<p>[Courtesy edit of introductory comment - Mod JEM]</p>
<p>LOL....So much for rankings......</p>
<p>Yeah, Stanford, Cal, Yale and Duke really suck!!</p>
<p>Are you sure this is published at sfgate and not The Onion?</p>
<p>This isn't high school, many (if not most) of those seniors haven't taken a US History class in 4 years. Unless your major is specific to that subject, I doubt students will know the test's material.</p>
<p>While there are legitimate criticisms about Berkeley, I don't believe this is one of them. Like Smallz3141 said, a lot of Berkeley students simply haven't taken a history/politics class in 4 years, so naturally you're not going to have learned much about those subjects while in college. This is especially true of highly rigorous majors such as engineering which give you very little freedom to take classes in those subjects due to the sheer number of engineering requirements you are forced to deal with, and the difficulty of those requirements which hence tends to rob you of all of your time. {I would support the idea of schools reducing the number and difficulty of engineering requirements.} Honestly, when you are forced to spend all your time learning the minutiae of laminar fluid mechanics or writing distributed computer algorithms, when do you have the time to learn about when Jamestown was founded? </p>
<p>The other major issue is that a lot of students at the top schools are foreigners. They come to the US to go to college, whereupon many of them intend to go back home. What do these people care about American history, when they have no intention of staying?</p>
<p>wow owdi have you actually read through the entire article?</p>
<p>Nice.. at least CAL has good company with Yale, JHU, Brown, Duke, Cornell and Stanfurd. If we are going down, might as well go down with some of the best!
Hey Owdi! What do you think of our Cal Bears now??</p>
<p>This article is full of holes. It criticizes elite colleges for having seniors that earn failing grades on their tests, yet seniors attending the college they ranked FIRST scored a 62. That really makes one question the validity of their test in the first place.</p>
<p>For example:
[quote]
A majority of students also could not identify the Baath party as the main source of Saddam Hussein's political support in Iraq.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not sure how many college classes would actually teach this. I would guess...very few in the obscure fields, if at all. It's really not the university's job to recite the daily newspaper to students. It's up to the individual to keep up with current events, if he chooses. Most students are majoring in fields that really have nothing to do with this anyway.</p>
<p>Besides that, the entire ranking is flawed. If you have a student body that is already pretty knowledgeable then of course there is going to be less improvement. How is it that Stanford students scored higher but the university is still ranked lower?</p>
<p>How about how the sample was gathered? The kids who happened to be at IHouse or happened to be eating at Crossroads (either may very well have not taken this thing seriously) filled it out at Berkeley. And at the other schools? Who knows. I would put lots of money on this survey having significant flaws.</p>
<p>But clearly this indicates that Cal sucks as a university, or at least for the undergraduates, right? :)</p>
<p>Haha, yeah. If they did this study for graduate schools Berkeley would be #1 for sure. The gap between graduate and undergrad is just too large!!!</p>
<p>
[quote]
If they did this study for graduate schools Berkeley would be #1 for sure.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Considering that probably most of Berkeley's feeder universities did poorly on this "test," I don't think your prediction is right. At least not for first year graduate students and especially those in the sciences and engineering.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm not sure how many college classes would actually teach this. I would guess...very few in the obscure fields, if at all. It's really not the university's job to recite the daily newspaper to students. It's up to the individual to keep up with current events, if he chooses. Most students are majoring in fields that really have nothing to do with this anyway.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So you're DEFENDING this crisis?</p>
<p>You think it's acceptable for future leaders in various fields to know less about important world issues than did their predecessors? You don't think the state has the right to force its public universities to at least attempt to ensure future politico-intellectual welfare in all areas?</p>
<p>"future politico-intellectual welfare"</p>
<p>Niceeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Considering that probably most of Berkeley's feeder universities did poorly on this "test," I don't think your prediction is right. At least not for first year graduate students and especially those in the sciences and engineering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's exactly right, especially in science and engineering. Let's face it. Berkeley's science and engineering graduate programs are REALLY filled with foreign nationals, especially from Asia. I believe there are certain science/engineering PhD programs at Berkeley that clearly have more foreign nationals, and perhaps have more Asian foreign nationals, than they have Americans. And let's face it. A lot of these foreign PhD students just come to Berkeley to get their PhD, and then intend to go home. Let's face it. If you're an engineering PhD student from China or India, what do you care about when Jamestown was founded? What does it matter to you that it was the Baath Party that was the basis of support for Saddam Hussein? After all, China and India have nothing to do with Saddam. I'm quite certain that most American-born college students can't name the first emperor of China or when he came into power, or don't know much about the Mahajanapada kingdoms, but I'm sure that a Chinese or Indian citizen would know these things.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So you're DEFENDING this crisis?</p>
<p>You think it's acceptable for future leaders in various fields to know less about important world issues than did their predecessors? You don't think the state has the right to force its public universities to at least attempt to ensure future politico-intellectual welfare in all areas?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I just don't find this study credible. We know little about the actual validity of this test or what it measures. And I think it's putting all the blame on the university when it's really not the university's job. I mean, if a student goes to study and become an engineer, wouldn't it be more important for him to actually study engineering instead of brushing up on the Saddam Hussein fan club?</p>
<p>Berkeley has the American Culture requirement. It has the history breadth requirement. So either these classes teach students nothing, the students don't bother to learn in those classes, or the tests they used don't accurately meausure what the students learned. I actually think it's a mixture of all three, but the article tries to put the blame entirely on the first, which seems unfair to me.</p>
<p>I actually participated in this study. They handed the exams to people in the DC last year. It was VERY long.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I mean, if a student goes to study and become an engineer, wouldn't it be more important for him to actually study engineering instead of brushing up on the Saddam Hussein fan club?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Both things are equally important. It's important that engineers develop technology. But it's also important that an American public university like Berkeley ensures that its engineers know enough about international politics in order that they will not then sell their technology and or skills to "the Saddam Hussein fan club." </p>
<p>
[quote]
Berkeley has the American Culture requirement. It has the history breadth requirement. So either these classes teach students nothing, the students don't bother to learn in those classes, or the tests they used don't accurately meausure what the students learned. I actually think it's a mixture of all three, but the article tries to put the blame entirely on the first, which seems unfair to me.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You have it all wrong. Those classes certainly teach "something," students certainly must learn or relearn "something," and the tests certainly reflect the material. The REAL reason students in AC/history breadth isn't preparing students to ace civics tests like this one is because the scope of those courses usually doesn't include issues in current international politics. It's unlikely that the Baath party will be mentioned in a course on the development of Jazz.</p>
<p>First, this survey isn't testing general knowledge, per se. Its testing how much you learn about civics while in school. If someone comes into Cal with a score of 73 and leaves with a 70, they would get a horrible grade, yet if someone from Southern Kentucky Hair and Nail Institute comes in with a score of 43 and leaves with a 49, then they are a success, even though Cal students know more both as freshman and as seniors. And look at the list of "winners" and "losers"</p>
<p>top 10:</p>
<p>1 Rhodes College
2 Colorado State University<br>
3 Calvin College
4 Grove City College
5 University of Colorado, Boulder<br>
6 Spring Arbor University<br>
7 University of New Mexico<br>
8 University of Mobile
9 Florida Memorial University<br>
10 Central Connecticut State University </p>
<p>Bottom 10:</p>
<p>40 University of Florida<br>
41 Wofford College
42 University of Virginia<br>
43 Georgetown University
44 Yale University
45 State University of West Georgia<br>
46 Duke University<br>
47 Brown University<br>
48 Cornell University
49 University of California, Berkeley
50 Johns Hopkins University </p>
<p>Draw your own conclusions</p>