Do not send your child to Pomona if they are interested in a CS degree. The major is not guaranteed
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Anonymous
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As a comparison locally, at UVa there is no guarantee that a would-be BACS major will be able to get the required pre-requisite courses or will be allowed to major in CS even if they do take all the pre-req courses. Further, Echols Scholars at UVa will have an edge getting the pre-req courses, as their course requests are processed by Carruthers Hall before the rest of the students in the College.
I am not a big fan of a lottery system, but if there aren’t enough faculty to offer the pre-req courses to all students who want them, then a lottery is not totally unreasonable. I think the heads-up about limited CS students is fine. Students who really want only CS should be targeting direct-admit colleges, such as UMCP does locally. |
Anonymous
Top liberal arts colleges almost always let a student choose any major. Pomona forcing a lottery is a huge deal because it is such a break with their peers. For a school that considers itself to be on par with the top SLACs to limit access to a major is a huge black mark. The freedom to explore interests before deciding on a major is one of the major differentiators between liberal arts schools and larger universities with separate colleges as well as direct admit majors. |
Anonymous
| Looks like the PP wasn't fearmongering: https://claremont-courier.com/latest-news/da-charges-19-claremont-colleges-students-stemming-from-april-5-protest-78760/ |
Anonymous
Very irresponsible for the writer to include student's names |
Anonymous
Why? I assume they’re over 18. I think the rule about not including names for criminals only applies to juveniles. |
Anonymous
| Future employers take note! Think Pomona admin did the right thing. |
Anonymous
Agree 100%! My large consulting firm is keeping a running database of these students. |
Anonymous
I believe one of the prominent Civil Rights protestors wrote an editorial that all these students who protested Israel are really just posers because now they don't want their names and arrests on the public record, while none of the Civil Rights protestors gave any thought to the repercussions from protesting their conscience (nor would anyone afford them the luxury of keeping their identities anonymous). You either believe in something and realize your future career and basically, your life may be permanently impacted...or you don't. |
Anonymous
Well it's clear these protesters believe in their messages. Their names are right there, and you can find them on the LATimes, NYTimes, and even the Chronicle of Higher Education |
Anonymous
I don't think LAC's outside of California have to go through this. Swarthmore has a very similar issue with much less students in CS, where they're now rationing CS classes out to students. The only major a top LAC can handle 20%+ of its students majoring in without having to make changes is Economics. Pomona is also near LA, which is just a very hard region to get good talent from (talent with PhDs) when they can all go into better positons. There's much less Tech in the northeast, compared to the West coast. This is why Stanford has such a ridiculous CS culture and 90% of seniors graduating have taken a CS course (16% of the 2023 class was CS majors). Berkeley direct admit CS has a 2% acceptance rate, even Harvey Mudd-47% of their graduating seniors are in some field of CS when two decades ago it would've been closer to 8-10%. Pomona, unlike Berkeley or Stanford, refuses to increase their CS class sizes beyond 30, so they can't accept anyone willy nilly into the major. |
Anonymous
FWIW, only seven of the 20 protestors were Pomona students. I understand why charges were pressed: Safety. To my knowledge, the 5Cs never prosecuted any encamped protestors or forcibly removed the encampments, which likely violated trespass laws, probably because of free speech concerns and because the encampments themselves didn't pose a safety concern. But when 20 students storm into an individual's office, there are legitimate safety concern that override free speech policies. (Analogue: the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capital.) There's a huge distinction between (a) peacefully camping and/or marching in public spaces with placard signs, etc. and (b) physically barging into a building and then an individual's office. The protesters knew or should have known this as it's common sense. |
Anonymous
| ^^^Amen to above-my DC starting at Pomona and I support the admin on their stance wholeheartedly! |
Anonymous
| Sounds like a college full of radicals. The police should've done their jobs and taken the radicals out. |
Anonymous
This is way off topic for a discussion of CS but “physically barging into a building” is a weird way to describe walking into a building and IIRC the president wasn’t even in her office when they first showed up. |
Anonymous
Correct. Students walked into Alexander (which is a general administration building that they are allowed in) and began protesting. Gabi was off campus and came, because Vice President Hinkson was called a racially slur (allegedly c**n) by a black student. She then tried blocking students from going up the stairs and they tried pushing past her. If the president had the balls to say she was scared and felt her personal safety was at risk (at this point the entire building is evacuated and the administrators are seen having a good lunch at the Coop Fountain- the student center, they were in perfectly fine health), id have more respect. Students in the past have chained themselves to the staircase of Alexander, so this is actually a tame event compared to back in SA apartheid times. |