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Would love to if this was logistically possible. We do force everyone to go to high school (or try, anyway). If we could afford to send everyone to college, or to rehabilitate every convict, I would say go ahead and try (and failure is still okay, but if we had unlimited resources, converting one idiot to a useful member of society is worth it, though entirely unnecessary if we had the resources in the first place, I'll admit). Fact is we can't. Doesn't make it a bad philosophy to follow.
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<p>Well then, at least we're clear about what we're talking about, in that you don't believe that Berkeley should be selective. In other words, in a perfect world, Berkeley should throw its doors open to anybody who wants to come for undergrad, no matter how motivated or how talented they are. Well, at least you're consistent. </p>
<p>Besides, think of it this way. California does have the money to send far far more people to Berkeley, or at least, it did. Why not just shut down all of the other UC's, all of the CalStates, and all of the community colleges, and just redirect all of that money to Berkeley. For example, instead of building UCMerced, the state should have just made Berkeley bigger. Instead of building all of the other state universities, the state should have just made Berkeley bigger and bigger. Heck, you wouldn't have even needed to kept building in the same area. Lots of schools have multiple campuses. For example, CalState East Bay could have just become "UCBerkeley, Hayward campus". San Franciso State could have become "UCBerkeley, San Francisco campus", and so forth. In this way, Berkeley could be educating a LOT more undergrads than it does now. </p>
<p>But the state decided not to do this. Instead, the state decided to create and fund 3 separate public school systems (the CC's, CSU's, and the UC's), with numerous campuses at each. That's because the state decided that it wanted to maintain gradations of selectivity and prestige. Berkeley was maintained as the flagship and the most selective and prestigious of the entire system, and those who were not as good could go to other schools. Students at Cal State East Bay are not allowed to call themselves Berkeley students, and are not allowed to freely take advantage of Berkeley classes and Berkeley academic resources, because those resources are reserved for Berkeley students. But from what I gather from what you're saying, this is wrong, and the state should have just had one super-huge school. </p>
<p>I think it's fairly clear that if the state had created that super-huge school, the quality of that school would be rather mediocre. It would be an averaging of the quality of all of the public schools in the state. </p>
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Again, this isn't as clear-cut as you imply. Now it depends on just HOW dumb and lazy my 5 friends are, but if they aren't complete idiots, they often help me keep on top of my own game. When I'm in a class with one of my roommates, we help each other on homework. In EECS, I usually have a better grasp of what's going on than they do. So basically, I get to help my roommate try to understand some concept the professor went through in class by posing it in another matter or explaining it in a different way. That helps me, and it helps my friend.
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<p>Come on, now, you're just quibbling. When I say dumb and lazy, I mean dumb and lazy. You talk about how it helps you to explain concepts to some of your less capable friends, but that is predicated on the assumption that that friend actually *wants * to understand those concepts. The sad truth is that some students at Berkeley are sadly not interested in learning the material. Instead, they're far more interested in playing video games, or drinking/smoking weed, or going to San Francisco every day, or just lounging around and watching TV, and basically doing nothing. I've known plenty of people like that. Honestly, how do people like this help your education? </p>
<p>Then, like I said, there are those friends who encourage you to take up bad habits. Again, I give you the example of that guy I know who got ruined by falling in love with an extremely lazy and irresponsible woman, which made him become extremely lazy himself. There are students at Berkeley who have fun but destructive habits, and they tempt you to adopt the same destructive habits. For example, I know people who have basically become marijuana addicts while at Berkeley, and have accumulated a drug conviction record that basically disqualifies them from ever a good job in their life. They never smoked out before Berkeley. They got into the drug lifestyle because they saw other students at Berkeley who were into that lifestyle. It's the same reason why children of smokers are far more likely to themselves take up smoking than are children of non-smokers. This is about people setting bad examples for impressionable people to follow. This is why parents try to steer their children away from known troublemakers because they fear that their children will be tempted by example to become troublemakers themselves. </p>
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I agree completely. You think it's significant, I think it's negligible. If you become good friends with the guy down the hall, inevitably you'll be hanging out in each other's rooms a lot. If you want to talk to him, it takes an extra 10 seconds of walking to do so. I see that as a non-issue.
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<p>The key phrase in that above statement is * if you become good friends *. The question is, how do you do it? To do that, you first have to have an opportunity to talk to each other to decide whether you can be good friends. For example, I could say that if a beautiful blonde sitting at the end of the bar were to really know me, then she would be dazzled by my wit and intellect, and maybe she could become my future wife. The problem is, how would she really get to know me in the first place? In other words, how do I "pick her up"? </p>
<p>The same thing happens with social relationships. Somebody could be your potential best friend for life, but you first have to break the ice. And let's face it - a lot of Berkeley students are shy and lack confidence in their speaking skills, and they don't have the personality to just walk up to somebody and start gladhanding them. Being a roommate forces you to know people by simple virtue of sharing the same room. That's the ice-breaker right there. If the guy lives down the hall, you have to come up with your own ice-breaker, and let's face it, a lot of Berkeley students don't have the wherewithal to do that, just like most guys don't have the guts to approach a gorgeous woman in a bar and try to pick her up. </p>
<p>To use a simple chemistry analogy, the lower the activation energy, the more that a particular chemical reaction will proceed in the forward direction. </p>
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If you want to talk to him, it takes an extra 10 seconds of walking to do so. I see that as a non-issue. I'm not going to lose a friend because he lives across the street from me rather than in my house
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<p>There it is again - the question of 'if'. How do you know if you want to talk to him? You only know that if you know him, which comes back to the question of icebreakers and activation energy. Your analogy of your friend moving across the street is also chronologically inaccurate, because you are assuming that the guy is ALREADY your friend. What if he's not? What if he's a stranger across the street?</p>
<p>I'll tell you this. Where I live (an apartment building), I barely know any of my neighbors. The people who live upstairs, I've only met once, and then, only casually. The people who live in the buildings around me, I haven't the slightest clue who they are. Sure, some of them might actually turn out to be the greatest friends in the world, but how would I know that? Am I really going to pound doors of all the buildings around me just to meet the people inside? I think people would think that I was behaving extremely forwardly, so much so, that some of them might call the cops, or even threaten me with physical harm. I know that back home, where my parents live, my parents know next to nothing about some of their neighbors, not even their names. Those neighbors might be the greatest people in the world who would be our friends forever. But how would we know that? The activation cost is just too high. </p>
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Are you implying that grades are the same as education?
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<p>No, I am implying that for some people, grades are what are important.
Go ask the premeds and the prelaws just how important grades are to them. I think you have to agree that your story about having your grade lowered because you got paired with a fool only serves to deter those people who want to go to med or law school from choosing Berkeley. </p>
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Now, I completely disagree that a person's understanding would be reduced as a result. The person that gets stuck with the work had better understand the work, and if s/he doesn't, had better learn it really quickly. Pressure forces people to do excellent work. It may suck, and isn't the way things should happen, but it doesn't hurt your understanding of the material. And don't bother with another anecdote, I've got my own on this and they mean nothing.
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<p>I am simply answering your anecdotes with mine. But I would leave it up to the readers. All things equal, would they prefer to be paired up with smarter and harder-working people, or with dumber/lazier people? I think very few people would prefer the latter, and those that are are often times themselves rather lazy.</p>