<p>Allorion, I'm strongly leaning towards medicine at this point, i have conducted research as a senior with a professor at UCLA, I have seen the opportunities that the UCLA medical center can provide to a premed student, and hearing about the cutthroat environment of UCB made my decision a lot easier.</p>
<p>UCLA was my first choice when I applied to colleges anyways, so turning down UCB wasn't too bad. This was a personal decision and I'm very happy with my decision.</p>
<p>Your post is fine but "about the cutthroat environment of UCB" is not accurate- it is not all around camps, and you did not specify what you're referring to. If anywhere, they say it's in MCB, some pre-med classes, and some pre-Haas classes, but it's not campus wide. You'll probably find similar things at UCLA in certain areas of campus.</p>
<p>As long as you genuinely liked UCLA better, I don't see anything wrong with it.</p>
<p>But as DRab said, the "cutthroat"ness isn't campus-wide and UCLA has its cutthroat enviroments as well.
I wouldn't count on UCLA being less cutthroat in a pre-med track than Berkeley, especially if you're planning biomedical engineering, which is actually reputed to be harsher in UCLA than at Berkeley due to volume.</p>
<p>well, I never said that UCB was more cutthroat than UCLA, I think they are about equal in competitiveness, I just want to stay in LA and not move away.</p>
<p>I'm doing psychobiology by the way, no engineering for me!</p>
<p>Hahaha "Psychobiology..." they make it sound so...sinister. "Biopsychology" would be a more fitting name, no?</p>
<p>I agree there are way too many students. The class (each year) size should be 20-30% smaller (that's my opinion) causing some students to matriculate at the current "lower tier" UCs. At the end of the day all the UCs would see a rise in the caliber of students (statistically).</p>
<p>Is NaziModsSuck CantSilenceTruth/CollegeSenior/Polite Antagonis? It looks like he just joined because he only has two posts. He's a loser.</p>
<p>Yeah it's him. He's just angry because he got banned...again.</p>
<p>i would be really interested in meeting this dude. He seems like the biggest moron.</p>
<p>Then again, that's one thing about Berkeley to enjoy - the diversity. Life would be boring if everything was just rainbows and cotton candy.</p>
<p>Then again if everything was just rainbows and cotton candy then people wouldn't know what boring would mean ;)</p>
<p>I don't think of PA/CS/CST/LS and now it's NaziModsSuck(??) as a loser or a moron. After all this is CAL and one of the attractions to CAL is the variety of opinion and attitude among the masses and life still goes on. While I don't share his opinions and certainly hope I don't end up thinking or being like him at the end of my tenure at CAL, he is entitled to think and express his opinion. Those offended by his posts don't have to read them.
One of the great things about the CAL threads on CC is that there are substance and meaningful debates on a lot of the topics. Check out some of the other boards. USC is a great example of the opposite. The hottest topic there is whining and complaining because not all incoming students have gotten their e-mail accts yet!
I doubt he has been banned and that is why he changes names. At least I have never seen anything in his posts that would cause him to be banned. I think he just enjoys changing names every so often, although I could be wrong.
Ab_med, you really should think before writing posts like the ones you've written. IMO, you have no idea what you are talking about.</p>
<p>CA2006....What did i say that that offended you??? What do you mean when you say " have no idea what im talking about????" All i said is that he sounds like a loser for making multiple aliases in order to bash Cal. I never said he wasnt "entitled to think and express his opinion." What are you talking about?</p>
<p>ab-med, no offense to me at all. He may not say things that you or I agree with, and he may do so with multiple names, but he is not a moron or a loser. Those are some pretty harsh names to call someone you don't know. No offense to me though.</p>
<p>If you take a look at some of his posts, he directly and indirectly makes fun of others on this board that do not share his viewpoint. He deserves what he gets.</p>
<p>I completely agree with ab_med. That poster has gone out of his way to insult anybody and everybody who has anything to do with Cal.</p>
<p>First off, I would say that there is no need to veer into politics. Whether you like Bush or not, whether you are a Republican or Democrat, all of that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, except that all universities should be willing to accomodate all political viewpoints, even if they are unpopular. </p>
<p>But here are some of my comments:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Berkeley has one, sole redeeming factor. The quality of its faculty which is world-class... none of its nobel prize winners teach undergraduate classes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is not true. There are a few Berkeley Nobel Prize winners who teach undergrads. Or, at least, they did. In fact, I believe that Daniel McFadden, Nobel Economist of the year 2000, taught Econ103 a few years ago (after he had won the Nobel). </p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is true that most Nobel Prize winners do not teach undergrads. But this is a general truism at most schools - Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, etc. Furthermore, as an undergrad, you often times don't WANT a Nobel Prize winner teaching your class, for the simple reason that many of them just happen to be bad teachers. Great researchers, obviously, but bad teachers. Just because you can produce brilliant research does not mean that you know how to teach. I agree that it's cool to say that you took a class with a Nobel Prize winner, but the truth is, you should be more worried about what you are actually going to LEARN. </p>
<p>The fact is, most undergrads do not have the background to really get any extra value-add from being taught by a Nobel laureate. Let's face it. An Intro Physics course taught by a Physics Nobel Prize winner isn't going to be significantly different it it was taught by someboy else. After all, the equations are still all going to be the same. He's not going to teach you any 'secret equations". If that guy actually discussed his winning research in class, probably less than 1% of the students in that Intro class would understand it. If you're a doctoral student, then obviously you want to do your research with a Nobel laureate. But if you're just some 18 year old kid who's taking a Intro class in order to complete requirements for a major, then having a major-league researcher teaching your class isn't that big of a boon. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I do believe you're right that there is a rather large disparity between top and bottom of the barrel though. I disagree that the retention rate is all that high though. With as much disparity as there is, there should be a far lower graduation rate if the student body quality is truly that divergent. It just shows that Berkeley has far more coddling than you give it credit for--or the student body is better than we both believe.
I personally believe in the more-coddling theory, but I'll keep an open mind and see if I'll be proven wrong in my four years.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I think that a large part of it has to do with the fact that, sadly, there really are a number of majors at Berkeley that, quite frankly, are very easy and which you can get passing grades for doing very little work. In that sense, this is 'coddling'. After all, the football and basketball players have to major in something. {Granted, there are a few football/bb players that are geniuses, but the fact is, most of them are not serious students and only study in order to keep themselves eligible to play}. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I was strongly deterred by Berkeley initially by Sakky
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think anybody should necessarily be 'deterred' by anything I say. What I think people should do is try to get a fuller picture of what Berkeley is all about. If that fuller picture then convinces you to go elsewhere, then so be it. At least you are making an informed decision. </p>
<p>What I fundamentally disagree with is the notion that people should not get a full picture, in that people should actually be denied information about a school. I think it is absolutely fundamental in a free society to be able to obtain a wide palette of opinions.</p>
<p>Yes, there's also George Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Prize Winner, Economics.</p>
<p>I've had an upper div class with Prof. Gerard Debreu, another Cal Econ Nobel, the course material was straight out of his area and he was a very good teacher. He was very approachable and enthusiastic, great prof, Nobel or not. Akerlof also is a great prof and a nice person. I've audited a few of his classes and had two classes with his wife, the former head of the Council of Economic Advisors to Clinton and current CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank in SF. She organized a dinner with her students almost every week.</p>
<p>Those are some of the things that set Berkeley way above schools that are ranked in the same neighborhood by USNWR.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't think anybody should necessarily be 'deterred' by anything I say. What I think people should do is try to get a fuller picture of what Berkeley is all about. If that fuller picture then convinces you to go elsewhere, then so be it. At least you are making an informed decision. </p>
<p>What I fundamentally disagree with is the notion that people should not get a full picture, in that people should actually be denied information about a school. I think it is absolutely fundamental in a free society to be able to obtain a wide palette of opinions.
[/quote]
I never said your statements were mischaracterization or untrue, or shouldn't be said. I've agreed with you before and defended your posts before, Sakky. However, I see no reason why people would not be "deterred" by your posts.</p>
<p>As a student who has a choice between Berkeley and other comparable institutions, I used a wide range of resources to try to make my choice. I never said your posts lie or state things that shouldn't be said, but in terms of looking at posts, they can fall within two catagories: a vote for Berkeley or a vote against. I don't think you would deny that your vote would generally be against, your points and observations considered.
I never said that you shouldn't post, or that you're a scourge, or anything of the sort. I never stated that I don't think people should have the full picture.</p>
<p>Berkeley has its positives and its negatives. Though amusingly enough, when I first found College Confidential, the posts in the Berkeley forums were dominated by you and LC/PA/CST (Polite Antagonis at the time). If I purely went off of those, I should have run screaming the other way from Berkeley, not particularly because your posts lambasted Berkeley unfairly but because other colleges usually have no such "votes against" in their own forums.</p>
<p>So, I think it's good that you provide another opinion, however I don't think you should be shocked that people are deterred from Berkeley by your posts, especially if they have other strong choices and Berkeley isn't merely the best school they got into.</p>