<p>I think the analytic and quantitative aspects of sociology might prove to be too rough for the ____ studies majors . . . why not just go down to the local rally and hold signs, that’s all they ever do anyways.</p>
<p>cripes my spelling is crap at 2 -3 am in the morning texting from me cell but caiacs was still awake haha. Well UCB is suppose to be a respected research institution. Nearly all X studies major should be forced to take some analytic and quantitative sociology course. If they can’t handle 2 classes of that type (i.e social science), they should not be attending a research institution in the first place. Why should taxpayers support their hobby or b/c they want to go to Cal so pick the easiest major they can get into? If they have the energy to go waive signs basically saying give me more money from the taxpayers, then there should be no excuse why they can’t be out their fund raising themselves. What a bunch of spoiled self entitled brats many young Californians’ are expecting everyone else to flip the bill for their little social agendas that rarely come to anything of significance.</p>
<pre><code> There are some research institutions in and around Cal but without knowledge of actual sociology (not PC wannabe Socialists but Liberals in sheep’s clothing crap) or stat methods how do they expect to get a job? What…go to grad school and become some mediocre teacher and live off the dole while they stand on their soapbox spewing back PC garbage like many of the young teachers are doing now?
I am actually very thankful I took most of my classes at a CCC with the ol school Berkeley teachers. They were fair and firm and funny too when it came to younger students thinking they are clever. Many designed their tests and papers that those even thinking of wasting their efforts into cheating were still actually studying haha. I got A’s but also B in some of their classes but at I and the instructor knew that I earned that B fair and square and actually learned something, much of what still sticks with me today.
Have you even watched the videos of these Cal students in majors that they don’t even know elementary school facts about? How f’n embarrassing. Cal should not have let many of these dream schemers in that don’t know squat about the school system in general. They should be forced to take a seminar on at least how Cal operates since many are ignorant on how the state budget works.
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<p>any language class probably</p>
<p>word on the street is mcb 102 gives out a lot of As.
You didn’t hear it from me though.</p>
<p>Political Science definitely has some quantitative study integrated into their courses (game theory, statistics, large-N studies, regression), esp in some comparative politics, and especially quantitative analysis classes. The same is true of some sociology classes. </p>
<p>On a separate note: </p>
<p>I do agree that “studies” majors should take such said classes. But I wouldn’t go as far as to say such said classes are useless. There may be people abusing the system in these courses by taking the classes solely for high grades. But there are others that truly enjoy studying the said subjects. </p>
<p>Sorry, but one thing that the social sciences and the humanities and easier sciences (psychology) completely destroy the hard sciences in is the share of students having a strong interest and sense of dedication to their subjects. Some go into these fields in spite of the low job prospects so that they can learn a subject they enjoy. I’ve known far too many engineering or pre-med students that really don’t like their subjects and only major in these subjects because of their desires to become doctors or engineers. (the same can also be said of Haas students). </p>
<p>Of course there are students who love studying bio and there are students who hate studying poli sci and are using it solely as an “ideal” major for law school, but the share of students enjoying poli sci out of all the students taking a poli sci course would definitely outweigh the share of students taking math 1B that enjoy it. </p>
<p>College is not necessarily about employability. Rather, it is to learn.</p>
<p>@caics- I disagree. Subjects like history, english, and political science require a strong grasp of English rhetoric and writing. If you’re not a damn good writer, you will be screwed in upper div humanities courses. It is not a skill that can be learned overnight. I know plenty of engineers who couldn’t write solid A or even A- 10 page research papers in upper div humanities classes. </p>
<p>I’m NOT disputing that at Berkeley, the “hard sciences” are harder than humanities subjects. They are, and that’s a fact. But humanities require a different skill set, and it’s not necessarily logical that a science major would automatically have the reading and writing skills to compare with English or History majors for example.</p>
<p>Well a year of foreign language should be mandatory to graduate from a UC just like on the IGETC. Do I like that idea? Hell no! But many jobs block out Americans due to the language requirements over who is best qualified. If these PC asswipes had their way, they would be making everyone learn at least 5 languages. </p>
<p>This is from experience from me (on the inside and outside) and many other people born here. First it was Spanish now these jerks want me to know German, French, Italian, even f’n Bolivian ***?!?! Then add on top of that many Asian (or East Asian) languages as I can and Cal and Stanford will ask for crap like Slovakian and Bulgarian and crap like that. Are you f’n kidding me, when they hell am I ever going to need to learn these languages here in the US besides these BS language requirements?!?!? You people are just starting out and don’t even know how many people have been screwed over because of this racket. Bush Co. just kept repeating the same lies over and over and even bleeding heart Californians’ fell for it. They were shrewd targeting the young people who are now grown up yet wonder duh where did all the jobs go, and why are so many paying 10 an hour to someone with a bachelors degree?!?!</p>
<p>I can’t believe W T F was edited out, what a joke</p>
<p>I thought you did the methodological method in Poli 2 not the stats method? Yes Poli Sci is legit as a science i think as well as psyche is. Cal use to have IMHO, one of the greatest Hungarian game theorists who died like 8 years ago RIP. Some super smart PhD’s are great at explaining complexities in a simple manner while others just suck at it. In fact some make simple stuff like stats WAY more harder than it really needs to be.</p>
<p>@kmazza- Yeah, Poli Sci 2 used an offshoot of the “experimental method”- “the comparative method.” It did however, introduce some quantitative sociological concepts like case-study comparisons vs. large-N comparative analysis. </p>
<p>But when you get into upper div comparative politics, you delve deeper in statistical concepts and game theory</p>
<p>What I’m saying is that the style of analytical writing required by humanities majors can be grasped far more easily by hard science majors than hard sciences can be grasped by humanities majors. It’s not different skill sets, it’s the same. It all boils down to critical thinking and analysis.</p>
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<p>Is that necessarily true for all such majors? I remember that there were some such majors which tended to attract the spillover of people who did not get into the business administration major. Economics was the most obvious example. Of course, there were also the “drifter” and “party” students who eventually end up looking for an “easy” major (both in terms of least prerequisites to declare and in terms of subject difficulty).</p>
<p>Also, the least interested and dedicated students in the science and engineering majors tended to change majors after finding freshman math and physics to be a bit too scary.</p>
<p>jimmi, I agree with everything you say. I understand that the US has always had this idea of the arts and humanities being ‘useless’. It stems back to the Victorian era and pragmatism and philosophically understand those strengths and errors in their logic. </p>
<p>Plus, I’ve seen MUCHO amount of comp sci, business, and engineering guys who totally bomb their art, humanities, and history classes. I think these X studies classes are interesting and can be useful for research but don’t think their needs to be whole majors dedicated to every single denomination. They could be consolidated under the humanities or sociology with limited classes offered to undergrads. </p>
<p>If the students, teachers, or curriculum isn’t supporting research or directly to Berkeley’s archive (which is huge) then the school and teachers aren’t properly doing their job. Student leaders, employed or not by Cal, need to analyze what is being underutilized and start the cutting with small shears at first until they get the hint. If message is not received then start fleecing.
On the other hand, when the resources are being utilized and contributing to the students/colleges research or SLO’s with supporting evidence, then you exploit that.</p>
<p>haha why is this thread going tangent?</p>
<p>Anyway, if engineers were given same time and were taught the same material as other humanities majors, I am sure engineers would beat those humanity-non science majors hands down. Engineers don’t like to write A or A- 10 page humanities papers b/c they are not important. Get a B in papers and do well on exams…or some other sort. It’s not worth the time…rather do something different.</p>
<p>hds404 - That makes no more sense than saying that humanities majors wouldn’t do well at engineering/math problem solving solely because it’s not important to them.</p>
<p>Some people are just better than others at certain things, and humanities majors tend to be better at things like writing and using language properly than their engineering counterparts. Sit an engineer down at a desk and tell him to write a gramatically-correct and well-structured paper or else he’ll flunk the course. You more than likely will see many more errors in his paper than in that of a humanities major.</p>
<p>I’m not saying all engineers don’t know how to write, because that’s obviously not true. But given the proper courses, some humanities majors would do just fine at advanced mathematics and physics as well. Some people are just better at some things than others, and we can’t generalize about one certain group of students as we seem to be doing in this thread.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, many arts and humanities students ARE better educated. Just because someone can do a problem with a logically definitive answer doesn’t make them more intelligent as intelligence is defined. Art, humanities, history, poli sci classes do not have logically definitive answers and do require critical thinking and analysis to come to some conclusion. If I needed a math problem done, I could easily use a computer, and come up with the same answer. Although, another problem with engineers/math geeks who rely too much on the computer today are hardly able to draw up plans or do the math on the spot. This complaint comes from those working in the fields and not just me. </p>
<p>A 10 page paper ideally should take at least 2 weeks of reading, visiting the library, collecting notes, comparing sources, knowing the issues, and responding in the proper format. Many students today tend to BS papers putting in less than 2 days of studying throwing together a paper in 2 hours the night before. The problem is the teachers are letting the slackers slide with nearly the same grade as the ones who put time and effort into their papers.</p>
<p>^Engineering is harder than pretty much all humanities classes. That can’t be disputed. But having said that, the humanities are NOT EASY if you want solid As. People don’t seem to be understanding that- true, most classes are curved to a B- and it’s impossible to fail out, but getting solid As, which is what is preferred if you’re aiming for top law schools, does require lots of work.</p>
<p>Also humanities majors are far more versed in politics, global problems, globalization, current economic trends (esp. econ and peis majors) and other VERY important problems than their hard science majors.</p>
<p>Also being a veteran in the hard sciences can screw you over when you take hard humanities classes where everything is grey- not straight up black or white. The humanities does not stress stringent “right” and “wrong” but rather the ability to think critically and find trade-offs in different forms of arguments. </p>
<p>And some humanities/social science classes are exposed to mathematics. Econ is the archetype- it’s heavy on Calculus. Poli Sci and Sociology are heavy in statistics and game theory in some cases.</p>
<p>Btw, if we were to have the same debate as University of Chicago or Princeton students, it would be very different.</p>
<p>The humanities are not given the leeway they are given at Cal. It takes tons of effort and the grades are much more deflated there. </p>
<p>Sure, the students at Berkeley who are getting B’s in the humanities may be dumb and unmotivated. But after comparing the humanities students with 3.8 and 3.9 GPAs with hard science students, the disparity is radically shortened.</p>
<p>I agree although harder doesn’t necessarily mean forming a more intelligent product i.e. the student. From the many stories I’ve heard and Cal students I met, many in and out of Hass on the bachelors level tend to see them as a bit of a joke. Cripes, I’ve met more intelligent business majors coming out of CSUEB. </p>
<pre><code>Besides, life does not conform to textbooks and can’t be simply deduced to try and make it fit. An econ major could know every formula in the book and still be completely wrong in their analysis and conclusion. There are still issues of money, power, politics, and cooking the books that will utterly decimate mere textbook ‘theory’. That is why there are instructors instead of making students taking mere memory tests on wishful thinking under idealistic circumstances.
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<p>Princeton requires quite a bit of research and tends to support a stronger undergrad than Harvard. Stanford is a mix bag as well on the undergrad level which is fine as I think people deserve a chance to prove themselves.</p>
<p>Quote: jesus, what’s the world coming to these days when we have an entire department dedicated to the study of WOMEN…</p>
<p>Are you kidding me? Women are some of the most puzzling and complex creatures alive. Although I"m an engineering student, a part of me would love to take a class that would let me better understand how these complex highly evolved lifeforms operate so that I may use the knowledge gained to make my simplistic male mind favorable to them during the courting process. (LOL)</p>
<p>^I don’t think women’s studies is actually learning about how women’s minds work…</p>
<p>Also, it’s pretty clear that at Berkeley, science, math, and engineering classes are much much harder than the average social science or humanities class. Engineers take lower division classes in the humanities/social science fields all the time, but how many humanities / social science majors take engineering lower division classes? </p>
<p>In other schools, humanities may be harder than math classes, but at Cal, it’s pretty clear that for the most part, engineering classes are harsher. I would guess it’s because those who take engineering classes know that they’re going to have tougher grading curves and more work, so the average student in an engineering class is smarter and works harder</p>