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Oh, I don't know about that. Generally, what PhD students have is at least a desk, if not an entire office (although sometimes that office is shared).
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<p>What exactly do you mean by "generally"? "Average"? And thus "most"?</p>
<p>In my experience knowing and hearing about departamental space, it seems unlikely that the general PhD student at Berkeley has "at least a desk." But I'm not saying some grads don't have desks, I'm saying there's large numbers, probably the majority, who do not. For example, I know for a fact that every PhD student in the psychology department, even the first years, has a desk and many have offices which they share with another grad. Yet, not all grad students just down the hall in Education have a desk. Similarly, almost no grad students in the humanities departments housed in Dwinelle Hall have a desk. Sure, virtually all departments have graduate lounges with lockers, but a desk would be much better.</p>
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But that office tends to have plenty of food and coffee lying around.
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<p>While that may be true, those offices do not have the "atmosphere" that Eshleman library provides. Even if grad students prefer to stay in those offices and the adjacent labs late into the night, and many do, it would be much better if they knew they could go home at any hour and be safe while doing it. That's just not the case.</p>
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I have often times wondered why Berkeley can't offer similar arrangements to its undergrads. In fact, some undergrads do get that, but only if they agree to take on extra responsibilities. For example, the officers of the student chapter of AICHE (the American Institute of Chemical Engineers) have a cozy little office in Latimer, overlooking the Chemistry Computer Lab. I know many officers used it as a storage and study space. The office has a microwave and a coffee machine, it has a community computer. It's pretty nice. But of course, you could only get a key if you were an officer.
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<p>Other examples would include undergraduate researcher apprentices who have been determined to be trustworthy and thus allowed to enter labs and study/sleep/eat/live at any hour of the day.</p>
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And then there is the after-hours access to libraries that graduate students enjoy. For example, grad students in chemistry/ChemE can get into the Hildebrand Chemistry library anytime they want to. That's a nice thing because that library isn't exactly open all that often. For example, it's only open from 1-5 on the weekends. That's pretty weak.
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<p>You're right about this one, although I'm not sure it carries much weight. If they have offices and lounges, why would chem grads want to walk out on the cold courtyard at such an hour? No letting in other people, no food? Who would want that? Besides, virtually all chem articles are now online are they not? They could check it from their laptops. If you were talking about philosophy grad students, who have access to the phil library at any hour they want to be there, then I could see how after hours library usage is relevant, since phil has been slower to digitalize its articles than the hard sciences like chem.</p>
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Well, I don't know. Harvard undergrads get free football tickets too, but the fact is except for Harvard vs. Yale, game attendance is pretty sparse. I remember when Cal football was bad (i.e. in 2001, the team only won 1 game), attendance was pretty sparse. Football is a pretty dicey thing. Cal isn't USC or Michigan - there is no history of consistently good football recently. In some seasons Cal is good, in others, Cal is bad. So resting school spirit on the football team seems like a hit-or-miss affair to me.
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<p>I'm not debating the fact that Cal isn't really a football school. I'm drawing attention to the other fact that first year undergrads get free tickets whereas first year grads do not. I view that as an example of Berkeley being more welcoming to undergrads than it is to grads.</p>
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I can appreciate the desirability of some fresh/soph seminars. But the truth is, most PhD students don't do their actual "learning" in classes or even seminars.
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<p>That is mostly true. But just because "most" PhD students don't learn that much in seminars, does that mean that Berkeley should screw the ones who do want to be in seminars that are actually underenrolled? I say no. There are strong reasons for having a grad student in a fresh/soph seminar. They bring a lot of maturity and knowledge to the table which could both benefit the prof and the undergrads in the seminar. If an MCB student who knows basically nothing about the history of biology but yet is an outstanding research with an interest in the history of his field, why should he not be allowed to get credit for doing work and making meaningful contributions to the seminar?</p>
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Nor is most of their interaction with profs accomplished that way. Instead, as a PhD student who has reached the dissertation phase, you are generally expected to meet with your advisor periodically. THAT becomes your "real" seminar - basically a one-on-one meeting to hash out what you've been doing and what needs to be done. Frankly, you can't get a much better learning environment than a periodic one-on-one meeting with a prof.
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<p>But what about grad students who haven't yet "reached the dissertation phase"? I can assure you, many grad students who haven't been approved to continue on would like being able to sit through a relatively easy seminar that at least partly touches on their interests. It would both help them gain general knowledge on a specific topic and expand their working bibliography. That is particularly applicable to humanities grad students who attended lesser undergrad institutions where professors do not usually dictate the course of the field to the same extent that Berkeley, Harvard, and Yale professors do.</p>
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Furthermore, many of the best Haas profs teach only MBA courses. Hence, if you're not an MBA student, you will never see these profs.
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<p>Not true. I know a undergraduate research apprentice who does research with an MBA prof who only deals with MBA students in the classroom.</p>
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The same is true of the law classes at Boalt - few undergrads are able to obtain the necessary approvals to take actual Boalt law classes, and many (probably most) Boalt law professors teach only law classes. While law students do use Telebears, they effectively get exclusive access to Boalt classes via their specially designated Boalt ID numbers. I seem to recall one undergrad initially being able to sign up for Boalt classes through Telebears, but later found that he was dropped from all those courses when the system discovered that he wasn't a Boalt student.
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<p>That's interesting because I happen to know one undergrad who said he had an incredibly easy time getting into a Boalt class and staying there. He dropped the class when he realized that it would show up as "legal studies" on his trascript.</p>
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I don't think it's any more of a joke than the equivalent organizations at other schools. Of course, one might argue that they are ALL jokes, but that's a different issue entirely. Furthermore, I would argue that the Graduate Assembly is no less ineffective than is ASUC. Seriously, look at all of the times that ASUC got snubbed by the administration. So maybe they're ALL equally ineffective.
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<p>I do think all of them are ineffective, what I'm saying is that the Graduate Assembly is more ineffective than the ASUC. It may quite well represent an example of preferential treatment for undergrads. Big concrete building vs. one room cabin.</p>
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Yeah, but I would hardly translate that into a general truism regarding the time allotted to graduate students. Like I said, graduate students almost by definition have to have more time with profs simply because they have to be constantly checking in with their advisors. Hence, the advisors have to be making time for these students.
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<p>I did not "translate" anything into a "general truism." What I said was that many profs do not allow graduate students to talk to them during office hours. I then said it is yet another example of grads getting screwed by undergrads at Berkeley, although I do agree that they get screwed less than the undergrads.</p>