<p>First off, why are you bringing up rankings? You know as well as I know that rankings have to do with the quality of the graduate programs and the research of the department. I do not dispute that the Berkeley humanities graduate programs (all of them) are highly rigorous - far far more rigorous than the undergraduate programs. But just because you have a highly ranked graduate department does not mean that your undergraduate program is rigorous. I think we talked about this before.</p>
<p>And second of all, you ask me for stats, but why aren't you asking them of yourself. After all, you are the one asserting that humanities are just as hard as the sciences, yet when I disagree, why is it that you are the one who gets to demand to see the stats? If you think it's fair for me to have to find stats to back up my assertions, then it is also fair for me to ask you for stats to back up your assertions. What's fair is fair. </p>
<p>Third, since you ask for data, how about this:</p>
<p>"[UCBerkeley Professor Jasper] Rine described the shock he felt during his three years on the Committee on Teaching from roughly 1998 to 2000 when he reviewed teaching records for large undergraduate classes, with more than 100 students, in which no one got less than an A-, year after year. At the time, Rine asked Associate Registrar Walter Wong to assemble some data looking at upper division and lower division grading in the physical sciences, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and engineering, so that he could distinguish trends from anecdotal exceptions. The results were clear. "The physical sciences and engineering had rigorous grading standards roughly in line with the recommendations from 1976," stated Rine, "while the humanities and social sciences in many classes had all but given up on grades below a B, and in many courses below an A-..." "</p>
<p>So maybe you ought to contact Professor Rine and tell him that he's wrong and that there is no difference in the grading schemes between Berkeley humanities and Berkeley technical classes. </p>
<p>Finally, let me give you another example of tough engineering grading. In chemical engineering thermodynamics (ChemE141), a midterm consisted of 3 questions. The last one was on material in a chapter that the prof said was not going to be on the exam, but was there anyway. The other questions were about the previous 12-15 chapters. A lot of people in the class didn't read that last chapter, and consequently couldn't answer that last question. However a lot of people did read that last chapter, and did answer the question correctly. So when the grades came out, basically, everybody who didn't read that last chapter ended up with scores that were curved to at best a 'D', and usually an 'F' After all, that last question was worth 33 points out of a 100, and if you hadn't read that last chapter, the best you could ever get is a 67. And of course the first 2 questions were not exactly a walk in the park, and nobody got full points on the first 2 questions. Hence, you don't read 1 chapter (in fact, a chapter that a lot of people didn't think they didn't have to read), and you effectively fail the exam. I think that is entirely commensurate with what happened to you.</p>
<p>What I really want to know is whether people in your classes can do the work and still fail. You say you got a 'C'. Well, what I can tell you is that a LOT of engineering/science students would love to trade your 'C' for what they're getting. In engineering and science, you can do all the work and still get an 'F'. I doubt that that's the case for you.</p>