<p>It’s totally true that Berkeley has a ****-ton of Asians. They outnumber White students!
[UC</a> Berkeley Fall Enrollment Data](<a href=“http://opa.berkeley.edu/institutionaldata/campusenroll.htm]UC”>UC Berkeley Fall Enrollment Data for New Undergraduates | Office of Planning and Analysis)</p>
<p>And the school also attracts a greater number(though not percentage) of internationals than UVa does if the 5% v. 5.8% stat is true. Berkeley is much bigger.</p>
<p>As far as attitudes of TAs, maybe it depends upon the subject area. When I attended UVa many years ago, I had great TAs who did care. Most were in social sciences and english. Most of these TAs were training to become professors, and wanted to prove their teaching ability to get hired by colleges. In other fields, the TAs may be intending to go into research and not teaching, and therefore may have much less interest in it.</p>
<p>I want to be a professor and I’m getting a PhD in a social science. My undergrads will not help me publish an article, my professors will. Honest, but true.</p>
<p>Wahoomb, I had GSIs lead discussion and lab sections - never a lecture. Lit might be different…</p>
<p>You’re saying GSIs did not teach your discussion or lab sections?</p>
<p>I graduated over 10 years ago. Kids I know and have talked to have had the same experiences I did…granted maybe Lit is different…they aren’t in my social circle.</p>
<p>Berkeley has just started expanding OOS and international enrollment this year.</p>
<p>I don’t know what GSIs are. I majored in History and French and took courses in the social sciences and humanities and I purposely took small classes with professors and I was able to every single semester–in fact I took History of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (it’s still offered I’m sure) with only one other student and Globalization & Latin America with four students. I told you about my literature friends at Berkeley because discussing literature IMO is more conducive to small seminars (10-15 people max) rather than a 200-person lecture hall. I’m sure many people at UVA have discussion sections and TAs, I personally only took one such class–micro-economics in a 150 lecture hall with a T.A., and it was awful…but that was my personal experience.</p>
<p>GSIs are Graduate Student Instructors…Berkeley speak for TAs.</p>
<p>Some of the more popular literature courses are lecture style seminars with discussion sections. Foreign language courses and upper division humanities are 15-20.</p>
<p>I took a demography class for an elective…very interesting and taught by a Prof with 12 students (half grad students). That was my personal experience.</p>