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The bus ad and engineering depts at Cal already are huge. And frankly, an undergraduate Bus Ad major is IMHO a terrible waste of a college career and a high-end vocational school education.
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<p>But that's what the students want. Right or wrong, that's what they want. </p>
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Only a certain amount of students intending to major in the above should be admitted. The rest should go elsewhere.
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<p>I invite you to explain that to the 40% of students who applied to Haas and got denied. </p>
<p>I think it's very easy to talk about the merits of the restrictive major-switching policies of Berkeley when you got to major in what you wanted. I have a feeling that anybody's perspective would change if they didn't get to major in what they wanted. </p>
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What if the school's program wants to remain exlucsive? What if they know that by allowing fewer people to do business, or engineering, the degree is more meaningful, and they can better educate those in the program?
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<p>Even if this were the motive, think about whether the consequences are what you say they are. For example, again, look at my example. I know a guy in L&S who tried to switch into ME. He got a 3.3 in the prereqs. Yet he was denied the switch. At the same time, you got ME's who are doing extremely poorly (i.e. around a 2.0) who are still in ME. Most of them want to leave ME for some other major because they are doing poorly. Yet they can't. No other major will take them. </p>
<p>So think about what that means. Here we have a guy who is doing quite well, and he is not being allowed into ME. Then we have other guys who are doing poorly in ME, and they are forced to stay. What's up with that? How does this make the degree more meaningful? Wouldn't it be much better for everybody to let these guys swap places? Then the guy who is doing well in ME will be allowed to study ME, and the guy who is doing poorly in ME can pursue some other major in L&S. Everybody wins. With the present situation, everybody loses. </p>
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Do you really think that the sciences and engineering are underfunded compared to the humanities?
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<p>It's basic yield management. It's a basic managerial technique to allocate your resources to meet your demand. For example, if you're a restaurant manager, then you want to schedule your workforce such that most of your staff is around during the lunch and dinner rush. You don't want to be caught short-handed during the rush, and then have a lot of employees sitting around doing nothing during the slower hours. </p>
<p>Similarly, I don't think it is proper for engineering to be overbooked when humanities majors are overflowing with spare capacity. </p>
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Is part of the reason that certain programs are dropped not also because of what the school or various deparments or colleges decide? If the CoE wanted these specialty mining engineering fields to stay, they would, even with just a few students. How should money be allocated, on a student to student basis by department?
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<p>Whether programs are run or not has a lot to do with student demand. Basically, each department has to justify why certain courses are taught, and if they are taught, at what intervals. If certain courses have very few students, then the class will be taught less often (i.e. once per year or even once per 2 years, instead of once per semester), and in extreme situations, will only be taught extremely rarely. For example, there was a 4-year period during which Geology 111 (Petroleum Geology) was only taught once. </p>
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And who said that the film program isn't using the resources?
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<p>I am saying that if CalX is correct that Film Studies at UCLA has 1000 spots and only 50 students, then it is fair for them to give up at least 900 of those spots. I don't know if CalX's numbers are correct. My point is, you can't be just hogging all this extra capacity that you're not using.</p>