<p>Im having trouble choosing between these two schools.</p>
<p>I am a California Resident</p>
<p>Chicago has been my first choice for some time now, but I am starting to rethink this prospect.</p>
<p>The tuition at Chicago is extremely high, especially compared to the tuition of Berkeley's. I got Regents at Berkeley, while I received nothing from Chicago. Berkeley is also pretty close to my home, so I would be able to visit my family often. Also, I wanted to graduate in 3 years or less and move on to graduate school. I know that Chicago's core curriculum might burden this, while at Berkeley this should be no problem, since I would bring many AP's and an IB Diploma worth of credit, as well as credit from CC classes. At Chicago, I may not be able to partake in many EC activities because of the grade deflation. Berkeley is supposed to be one of the most liberal universities, while some of my friends have told me that Chicago is conservative? I dont know if that is right. Im very liberal so I may not be able to mesh with that kind of atmospere.</p>
<p>It seems I desire the intellectualism that Chicago provides but I dont want all the extra burdens that comes along with this (tuition, stingent core, deflation etc.)
Are there any distinct benefits that Chicago will provide that Berkeley simply cannot offer?
What do you think?</p>
<p>Well for one, you would have small classes from full professors for 4 years, instead of sitting in a huge lecture hall listening to TA's for the first 2 years. Chicago is not conservative overall, but the students there do like an intense debate, so you will find yourself challenged to defend your liberal ideas. Have you visited Chicago at all? And have you lookrd at what classes you get AP credit for there?</p>
<p>What is your major? If you are a humanities major, your classes may not be large at all (or all large, anyway...) at Cal, even in the first two years. There are freshmen seminars; there are endless opportunities. Cal can be a wonderful experience and the Regent's scholarship is prestigious and will be an entree to various benefits. Unless there is something at U of Chicago that you can't get at U of California, you should think very carefully about the expense (and the weather). The campus is lively; Chicago is dull by comparison. But it is an individual decision. If you can, visit both. In any event, go to CalDay next weekend and see how you feel about the campus and what you see there.</p>
<p>Regents at Cal versus the high cost of Chicago should be a significant factor in the decision unless you have boodles of money such that $200K is insignificant to you and your family. Cal will probably manage to deliver a fine undergrad education for you. Have you visited Chicago in the wintertime? It's quite a change for someone who grew up in California. Some people like those changes of seasons though. Chicago's a fine school but is it worth $200K more than Cal for undergrad?</p>
<p>I'm not sure about Cal but neither of my D's at UCSD and UCLA had TAs giving lectures - they're done by the professors. The TAs do the discussion sessions. Depending on the class, it could be in a large lecture hall but it could also be a class of 20 to 50 - especially after the intro classes.</p>
<p>I think it sounds like you've decided on Berkeley. Doesn't sound like you're that much enamored of Chicago, esp. if you don't like the idea of the core. So, go to Berkeley. Enjoy! Take some nice trips with the money you will save!</p>
<p>I prefer Chicago but the Regents is hard to overlook. </p>
<p>Side issue: I would not be hell bent at getting undergrad done and getting to grad school ASAP. Undergrad is a time for exploration in a way that will be difficult to come by later in life. The year you "save" will seem insignificant in ten years.</p>
<p>"Undergrad is a time for exploration" -- and I might add, an ideal time to expose oneself to the various disciplines along with one's fellow students (e.g., taking "core" classes). I don't see it as a plus to get through undergrad as quickly as possible either. Enjoy it. Grad school is usually not as fun as undergrad. Being familiar with both Chicago and Berkeley -- I like Chicago better as a school, but I enjoyed living in Berkeley more than living in Hyde Park.</p>
<p>I was a TA at Chicago, led discussion groups in the core, and graded papers. Perhaps things have changed. One thing I know that has changed is the so-called "grade deflation" - Chicago is one of three private prestige colleges with the highest rate of increase in grade inflation over the past 15 years.</p>
<p>I am no great fan of the Chicago core, but some students love it. You need to know whether you are one of them, as it does substantially limit other possible choices in the first two years.</p>
<p>Your choice, however, is NOT Berkeley vs. Chicago. That's a wrong way to look at it. Your choice is Berkeley PLUS XXX dollars in educational opportunities vs. Chicago. Imagine how much education you can purchase for, say $100k (if that is the different). Two years of grad school; four summers of intensive language learning in Europe; two years learning to paint in Italy; five years as a volunteer in Africa; you can make the list for yourself. Or simply the downpayment on a condo in the Bay Area.</p>
<p>Anyhow, set up the real equation for yourself, and then if it still comes out Chicago, or even close, you have a lot more thinking to do. (I think once you do so, from what you've written, it won't. Berkeley plus $100k (or whatever) will give you a much better education.)</p>
<p>And if you bring your AP credits into Berkeley, you are likely to escape the largest downside, the large first-year classes.</p>
<p>Chicago has T.A.'s. Most big schools do. I remember having a T.A. in a lab for a "core" science class. If I am not mistaken, my son has been something like a T.A. for first year calculus there. (He is not even a grad student, but he is gifted in math). </p>
<p>And some smaller schools sometimes have student run supplementary types of study groups too where some of the students serve in a T.A. like capacity. I just got back from Kalamazoo (small school, no grad school) and I think I was told that international students serve as something similar to T.A.'s in language classes (run labs in which one practices speaking the language being studied).</p>
<p>At any rate, from what you have said, it just doesn't sound like Chicago is the school for you. But, I don't know what you are studying. My personal opinion is that the Chicago advantage comes more from studying the humanities (learning how to write, analyze what one reads, discussing the great ideas with other students who really do get a rush from talking about these things in a way that most Berkeley students do not) than the sciences.</p>
<p>Like every research university, Chicago definitely has TAs, and has courses (especially core humanities and social science sections) taught by grad students -- often very talented, inspiring grad students, sometimes not.</p>
<p>Chicago is also quite good about granting elective credit for AP/IB courses. It is not at all uncommon for people to graduate in 3 years, sometimes even less. That does restrict their class choices a lot, since the core requirements (which you cannot place out of entirely) take up about 4 quarters worth of classes, and most majors also take about 4 aggregate quarters to complete. So if you are trying to finish in three years, you can take essentially one true elective course per year. </p>
<p>But it's probably a good deal easier to graduate from Chicago in three years than Berkeley, where horror stories abound about students frozen out of courses that are required for their majors and needing 4-1/2-5 years to graduate notwithstanding perfectly good grades and full course loads.</p>
<p>Chicago is a great place, with a wonderful atmosphere of intellectual inquiry and discussion among the students, and a minimum of careerism. Whether that's worth paying the extra money is a perfectly good question, though.</p>
<p>Let's get this straight: there are TA's (GSI's) at Berkeley, but for the most part, they do not teach the actual classes -- apart from lower division language classes and freshman English. In lecture courses, as at most large schools other than Cal, including Princeton and Harvard, Columbia Core, and apparently Chicago, the TA's also teach language, freshmen writing, and core courses; otherwise they only teach the small sections (or "precepts") once a week that are required in addition to the lectures. I taught at Cal, as a graduate student, in the freshman English program (Comp Lit, to be precise); none of my graduate school colleages taught anything other than freshmen courses -- all of the remaining courses were taught by professors. Freshmen seminars at Cal are taught by professors -- may of them tops in their field.
(Oh yeah, Go Bears!)</p>
<p>At every school I've ever been involved with, large lecture classes are taught by professors. TAs sometimes run the discussion sections which supplement them.</p>
<p>What part of that is playing with semantics? It seems pretty darn straightforward to me.</p>
<p>Xiggi: The "huge" classes are all taught by professors. If you don't want any TA's teaching any of your classes, the only choice is a liberal arts college where there are no graduate students (though there may be adjuncts).
The point here is that the reason to go to Chicago over Cal or vice versa is not to avoid TA's. The two schools are different in many ways -- but both are excellent and "prestigious" schools. You can't go wrong. But money is a valid consideration.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The way the participants of this entire "teacher/ta/gsi" phenomenon play with semantics is hilarious.
[/quote]
Xiggi: I'm just telling it like it is for my 4th year D at UCSD and so far for my first year D at UCLA. Outside of the freshman writing course, the other courses have all been taught by real Professors or lecturers (with the lecturers generally being better teachers). They haven't been taught by TAs or semantic variations thereof. I would assume Cal would be similar but I defer to mamenyu on that. Note - both D's are in engineering which might make a difference.</p>
<p>The playful semantics are all related to the definition of teaching. I'll assume that others may value the interactionless and ex cathedra model of teaching more than I do. </p>
<p>Speaking about value, what is there to stop anyone from simply tuning in to one of the many classes available via OpenCourseWare, buying a couple of books, and hiring any of the graduate students interested to work for a bit more than minimum wages? Why spend small fortunes to attend a school to be 'guided' by other students who are barely older than you are and little to no training in education?</p>
<p>The issue is not that the model does exist or ... works very well. Many CC posters, whose opinions are I respect enormously, have repeated that the use of TAs. GSI, or fellows has positive attributes. I do believe and trust them!</p>
<p>I maintain that the information regarding this model is not shared with enthusiasm by the schools, if not deliberately under-reported. I, for one, believe that each school should be forced to publish statistics that track down the exact number AND length of classes taught or 'led' by faculty, adjunct faculty, lecturers, and ... others, and that full disclosures should be made for teachers who are absent for extended periods of time or no longer teach regularly. For what it is worth, I believe that if such transparency existed, the faculty-students ratios reported by both the schools discussed herein would be exposed as ... enormously creative. Of course, this would not be very different from what happens atmost every one of the large research universities. </p>
<p>In a day and age where one class costs as much as $6,000, is that too much to ask? The beauty, as usual, is in the eye of the beholder. That is why we have individual choices.</p>
<p>As a former TA, I actually agree with you, though not exactly for the reasons you state.</p>
<p>You see, from the day I arrived at Chicago, I could deliver a better lecture than most of my high-priced, highly paid, and often highly honored (one had just won the Nobel Prize in literature) professors. My delivery was better, I was less likely to get bogged down in minutiae (I have stories!), the material was often fresher to me as I was delivering it for the first time, I was more in tune with my audience (after all, they were close in age than I was), and, occasionally, I was more "up" on the material. Had you put the two of us behind a curtain, I am quite confident that the majority of students would have chosen me!</p>
<p>What I was LESS able to do was what they paid me for - run a class discussion (for which I received absolutely no training), making sure to interject myself just enough so that the key points would come across, but not so much that I monopolized the conversation. I saw masters of this skill at Williams, and at Oxford, and at the age of 23, I wasn't one of them. The Chicago professors I had in graduate courses were, on the whole, much more capable of doing so (experience counts for a lot), but that's not what I was paid to do.</p>
<p>I was also paid to grade papers. All right, I probably wasn't any worse than half of my professors at that - except that they had a couple of decades experience at it. Again, no training. I think actually I did this pretty well, all things considering.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I, for one, believe that each school should be forced to publish statistics that track down the exact number AND length of classes taught or 'led' by faculty, adjunct faculty, lecturers, and ... others, and that full disclosures should be made for teachers who are absent for extended periods of time or no longer teach regularly.
[/quote]
I agree with this. As long as the schools are touting the teaching faculty/student ratios they should expand on it and give the real picture.</p>