<p>With the prevalence of Berkeley versus Rice/UVA/Michigan/UCLA threads running around, CF's self esteem has gone considerably down (as his sense of self worth is attached to the name of his university) :rolleyes:. He even cried after reading some of the Cal-bashing comments made by Mr. Chiboing Choing. But then he *****slapped the troll and he left to go get a head start on his 'Top Eight Reasons Not to Attend Columbia Law' thread. </p>
<p>Anyways, to fully recover his confidence, he wanted to make a thread upon which Berkeley could easily outshine the 'competition' in question…so the easiest university that came to mind was UC Merced. Feel free to discuss which university you think has better academics, professors, students, resources, location, reputation etc. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Also, to make things more interesting and so that Berkeley will win this thread in dramatic fashion; I would like to assign some very capable debaters to the UC Merced 'rah-rah' team:</p>
<p>Team Captain: Sakky
His teammates: Byerly (who can vouch for Merced's yield rate and post obscure articles in which someone choose Merced over Cal), Chiboing Choing (of course), and Xiggi.</p>
<p>Let this Epic CC Battle between the forces of Cal and Evil begin!</p>
<p>It's one thing to compare Berkeley to peers like Rice or UVa or Michigan, but Berkeley really has no hope of going up against UC Merced anytime soon.</p>
<p>Where to start...</p>
<ol>
<li><p>UC Merced just started running as an institution. This offers inumerable advantages for the student as I see it. I've heard of one student who started many clubs on campus...simply because there were few clubs to begin with! That's something you would never get at Berkeley with something like 600 clubs running around. Imagine how good that would look to a graduate school compared with simply being a member of a club.</p></li>
<li><p>Location, location, location! UC Merced is in a very nice location bordering Yosemite lake. Berkeley is in an old, run-city city with more crime and many more homeless people.</p></li>
<li><p>Academics! UC Berkeley has lectures with 800 students. UC Merced has an undergraduate population of 800. The attention you'll be getting at UC Merced is so much more than Berkeley that I don't even see the point in comparing them. When you are with 800 instead of 23,000 students all the resources are so much more accessible.</p></li>
<li><p>Grad school prospects. Want to become a doctor? Lawyer? Who doesn't? Why go to Berkeley and compete with all the cut-throat pre-meds? Go to Merced where the environment is less competitive and you'll certainly have an easier time getting good grades. As many of you know, med schools and law schools care very much about GPA and very little about which undergrad school you came from. Why risk being put on academic probation or flunk out of Berkeley when you can graduate from UC Merced with a great GPA?</p></li>
<li><p>Merced's campus is infinitely more beautiful.</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Student Life. At Berkeley with all those students you are just a number. At UC Merced with only a few hundred in your class you can really get to know everyone, be in an intimate environment, and build better networking.</p></li>
<li><p>Housing. Here are Berkeley's rates:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A single at Merced costs $10,786 for the entire year. At Berkeley a single costs $13,485, $14,750 if you live at Clark Kerr. Yes both include meal plans but Merced would be cheaper even if Berkeley's housing rates didn't include a meal plan.</p>
<p>I could go on and on and on. There is no comparison between Berkeley and Merced. Go back to comparing Berkeley to schools it has a chance of competing with.</p>
<p>"The Gospel according to CF..." Exactly who does this person think he is? Personally, I have not missed some of the posts or unnecessary remarks made by CF, and now this... whatever, not wasting my time.</p>
<p>Riverside actually has a tremendous amount over Merced (a full-running established university vs. a new undeveloped school with much fewer resources). Unfortunately, Berkeley can't stack up against either. :(</p>
<p>Wow viccitudes, posted probably the nicest building on the merced campus to the worst building on cals campus as a comparison. Also I dont have a single class with 800 people in it. The largest class I have probably has 250. That seems pretty average for a lower division class.</p>
<p>2) It's broken up into different lectures, so while you're right, more than 550 take the particular class each semester, they all have different lectures. Many different students take math 1a, 1b, 16a, and 16b each term, but there are multiple lectures, so within each course designation students are in different classes (while basically the same material is covered).</p>
<p>You are right,
but the access to professors in large classes >100
depends only on you. He will never start a conversation with you. You are the one who is supposed to approach professors.</p>
<p>I heard a lot of people complain about large class sizes at cal, usually people who dont even go there, and so far I've had no problem with the class sizes. You still have a discusion section with less than 30 people.</p>
<p>Well, I think you're right that it's basically true that professors in larger classes aren't going to initiate conversations with most of the students in the class, but it does happen sometimes, and many professors in large classes do ask for questions and beg that students come to office hours only to get few of either.</p>
<p>Nothing is wrong :)
Just saying that large class size does not mean worse access to professors.
It is up to you. And almost everywhere the introductory classes are large. Either 100+ or 1000+</p>
<p>Oftentimes, discussions are extra small. I'm in two 300+ student classes and both discussions have less than 10 out of 25 possible students. Why? Because the discussions are other early/late in the day or on widely disliked days, such as Friday. So, if you want more attention from your GSI during discussion than what's usually considered "normal" (almost no attention...) you should try those times.</p>
<p>Well, I don't know if they're large almost everywhere (for example, at liberal arts colleges), but it's really disingenuous (or misinformed) when people make it out as if Berkeley (and such schools and UCLA and UMich- often times basically just public schools) are the only schools like this when such schools as Cornell and Harvard actually have simillar situations.</p>
