>

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<p>Perhaps you have greater faith in the inherent virtue of our fellow posters than I do. I, on the other hand, take bald-faced indictments upon my character at face value.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Pretty sad.</p>

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<p>Actually, looking at the policies of the [College</a> of Engineering](<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/advising/Undergraduate%20Handbook%2010-11]College”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/advising/Undergraduate%20Handbook%2010-11) and [College</a> of Letters and Science](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/fp/ConcurrentEnrollment.pdf]College”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/fp/ConcurrentEnrollment.pdf), it actually does not seem to be too difficult to actually do so.</p>

<p>In the College of Engineering, take the CC courses during a summer session after first petitioning to do so.</p>

<p>In the College of Letters and Science, it is possible to take the CC courses concurrently if one already has a full load (13 to 20.5 units) of Berkeley courses. The loophole is to find the easiest 13 units of Berkeley courses (perhaps even taking some or all P/NP), then load up on CC courses for the “hard” courses that you don’t want to go into your GPA.</p>

<p>Of course, you would still have to check that your major or intended major would accept the CC courses taken under these circumstances.</p>

<p>As far as the argument goes, the CC transfers face an admissions screen at about the sophomore / junior year; would you proposed that freshman admits face an additional admissions screen (beyond what capped majors impose) in exchange for making the policies in question more lenient than they are now? Of course, either way, it is not people debating here that you have to convince; you may want to propose it to the colleges and departments who make the policies and see what they say.</p>

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<p>Sakky, do you have any idea what is going on in the CCCs. Students rarely transfer in two years; three, four or five years is more like it for science and engineering majors. The major reason is that it is extremely difficult to get into the lower division math and physics courses due to a severe shortage of instructors and classroom space to meet the needs of the very large number of CCC students who need to take these courses. It is not uncommon to go for several semesters before a student is finally high enough on the registration priority list to get into the CCC equivalent of Math 1B.</p>

<p>Allowing UC students as well to take these classes at CCCs would make it even more difficult to get into these classes for CCC students. If your proposal to let UC Berkeley students take Math 1B at a CCC is adopted would you be willing to let CCC students, who can not get into the class at their own school because some undergraduate from Berkeley got their seat, take Math 1B at UC Berkeley? If what you are saying about this course being a “weeder” that Freshmen admits would avoid if at all possible is true, and if UC Berkeley students could and would take it at a CCC, there should be plenty of vacant seats in Math1B classrooms on the Berkeley campus.</p>

<p>If UC Berkeley students could take lower division courses at CCCs I do not see any reason why you would object to CCC students taking lower division courses at UC Berkeley.</p>

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<p>@lemaitre1, is there not a concurrent enrollment program specifically to afford non-Berkeley students, for a fee, to partake in Berkeley courses? Priority is likely given to Berkeley undergrads of course, but courses that are not packed, of which there are plenty, are available.</p>

<p>And if it is hard to get into courses at a CC, that is not the responsibility of Berkeley. It is simply its responsibility to give all the options it can in as consistent and fair a manner as possible.</p>

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<p>Got any links to that (other than summer session or extension courses)?</p>

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<p>Is it? </p>

<p>You may not enroll simultaneously in the College of Letters and Science at Berkeley and in another institution. If you have unusual circumstances, see the dean of the College to request approval before enrolling in the other institution.</p>

<p>[College</a> Policies-Transferring Credit](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/collegepolicies/credit.html]College”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/collegepolicies/credit.html)</p>

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<p>Actually, that is irrelevant to the equation. After all, nobody is proposing that the transfer students face the additional screen of the freshman-admissions, along with the transfer-admissions screen. And that would be the parallel situation.</p>

<p>Right now, everybody faces one admissions screen - either freshman or transfer. Why would the freshman be forced to face two admissions screens when the transfers only face one? How is that fair? </p>

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<p>But, again, why is that necessary? In fact, that only elicits even more questions: if it is fine to do so in the summer session, why is it not fine to do so during the regular session? What’s the difference? </p>

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<p>Actually, the objection is simple: freshman-admits have already been admitted to Berkeley. There ought to be some benefits for having been admitted. Future transfer students, on the other hand, have yet to be admitted, and until they do, they should not be allowed the rights of a Berkeley student until they do. </p>

<p>By the same argument, a Berkeley undergrad can’t simply “decide” that he wants to take UCSF Medical School courses right now. He actually has to be an enrolled student at UCSF before he can do so. Now, he might argue that he has the qualifications to be a UCSF Med student in the future. But be that as it may, the fact remains that he is not such a student right now, and therefore does not yet enjoy the rights of a UCSF med student.</p>

<p>Now, community colleges, by their nature, are open enrollment to everybody. You do not relinquish the rights to enroll at a community college course just because you attend Berkeley. Indeed, we have established that Berkeley students can indeed take community college courses…if they’re willing to resort to (unnecessarily bureaucratic) steps such as dis-enrolling from Berkeley or taking such courses during the summer. But my question - why should those steps be necessary? </p>

<p>Put another way, why do I, on a practical basis, have my rights constrained from attending a community college just because I am also enrolled at Berkeley? What difference does it make? </p>

<p>As I noted before, it is quite odd that Berkeley students are perfectly free to waste their spare time playing video games and watching TV all day long, and the administration doesn’t care. But heaven forbid they actually use their spare time to take courses at a community college.</p>

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<p>@ucbalumnus, just Google it, and it’s there. </p>

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<p>You probably know this, but for the sake of everyone else, the benefit is that the fee for a course at UC Berkeley as a concurrently enrolled student is extremely high, and that a UC Berkeley student has the right to a Berkeley degree.</p>

<p>Of course, this all further validates your point that someone with the right to a Berkeley degree must not be irrationally held back from partaking in other classes during the semester, especially when it’s apparently OK to enroll separately at such an institution, enter Berkeley, and still obtain a Berkeley degree.</p>

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<p>Perhaps the College of Letters and Science needs to decide which of the two contradictory things posted on its web site is the actual policy:</p>

<p>[This</a> one](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/fp/ConcurrentEnrollment.pdf]This”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/fp/ConcurrentEnrollment.pdf) which indicates some commonly fulfilled conditions that automatically cause approval to take a CC course concurrently.</p>

<p>[Or</a> this one](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/collegepolicies/credit.html]Or”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/collegepolicies/credit.html) which implies that it is not generally allowed.</p>

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<p>Sakky,
Would you at least agree that the CCC students who are enrolled at that community college should get priority registration and that UC Berkeley students can register for a CCC class only if there are seats available after all of the CCC students wishing to take the course have had a chance to register for it? It would seem extremely unfair if a CCC student, who has no other options than a CCC to take a required course, were to be denied a spot at their CCC because a Berkeley freshman admit who could but did not want to take a class that was available at the university he or she voluntarily applied to and enrolled in of their own free will took the spot. It only seems fair that CCC students, who can only take classes at a CCC, are given registration priority over students who have other options for taking the class.</p>