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<p>Yet nowhere have you ever conceded any of the very real disadvantages that Berkeley has. You’re very good at being “even” about other places, but really don’t turn that critical eye to the problems that exist at your beloved Cal.</p>
<p>It’s not a matter of being redundant-- it’s not acknowledged or mentioned by your team of supporters and it really should be, alongside your redundant message that no one gives a crap because you still have a strong research faculty.</p>
<p>I’d also like to point out that it’s ironic in the quote posted by IBClass that Brown is for the “risk-averse”. I think that a university which is structured so that all of its students are always acting as risk-takers is better than a university structured in a way that risks seems daunting to most of the student body. The fact that Brown students are taking courses in 15 or 16 different departments over 32 courses is better than having a few students who take a few exceptional risks and most students never leaving their comfort zone. Everything around the Open Curriculum is designed so that your comfort zone can be expanded. It’s designed so that you find the engineers and physical sciences taking high level course work on ethnographic research (insert some other area they wouldn’t normally explore). </p>
<p>I think it’s crazy to suggest that creating a safe space for intellectual exploration is a bad thing for every person. There are two ways to approach this kind of education-- some people want an environment which encourages exploration and supplies students with support in all of their endeavors and that kind of exploration is what motivates them, and other people need an environment based on pitting them against their classmates and seeing how they do in a more cutthroat environment where you’re on your own.</p>
<p>Two professors of mine, Dean Katherine Bergeron and former Provost William Simmons both taught at Berkeley, and both of them have talked about how their classes have to be run completely different at Brown and even their perception of what grades are and how they’re used and the way to evaluate students has changed. It’s a really dumb oversimplification to say that one system is easier than the other and that one system is better than the other-- they have different goals and different designs. FWIW, neither of those professors would say that their courses are less challenging or anything remotely like that. In fact, without getting into too much detail, one of them claimed to be able to probe far deeper in their Brown classes because of the differences in student motivations for taking their class and the different way they’re able to approach their assignments and because of the vastly differing backgrounds each student brings into the classroom all being far more apparent here.</p>
<p>Basically, anybody making a judgment that comes down that one is better or worse is wrong. Anyone not realizing there are some very fundamentally different ways that large, public, research universities approach undergraduates versus other schools is a moron. There are pros and cons of both models and students who thrive at one may not thrive at the other. Luckily there are enough top schools that have very different models that students in the US can choose between them and be equally prepared for success post-graduation.</p>