How can we make Berkeley better?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>Obviously, Berkeley is not perfect. No school is. Every school has its own flaws; otherwise everyone would want to copy the one "perfect" school.</p>

<p>As students, one of the criteria of our acceptance was that admissions officials thought we had the potential to leave Berkeley a better place than it was when we entered.</p>

<p>My questions to you are:
What do you see that is wrong with Berkeley?
How can we either eliminate the problem altogether, or at the very least improve it?</p>

<p>Discuss.</p>

2

<p>Too many class cancelled.
Solution: We should spend more for the Christmas >_< To make economic better and have more funding going to school.</p>

3

<p>Problem: GSIs that are difficult to understand. I wished I had a gibberish dictionary to decode what he was saying. </p>

<p>Solution: Mandatory verbal interviews for all prospective GSIs.</p>

4

<p>
[quote]
Problem: GSIs that are difficult to understand. I wished I had a gibberish dictionary to decode what he was saying.</p>

<p>Solution: Mandatory verbal interviews for all prospective GSIs.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I would say that a far worse problem are professors who are difficult to understand, either because English is not their first language, or are indifferent about running good lectures, or (sometimes) both. </p>

<p>Solution: Hire more lecturers, especially for the lower-level classes. Let's face it, you don't really need a genius researcher to teach you Math 1A/1B. There is no 'cutting-edge' material in classes like that: everything within the curriculum has been known for centuries. Why not get somebody who isn't a professor, heck, who may not even have a PhD, to teach those classes, as long as the person is a highly effective teacher? I remember sitting in those lectures and wishing instead that my high school math teacher was teaching the class. Sure, he didn't have a PhD, but at least he know how to convey math knowledge in a way that made it fun and interesting, and, frankly, that's a lot more than the some of the Math 1A/B profs could say. </p>

<p>Don't get me wrong. If there are some Berkeley math professors who also happen to be good teachers and who want to teach Math 1, then by all means let them do so. But if not, then why not take a grad student or a post-doc who happens to have high teaching ratings (as evidenced by previous GSI work) and have them teach the class? Or bring in some math faculty from the local colleges, i.e. Cal State East Bay or SF State on a visiting/adjunct basis? Or hire some math lecturers onto the faculty whose job is solely dedicated to good teaching and has no research responsibilities? After all, there are plenty of newly minted math PhDs in the country who can't find assistant professor positions, and I'm sure that some of them would rather take a job at a school like Berkeley, even if just for a teaching role, rather than leave academia entirely. Hence, you can surely hire some who have good teaching skills.</p>

<p>The same could be said for most other intro course sequences, i.e. Physics 7/8, Chem 1/3/4, Bio 1, EE 40, etc. For any of these courses, students don't really need a top researcher, but rather, a good teacher. </p>

<p>Lest anybody consider this to be an outrageous idea, I would point out that the CS department already does this for much of the intro 61 sequence. That sequence is usually taught by lecturers such as Brian Harvey, Dan Garcia, and Mike Clancy, who are, frankly, better teachers than some of the actual CS professors. If the CS department can do that, I don't see why the other departments can't do the same.</p>

5

<p>Problem: Too many impacted majors
Solution: Switch resources to those impacted majors and/or have those impacted departments learn how to manage their resources more efficiently. </p>

<p>I can understand that, on occasion, you may have too many students signing up for certain majors and hence may have to temporarily institute impaction, as I agree that you can't perfectly predict student demand for all majors. My objection is regarding when impaction becomes a matter of permanent policy. </p>

<p>Take the example of EECS. It has been impacted for many decades now. It is impacted this year. I can predict that next year, it will surely be impacted again. And the following year, and the following year, etc. etc. But why? Why not expand the program? After all, if you know that the number of students who will want to enter the program in the future will exceed current capacity, then why not increase that capacity? </p>

<p>Ridiculous, you say? After all, you might argue that EECS students don't just need classroom lecture space, but also computer/lab equipment and whatnot and Berkeley can't provide such an infrastructural upgrade. </p>

<p>My response to that is, take a look at MCB. MCB students also require extensive lab space. Yet the MCB department can produce a graduating class of more than double that of the EECS department, yet the MCB department does not need to resort to impaction as a tactic to manage their undergrad program. Anybody who wants to major in MCB is free to join, but the same clearly cannot be said for EECS. Hence, that begs the question of what the administrators in the MCB department know that the EECS administrators do not know. Maybe they need to have a meeting so that the MCB department can teach the EECS department better ways to manage an undergraduate program.</p>

<p>Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In...?
Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In...?</p>

6

<p>I'm totally with you there sakky. For good reason, all of the impacted majors are not only the ones that a lot of people want to go for, but they are some of the more desired and are more well-known at Berkeley. From Psychology to Public Health, if we were to redistribute resources so that these majors wouldn't be as impacted, students pursuing these majors would not feel an even bigger burden when it comes to applying for majors. I fall under this category as I'm a 2nd year waiting to hear from Haas (technically not impacted, but still not a major guaranteed to get in) and having to apply for the Media Studies major this spring and not being able to pursue Psychology without the fear of being behind a year because of it being impacted. While I personally find this to be an important issue, there are unfortunately a lot of "administration" issues at Berkeley still.</p>

7

<p>Cut the undergad student population by at least half its current size.</p>

8

<p>Too many classes canceled for sure, and bigger class sizes for Haas classes. I'm not in Haas, so its kind of hard for me to get into Haas classes. This fall, I decided to Phase I UGBA 119 (strategic planning) instead of UGBA 120(intermediate accounting) because 119 sounded more interesting, so I added 120A phase II. Well, I got into 119, but it was canceled before the semester began. I ended up number 1 on the waitlist for 120A, but Haas closes off admissions into their classes at a certain week in the semester before the add/drop deadline, so even if someone else dropped the class, I wouldn't have gotten in beyond that week. However, if I added that 120A phase I, I wouldve gotten in, but I wanted to take 119 instead and it got canceled.</p>

<p>Similarly, I wanted to take Econ 183 this upcoming semester (an international economics seminar with barry eichengreen). However, I learned my lesson from the fall telebears and added UGBA 120A phase I instead. I'm glad I did, because Econ 183 got canceled. However, even adding 120A phase I this semester puts me at #32 on the waitlist right now, where as adding it phase II last semester put me at #1 on the waitlist.</p>

<p>Its very disheartening to have this happen 2 semesters in the row.</p>

9

<p>@Sakky, MCB and other biology majors can be big because relatively very few bio UDs require lab and those that do require lab tend to be very small. For most biology UDs, all you need is a huge auditorium and maybe a few discussion sections; you can have astoundingly high student to professor rationes with bio major classes like this.</p>

10

<p><em>cough</em>add yawn to the student body<em>cough</em></p>

11

<p>
[quote]
@Sakky, MCB and other biology majors can be big because relatively very few bio UDs require lab and those that do require lab tend to be very small. For most biology UDs, all you need is a huge auditorium and maybe a few discussion sections; you can have astoundingly high student to professor rationes with bio major classes like this

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</p>

<p>Then explain to me why economics is impacted, and has been for years. You say that biology doesn't require a lot of labs, yet economics requires no labs. You also say that biology just needs a huge auditorium and some discussion sections, and I would argue that the same is true for economics.</p>

<p>Yet, at the end of the day, econ is impacted but biology is not. Despite the fact that biology graduates far more students than does econ, biology has never had to resort to impaction. </p>

<p>If biology can do that, why can't econ? Why can't Media Studies (formerly known as mass comm)? Why can't psychology? After all, there are only 2 total upper-division psychology course that even have labs - and only 1 of those courses is actually required for the major (the data methods course) - yet psychology is nevertheless impacted. Why? </p>

<p>Heck, let's go back to my original example: EECS. Consider this shocking statistic: every single EECS course in the Fall 2008 semester that was required for the major had available seats. Every single one. Now, granted, there were a number of individual discussion and lab sections for those required courses, and a few elective lectures/seminars, that were filled. But the actual lectures for required courses all had available seats. </p>

<p>UCB</a> Online Schedule of Classes: Search Results</p>

<p>UCB</a> Online Schedule of Classes: Search Results</p>

<p>Think about what that means. If all of the required courses had available seats, then that means that the major could have brought in more students. True, they still probably couldn't have taken in everybody who wanted to switch in, but they certainly could have taken more than they did. </p>

<p>In other words, classroom capacity is not the actual problem. Nor are labs the problem, for every required course had some labs that were open. Granted, maybe you couldn't get the specific lab slot that you really wanted, but you could get some slot. </p>

<p>So if capacity is not the real issue, then obviously the real issue is that the EECS major simply doesn't want to bring in more students, even though they could. </p>

<p>But that's a problem, for I don't think that majors such as EECS or economics should be able to "decide" how many students they are willing to take. Like I said, MCB takes all comers, with no restrictions. Why can't the other majors do that?</p>

12

<p>Why wouldn't you all accept it that Cal is overpopulated? </p>

<p>Harvard has like 6k undergrad students. Same with Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT, etc... while Cal has like 24 thousand students and is increasing every year. </p>

<p>There are just toooooo many, many students using the same amount of resources at Cal that's why Cal has an appalling faculty-to-student ratio and a relatively poorer teaching quality (compared to its peers).</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
There are just toooooo many, many students using the same amount of resources at Cal that's why Cal has an appalling faculty-to-student ratio and a relatively poorer teaching quality (compared to its peers)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, in fairness, the teaching quality at a small school can also be rather mediocre. My brother went to Caltech - a tiny school that is smaller than even many of the LAC's - and found the teaching quality to be abysmal. Nor is he a outlier: Princeton Review every year has consistently found the teaching quality to be poor. </p>

<p>Hence, I suspect that even if Berkeley were to (magically) shrink, you would still have many courses taught by profs who aren't and who don't care to be good teachers. Berkeley is a research university first and foremost, and so faculty are hired and tenured primarily on their research output, with teaching quality being but a distant second (if that). </p>

<p>
[quote]
Harvard has like 6k undergrad students. Same with Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT, etc

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, actually, Yale and Princeton have about 5k, and MIT has 4k. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I agree with - and in fact have stated several times myself - that Berkeley is overpopulated. As I have said on other threads, Berkeley could ameliorate this problem by simply not admitting the lower tail of its student body, especially those students who just end up flunking out anyway. Why admit students who will just end up being thrown out? </p>

<p>{One might ask how would you know that somebody is going to flunk out, and the answer is to use a retrospective statistical data mining analysis. Simply take the admissions records of all of the students from past years and note which of them later graduated and who flunked out, extract those student features that are statistically significant in determining the likelihood of somebody flunking out, and then simply admit fewer of those students with those features in the future. }</p>

14

<p>I agree, sakky, I've seen lots of people who just don't seem they'll make it in Cal's math/science/engineering courses. </p>

<p>Cal does have some great teachers who're also great researchers, but it's definitely true that it's primarily a research school. I'm happy to be an undergraduate there, because I like the exposure to the amazing math faculty and grad students. I think our courses get stronger, the more advanced you get. But our lower division classes are definitely icky in many areas. </p>

<p>I guess, people coming to Cal should be REALLY REALLY sure they want to pursue a given tough major if they try (else, try other majors and be careful about the competition). THese few can find it rewarding, but as sakky has posted many times, there is the other group who may flunk out...I always thought he's a little overcautious and overalarmed, but that's pure opinion, and doesn't take away from the spirit of his point.</p>

15

<p>I do agree we should cut the number of students accepted to CERTAIN majors. MCB probably is overpopulated to an extreme =] and people have lots of trouble getting into classes they want. </p>

<p>I've personally had no trouble EVER getting into my class choices, so I think it depends on the given area I think.</p>

16

<p>MCB also is the de facto premed slaughtering grounds. Premeds stupidly jump onto the premed bandwagon and infiltrate the major. I have read somewhere that 50% of MCB is premed alone.</p>

<p>For one, MCB is an L&S major, so anyone in L&S can declare so long as their funding last. Also remember, departments have unequal funding. This is where the differences between capped majors and uncapped majors come in to play. MCB is a well-endowed department, they have a lot more money than other science (e.g. physics, IB,...) and social science (econ, sociology,...) departments.</p>

<p>Here is another example, most humanities departments are cutting courses and laying off GSIs for next semester because of the budget, but Classics is maintaining all their GSIs and all their class offerings because Classics is one of the richest departments on campus. Lots of rich people appreciate the Classics and give Classics departments lots of money, saving them from the pains of budget cuts. For my Latin major, I will never have to phase I a course in fear that the class will fill.</p>

<p>^mathboy, not everyone is math/science/econ/bus/etc.</p>

17

<p>"^mathboy, not everyone is math/science/econ/bus/etc."</p>

<p>Sure, I apologize if I was constantly harping on those -- I think I know more about some of those than others anyway. Plus, the main guys whom I myself know get slaughtered are, as you say, the premeds in MCB. I feel kind of bad for them, but some of them do go in rather naively.</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
I do agree we should cut the number of students accepted to CERTAIN majors. MCB probably is overpopulated to an extreme =] and people have lots of trouble getting into classes they want.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, let me put it to you this way. According to the Fall Schedule, almost all MCB courses had available seats. Only the 112L microbio course and the 90 seminar series were filled.</p>

<p>Now, to be fair, many discussion and lab sections were completely filled. But almost every lecture still had available space. </p>

<p>UCB</a> Online Schedule of Classes: Search Results</p>

<p>But, more importantly, while maybe you won't get all the classes or sections you want when you want them, at least you can still get into the major. That's a far cry from, say, Econ, where some students can't even get into the major and hence are forced to major in something they don't really want.</p>

19

<p>
[quote]
Also remember, departments have unequal funding. This is where the differences between capped majors and uncapped majors come in to play. MCB is a well-endowed department, they have a lot more money than other science (e.g. physics, IB,...) and social science (econ, sociology,...) departments.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Frankly, I'm not sure that that's really true. In particular, it's very hard for me to see that the poli-sci department as well-endowed, yet poli-sci is the 2nd most popular major on campus. Poli-sci is also not impacted. </p>

<p>Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In...?</p>

<p>In other words, poli-sci can take more students than econ does, and does not have to resort to impaction. Does that mean that poli-sci really has more money than econ does? That's very hard for me to see. </p>

<p>The strongest counterexample is almost certainly Haas bus-ad. Let's face it. Haas is the wealthiest part of Berkeley, as business schools are generally the richest part of any university. Haas pays higher faculty salaries than do the other schools at Berkeley, and Haas has the best facilities. Hence, Haas could certainly afford to expand enrollment. But they don't. Haas is (heavily) impacted.</p>

<p>Hence, it really comes down to not a lack of money, but rather a willingness to take students. Some majors like MCB and poli-sci have decided that they will take all students. But some majors, even if they have money (such as bus-ad and almost certainly econ) have decided that they will not take all students.</p>

<p>But I don't think that departments should be allowed to decide that. Berkeley should be promoting flexibility for all of its students, as one of Berkeley's greatest features is the breadth of its offerings. But that advantage is attenuated when certain departments close off their major to some students. Ultimately that means that some students are forced to choose a major that they don't really want. What's the advantage of going to a school with lots of majors if you can't get into the major that you want?</p>

20

<p>OK you got me there, I'm looping MCB students into the premed category, i.e. standard bio and chem. I've heard sob stories about Chem 3B, I think...</p>

<p>Not sure about <em>MCB MCB</em>!</p>