<p>I'll just summarize some thoughts of ways Berkeley could be better:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Create a honors college, or at the very least, give better perks for the Regents Scholarship. Right now, because of the large size of the undergrad population, even if you are bright you will likely be dragged down by some of the "below average" students there. I see more and more people choosing UCLA over Berkeley because UCLA's Regents offered ~$5,000 while Berkeley's only offers $1,000 or because it's "UCLA honors versus Berkeley." To sakky's list of perks I would also add extended access to libraries.</p></li>
<li><p>Create more joint-degree programs, which was also stated above. More than that, I would encourage greater enrollment in these programs. It seems like the ones that exist now have very low enrollment as they are difficult to get in.</p></li>
<li><p>Regarding the "puff" majors, I would like to see them tightened up instead of having them slashed. Right now the grading is too inbalanced. You could be working your tail off in a tough major and still have a poor GPA while another guy doesn't do much work and gets a very high GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>Ease up on the hard majors, mostly engineering majors. What Berkeley is doing now is weeding out some students who are working very hard but still don't perform well enough in engineering, while others in easier majors are getting by with far less effort. Simply put, Berkeley is weeding out the wrong people, and hurting some students who frankly, don't deserve to be expelled.</p></li>
<li><p>Make it much easier to transfer between the colleges. Something like Cornell's 7-college system, which I hear is very easy to transfer from one to the other. The difficulty in transferring lies in several areas.
a)it is difficult for a poor-performing engineer to transfer into the college of Letters and Sciences. This is what some have referred to as the "engineering trap." Students go into engineering to find out they can't cut it, only to be stuck in engineering.
b)it is difficult for an average-performing guy in L&S to transfer into engineering. The least the colleges can do is let the two guys trade places.
c)there is way too much beaucracy involved. For example, if you want to transfer into engineering from L&S, you would have to find out exactly what pre-reqs are required, attend workshops on a change-of-college petition, do well in your engineering prereqs, write some essays, apply, and you still may not get in. The process could be made a lot easier. I know of quite a few people who are trying to switch OUT of BioE, yet it's still the hardest major to transfer into, along with EECS and Engineering undeclared. If there are spots opening up, why make it so hard for students to transfer IN?</p></li>
<li><p>Impacted majors. This as I have come to understand mostly comes down to what the departments themselves decide to do. That is, the departments CHOOSE to make their majors impacted. Like others have pointed out, the largest majors on campus, MCB, PolySci, etc. don't need to be impacted. Why does a small major that barely uses any resources like Mass Communications impacted? Or Economics?</p></li>
<li><p>In my opinion, the undergraduate student body has simply gotten way too large. I would accept fewer students and have them attend somewhere like UCSD instead, which forces UCSD to admit fewer of its bottom students, who would then enroll at a place like UCR, for example. The problem is while Berkeley struggles to handle its massive undergrad population UCR and UCM actually UNDER-admitted last year and perhaps the years before as well. Look, if Berkeley is going to weed out the bottom portion of its students anyway, why not do them a favor and send them to a lower UC like UCSD, where they'll probably do better? It's a lot better to graduate from UCSD than to flunk out of Berkeley. If this happens then it follows that UCSD's student body will also get better on average, as some of the top students are now those who would have matriculated at Berkeley. Basically, the students win and the UCs win.</p></li>
<li><p>Tighten up the community college transfer process. It's great that UCs provide this opportunity for CCers, but what I have seen/heard over and over again is that a) transfers don't contribute as much to classes and aren't as sharp and b) it's tougher for freshmen to get admitted than transfers. Another gripe some have is that the transfer students get to skip most weeder courses at Berkeley, which isn't fair to those who did have to go through the weeders. If we're going to accept transfers at least set equal standards. What I would do, again, is accept fewer transfers and let more of the lower UCs take them.</p></li>
<li><p>Advising is another complaint that students often bring up. Many would like to meet with an advisor several times throughout the year to work out a graduation plan, courses to take, etc. instead of having to try to figure it out themselves. More alumni/grad students involvement is a possible solution.</p></li>
<li><p>The poor teaching quality for a lot of large, intro lectures. Now don't get me wrong, some professors are great, but some are not. So for students who sign up for classes it's mostly a hit-or-miss, and it's random. For example, in the fall 2006 semester Chemistry 1A was taught by Professor Kubinec, who is quite a good lecturer and well-liked by most. This semester it's taught by Professor Nitzsche, with a heavy German accent and an inability to describe simple concepts, leading many students to complain that the lectures are fairly "useless." And don't think you'll get bailed out by looking up ratemyprofessors.com and only pick the good professors. For example, this semester Chem1A is ONLY taught by Nitzsche, so for those who didn't take it fall semester (spring admits for example), too bad. If you wait until second year it's probably too late for many. So you're stuck. Same thing with other classes too. For example, engineering 77 is only taught by Sengupta this semester (the guy with a sad face next to him on ratemyprofessors.com).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Another simple example: one of the professors who lecture for Physics7A is Professor Robert Lin. Not a very engaging professor, to say the least. Check his rating on ratemyprofessors; it's not a happy face next to his name. One day a substitute showed up, and said that Professor Lin cannot lecture that day because he is at NASA. Apparently NASA had a competition for the design of the next space shuttle to Mars, with submissions from over 20 institutions, and Professor Lin's team was one of the two finalists. Needless to say the class was pretty impressed. The substitute, a young guy of about late 20s / early 30s and still looking for a full-time teaching position, showed very quickly that his lecturing skills was far better than that of Lin's. When the class ended early and he asked whether the class wanted to be let out early or to do another demo, not one hand raised for the former option.</p>
<p>What I would like to see is more guys like the substitue to lecture for large intro classes, instead of a very good researcher like Lin, who, sadly, cannot make intro physics interesting or clearly explain basic concepts in physics. To do this we can take professor evals of classes every year, and evals of visiting professors and assistant professors as well as full-time professors, and simply keep those who are doing a good job of lecturing and replace those who are not. The substitute certainly did an excellent job of lecturing Phsyics 7A, so the university should hire him to lecture the class instead of Lin. It's a simple concept. It's not the first year Lin has taught 7A (he's been doing it for many years) and it's not the first year he's put his students to sleep every class. I'm sure he would be a much better lecturer for an advanced astrophysics class (his field). So have him teach that class and get a lecturer who's good at lecturing 7A to teach 7A.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The crime around Berkeley tends to be a problem, as well as the homeless population. I'm all for supporting the homeless, but I'm sure there's a better city for them to occupy than a city with a top university and loaded with college students. Students come here to learn, not to be haggled by the homeless. The city of Berkeley should not be as welcoming and the police department needs to do more FOR the students instead of harrasing them so much. For example, the city of Berkeley is absolutely one of the worst areas in terms of bike theft, which facilitates transportation for many students. Why doesn't the police do more to stop all the bike thefts?</p></li>
<li><p>Spring admits. I'm not sure on the exact figures but I know at least 650 every year since FPF admits 650. I've heard of 2,000 spring admits admitted every year but that figure seems to large for me. Simply put, spring admits is another way for Berkeley to take in even more students than it can accept. As I understand it, Berkeley has a quota every year for the number of students it can accept. However, every year Berkeley takes in quite a few students as "Spring Admits" who don't count towards the quota. These students are admitted in the Spring semester and spend the next 7 semesters just like a Berkeley student. From what I can tell, most of these students are not very impressive and really add to the "long tail end of mediocre Berkeley students." I would cut down on the number of spring admits to as many as FPF can accept (around 650). According to data Berkeley collected, those who were spring admits but participated in FPF actually graduate at a slightly higher rate with a slightly higher GPA than fall admits, while spring admits who didn't participate in FPF graduate at a lower rate with a lower GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>Improve grad school admissions for its undergrads. Compared to the top private schools Berkeley is actually doing pretty poorly (again, relative to HYPSM) in terms of getting its students into good grad schools. Part of this is because there are too many students. Part of this is because Berkeley doesn't offer much support/advising. MCB is way too competitive for all the pre-meds in there. To start, Berkeley could provide more advising/workshops and have its grad programs be more welcoming of its own undergrads. This cold also be accomplished by attracting a stronger student body. As you can see, many of these issues are interconnected.</p></li>
</ol>