<p>I’m glad that I took 7B over the summer, I hate when classes have such low averages. I also wish I wasn’t taking 7C this semester for similar reasons (not 50% but 60ish).</p>
<p>I wish I knew more about why people are striking, I honestly didn’t know what it was for. I’m pretty sure my department is on an upturn getting additional money/faculty, and I don’t know what the previous dues were so I don’t know if they changed substantially.</p>
<p>A lot of my out of state friends protested, so I’m guessing that they saw a considerable increase, but I’m quite content with how things are going for engineering.</p>
<h2>I don’t object to classes having low averages. I object to teachers who don’t teach you anything, never do any example problems, and write exams with questions on subjects that they stated would not be tested. I also object to MasteringPhysics (which isn’t going anywhere), and to head GSIs whose willingness to make MasteringPhysics more user-friendly by including the book values of relevant constants (which often differ from the actual values by margins verging on the extreme) because they simply can’t be arsed.</h2>
<p>My understanding is that they’re (ostensibly) protesting the increased fees for students and reduced pensions, wages, etc. for certain groups of employees (many of which are unionized), and some layoffs etc. from the start of last year.</p>
<p>I’ll admit that I’d be somewhat more supportive of the protests themselves if we weren’t already getting one of the best deals in the world for education. This is very under-acknowledged inside of California, but an undergraduate diploma from Berkeley is extremely well-respected virtually anywhere else. I have a strong suspicion that a lot of the lack of general enthusiasm for these protests has to do with the large number of students here who have some kind of significant international ties and thus a much better perspective on what they’re getting for their money.</p>
<p>I’m also not exceptionally sympathetic towards the grad students, because they - by my understanding - get the majority of their fees waived if they teach. If the University is violating fair labor policies, that’s a different matter, but my understanding is that at least some of their protests are complete crap.</p>
<p>Physics 7B with Ramesh sucks. :|</p>
<h2>Only two of the problems on that exam were in the spirit of the homework/lecture while two were tolerable. Hard exams are fine, provided we’ve seen material like that in the past. So unsatisfied with Physics right now, and it used to be my favorite subject.</h2>
<p>My friend told me the protests are mostly due to fee hikes, like all of you said, and the potential elimination of the Ethnic Studies department. They aren’t completely eradicating the department, but they want to make Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies a single major. Why people are making such a big deal about that, I have no idea.</p>
<p>I’m just ****ed about the first question, honestly. I wasn’t in Ramesh’s class for the first two lectures (and now regret switching out of Zettl rather than simply finding other physics and E7 sections with better GSIs), but I’ve yet to hear someone respond to my “This wasn’t covered in lecture” with anything other than “Indeed.”</p>
<h2>The rest of the questions were somewhat more reasonable, though the one about resistances could have been MUCH more effectively written. I derived the first one longhand under the assumption that just using the pre-known subs for resistance wasn’t going to get you any points, had no idea of where to start with the second one, and am told that just using what we know about the resistances and the relationship to conductance would have gotten most of the points.</h2>
<p>I hadn’t heard the ethnic studies argument and knew nothing about this.</p>
<p>That said, I’ve also yet to hear a decent description of what productive ends an ethnic studies major - and only an ethnic studies major - can reasonably be put to. Everyone I’ve talked to - admittedly engineers, chemists, and not a whole lot else - considers almost anything with the word “Studies” in it to be a joke major (and even a joke field, until you’ve gotten a Ph.D.), so my access to real descriptions is pretty limited, but still…</p>
<p>I would be more mad about Ramesh’s midterm had I actually studied more; I got the grade I deserved because I really didn’t care for Thermodynamics juggling Math 54 and CS61B. I hope E&M will be a better experience.</p>
<hr>
<p>I’m not completely sure how much your job prospects have increased by earning a degree in Ethnic Studies… but I guess a degree from Berkeley is better than no degree. I think it’s ridiculous that it’s one of the major “problems” for protesters though; most people double major in both just because there are already so many overlaps in class selection.</p>
<p>My roommate went to the protest and sit-in. As much as I love her and all for being an awesome person…I don’t think she even understands what she’s really protesting about. 
I’m not sure, but sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of people are protesting just so they can wear the label of being an activist.</p>
<p>It’s awfully rude to assume that about someone, since there are many good reasons to be upset over the state’s short-sighted disinvestment in education. Some of these reasons are selfishly motivated and others come out of concern for the state’s economic health. For example, the value of your diploma is forever linked with Berkeley’s reputation. With the cuts to education, I worry that Berkeley, once the crown jewel of public education, will become just another Purdue. The average Berkeley professor already makes about 15% less than his or her peers at private institutions ([Berkeley</a> Amasses $1.1-Billion ‘War Chest’ to Prevent Professor Poaching - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Berkeley-Amasses-11-Billion/40641/]Berkeley”>http://chronicle.com/article/Berkeley-Amasses-11-Billion/40641/)). If the state fails to adequate fund Berkeley and the UC system in general, the quality of both education and research will decline.</p>
<p>In addition to that, the cost to attend a UC has increased more than 5-fold since 1990, vastly outpacing inflation. At the same time the number and availability of classes have been reduced. Student athletics have been cut. Professors have been forced to take mandatory furloughs.</p>
<p>The cuts also harms the wider public. Education is an investment which pays over time. It enables meritocracy so that people can rise as far up as their ability and perseverance will take them. It creates more productive workers so that talented people don’t end up chronically underemployed delivering pizzas or flipping burgers.</p>
<p>I can understand if people don’t want to protest because they think the protest chants sound arrogant and entitled (“Whose university? Our university!”), or because they are lukewarm on activism. I myself prefer to voice my opinion in a venue where my thoughts aren’t reduced to mere chants. I also don’t like it when protests block traffic or disrupt class. Angering people is the worst way to go about persuading them.</p>
<p>But I cannot stand it when people act like the protesters are just a bunch of dewy-eyed humanities majors making a scene over nothing. They are protesting the obvious erosion of quality and availability of education, which effects us all as Berkeley students and California residents.</p>
<p>I have no problem with peoples’ objections to the changes that have been made, and fully support their desire to have these changes reversed.</p>
<p>What I do have a problem with is the fact that they are attempting to institute this reversal by flexing muscles they do not have and ignoring those they do. The protests themselves are utterly pointless with regards to the ends these people are trying to achieve, and are taking place because the people behind them have either deluded themselves into believing that these protests can, in fact, accomplish something, or decided that engaging in those activities that actually could accomplish these goals is more work than they’re willing to put in. Either way, they are letting down both themselves and everyone who supports them, and if the latter case are also deliberately and hypocritically neglecting the very goals they claim to put forward.</p>
<p>No, I think assembling to voice discontent with the cuts is important. There has been a lot of press coverage of the protests, which helps draw attention to the issue from members of the general public who normally wouldn’t think about it.</p>
<p>@cavilier</p>
<p>Yes, there have been cuts and raises in tuition, but what are you expecting and how will protesting help the economic situation? In order for Cal to lower tuition, it has to make cuts, which will simply spawn more protests. If you’re protesting for CA to give UC’s more money, then where are they going to get more money? They’re going to have to increase taxes or cut other state programs. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that money can’t be created out of nowhere unless you’re a very special instuition/person. </p>
<p>Perhaps you’re protesting the Regent’s investment of money into risky/conflict-of-interest areas. Then, you may have a point. But I believe most protesters aren’t protesting this (most don’t even know of this) and rather are asking for lower costs, more funding, etc.</p>
<p>Voicing discontent sure helped us last year.
A protest doesn’t work unless you keep it going. When the situation with Vons came up a few years ago, workers kept standing outside the stores with their picket lines. They didn’t just do it one day and were like “Oop we made our say. Back to work.”
This one day ******** is completely useless.</p>
<p>JBeak, don’t patronize us. We’re not ■■■■■■■■ children. No one believes that education can be provided to everyone at no cost to anyone. Obviously the money must from somewhere. Maybe California should increase the vehicle licensing fee to its former level.</p>
<p>Why should the vehicle licensing fee fund education? And specifically, why higher education?</p>
<p>If you think about where money is needed the most, it’s K-12. That’s where the biggest achievement gap is. All of us here are privileged already. </p>
<p>And if you try to increase that fee, all the people who own cars will be like, that’s discrimination against poor car owners… =___= The state is going insolvent, to want more money from the state at this point is improbable. </p>
<p>Cavilier, if you don’t want people to “patronize” you, maybe you should think about solutions rather than short term generalization and improbable events. </p>
<p>If we were protesting for one cause and had a proposed solution, then cool. But these protests were obviously organized by the Unions on campus and had very little to do with students. The unions were complaining about furloughs and pensions etc etc, which comes straight out of tuition.</p>
<p>People don’t understand the issues and they’re just flocking like sheep.</p>
<p>Thank you, StarryNights, for reiterating what is universally known: people don’t like higher taxes. The argument I made in post #47 states precisely why I think public universities warrant an increase in taxes.</p>
<p>Also, it might surprise you to learn that unlike K-12 teachers, professors don’t have unions. October 7th was a nationwide “day of action.” Protests were held at many public universities around the country that had similar budget cuts, so no, the protests were no organized by unions on campus.</p>
<p>You say you guys don’t want free education, but protesters were chanting “No cuts, No fees.” People were holding up “Education should be free” signs.</p>
<p>I never said the protesters are ■■■■■■■■ children, cavileir. But even you, as a supporter of the protest, surely must admit that a majority of your fellow protesters could not list out every single demand the protest is asking for if asked.</p>
<p>In my original post I already said I think the protest chants sound arrogant and entitled. “Education should be free,” roughly translates to, “The cost of education should be entirely paid for by taxpayers, not by students.” Again, no one believes education can be provided at no cost to anyone. </p>
<p>This is different from my argument that public education has so many positive externalities that allowing our universities to deteriorate from lack of funding harms is short-sighted and harms out future economy.</p>
<p>I don’t know if protesters could list a any demands, JBeak; I didn’t ask them. It wouldn’t be fair to demean people based on pure speculation.</p>