<p>hahah yea.. i hope its not as crazy as everybody says.. but I guess I shouldn't rule out that possibility.</p>
<p>Also:</p>
<p>I've been seeing on other sites how these weeder classes aren't exactly dedicated to the actual acquisition of knowledge and that the purpose is simply to weed out "lower-caliber" students (i hate using that term). Some even say that the purpose of OChem at Cal starting only at 8am is apparently dedicated toward this "weeding"?</p>
<p>Hey if that's the case I'm all for weeder classes. There are people at Berkeley who are really dedicated / motivated and there are slackers. If weeders help "weed" out these people who aren't interested in much more than a Berkeley diploma, then it helps the University to weed them out early, and helps the students as they won't have to suffer through more advanced classes they probably can't handle.</p>
<p>I just don't want you know...over-competition with sabotage involved or artitrary grading or whatever. But I've heard that the cut-throat competition is over-blown.</p>
<p>The weeders usually just get people out of certain majors, or out of the running for things like medical school. And if the ochem class causes people to not take it if they aren't intereted, that's fine. My dad took saturday biology at Yale years ago. It's nothing new.</p>
<p>"Some even say that the purpose of OChem at Cal starting only at 8am is apparently dedicated toward this "weeding"?"</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that the College of Chemistry likes to use this tactic to weed people out. If you haven't noticed yet, ChemE 140, another notorious weeder, is only offered at 8 am.</p>
<p>It's not necessarily weeding out people who are not serious, it's more weeding out the people that aren't willing to work their asses off. The guys that plan to study here and there and then cram before the exams are the ones that get weeded out. Chem 1a is not a weeder. You can get through that one by doing the readings and homework and watching all the lectures. On the other hand, your grade in Chem 3a is made up entirely of 2 midterms and a final (lab is a separate class), no homework, nothing assigned. It's very easy to go to all the lectures, do all the readings, do some of the problems, and flunk the test horribly. The guys that don't know absolutely everything and how to do everything and aren't great test takers are the ones that get weeded out. The big problem is that it's such an independent course. You don't learn a thing from the long-ass lecture (1.5 hours) unless you've studied everything beforehand. It all makes sense while you're taking notes, and two days later you can't even remember what you're learning about. Now you're behind and you're going to have to do some review, but the next lecture is in 10 minutes and you're going to have to keep up with that one. That's how weeders are.</p>
<p>I disagree with aim78. You can learn quite a bit from lecture, especially from a good lecturer.</p>
<p>And most of the ochem courses had a significant portion of the grade dependent on quizzes which were great preparation for midterms. There are also a bunch of practice midterms and old midterms available to study, making classes that much easier.</p>
<p>With proper preparation, all the weeder classes are highly doable. </p>
<p>Weeders are tough for some people IMO because too many people are unprepared for some more rigorous college courses from high school and lots of people at Berkeley are scrubs (not all, but many peopel just don't really belong in college here). Its also tough becasue all weeders are graded on a quota system but bad professors often make tests that are too hard or don't accurately reflect what they've taught or assigned in homeworks, because they need to create some sort of distribution which makes it easier to fail people and thus fullfill their quotas.</p>
<p>But if you find a good professor that avoids all these thigns, weeders are much more manageable. I, in fact, find weeder classes to be easier than certain types of upper div classes because the curriculum in weeder classes is highly standardized so that the testing and quizzes are usually fair with a good professor. Also, there are many gsi's in weeder classes making it easy to switch to a good one if your current one sucks at teaching.</p>