<p>No. College confidential is definitely not what kept me from getting the good grades. it’s mostly that i’ve tried to get help (not for this particular class) and the people never really fit my studying style. they were never could explain it fully so that i would understand.</p>
<p>you’re in college you should not be dependent on other people for your grades. I usually go to sections, review sessions, and study with friends sometimes but 90% of the real learning I get done alone at home. You might think you’re trying everything you can right now, but you would not be getting Ds if you actually were. Cs maybe you can rationalize away and make up for with other improved grades, but Ds are just bad.</p>
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<p>same. this makes me wonder why I’m dishing out $5,000 in tuition. =0</p>
<p>for the name.</p>
<p>for the people you meet</p>
<p>for kicks .</p>
<p>for the girls.</p>
<p>^ lmao what?</p>
<p>^ aww… you broke the chain :(</p>
<p>^ maybe he’s starting a new chain</p>
<p>or maybe not… *</p>
<p>For Aiur, my life</p>
<p>For the renowned professors who you get to work with so much.</p>
<p>^but how many students actually get to work/research with their professors?</p>
<p>^pretty much everyone who wants to and puts any effort into it. Most of you are freshmen, you need to take the core courses for your majors and get decent grades in order to get professors/researchers to pay attention to you. But by the summer before junior year at least, you should apply for research positions and you most likely WILL get something. Every science major upperclassman I know is doing some sort of research with a professor or scientist. And if you do an honors program you have to directly work with a professor anyway. So yes, stop spreading your lies/pessimism across this forum freshmen, thanks.</p>
<p>oh. lol yeah it was a joke jbeak but i guess not.</p>
<p>@flutterfly</p>
<p>I actually do want to do research so I hope you’re right.</p>
<p>I was looking at EECS URAP/URO opportunities, and some of the more popular professors wrote that they want students to apply if they’ve finished CS61ABC and have a technical GPA of 3.7+ I’m fortunate in that I do have that (doesn’t mean much though… only completed one semester) but I’d guess not many EECS majors have 3.7+ in their technical classes (can’t buff it up with humanities)</p>
<p>Now of course, this isn’t some hard fast rule and I’m sure by demonstrating ability and interest in the professor’s field you can get a position, but my point is that (purely guessing here) it’s not so easy.</p>
<p>If “pretty much everyone who wants to and puts effort into it” could get a research position, then the professor’s wouldn’t recommend having such a high GPA.</p>
<p><a href=“Redirect Notice”>Redirect Notice;
<p>The above link is a powerpoint presentation done by HKN (EECS honors society) that surveys the EECS students. If you go to the later slides you’ll see that 89% of students said they were interested in doing research and most of them said there aren’t enough opportunities. </p>
<p>I’m sorry for being pessimistic, and I hope you can prove me wrong because research power is something that drew me to Cal, but based on talking to juniors (admittedly, only a few), all have said that getting a research position is very competitive.</p>
<p>The listed GPAs are coarse filters. With 1000+ EECS/CS undergrads and ~130 faculty (and most aren’t looking for undergraduate research help) it’s not feasible to accommodate everyone. Asking for a 3.7 whittles the crowd down to ~250 undergrads. Since most people want to try their hand at research for at least a semester it’s already a bit crowded.</p>
<p>But frankly, the class size isn’t the main problem from what I’ve seen. The graduate division is a different beast with students mostly having earned 3.9-4.0 GPAs at their undergrad alma maters, often MIT, Stanford, CMU, and Berkeley itself. For you the student to benefit from a research experience, you need to be able to converse near this level and pick things up along the way.</p>
<p>So, GPAs are a heuristic and an impressive track record outside of class can make up for a lower GPA. Mainly, the professors want the research experience to be positive - for you to contribute and benefit from it - and they don’t want to see you jump into the pool before you’ve learned how to swim.</p>
<p>(Anecdote: nearly all of my EECS friends have done/are doing research. Those that haven’t simply weren’t interested and didn’t pursue it.)</p>
<p>I got my research gig with a pretty poor GPA at the time, but I demonstrated relevant skills. Grades are a terrible metric of skill, intuition, and ambition, so I encourage anyone to pursue endeavors that properly showcase their talents. If research is that endeavor, then go for it.</p>
<p>Protip: knowing what “research” actually entails helps convince faculty that you don’t have your head in the clouds (or elsewhere). It may also help you land a research position.</p>