Why Berkeley Is Number One

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Berkeley is great if you are a graduate student or a professor doing research. But if you are an undergrad, not much, except you are contributing much of your tuition to support the staff for their research while you cram in the huge classrooms trying to make sense what the teaching instructors are saying in a rush. The thousand person classroom experiense is just not great.

Large classes are limited to introductory classes in popular fields and account for about 10-15% of the classes over the 4 years. Depending on your major, you may only take 2-3 large classes in 4 years or fewer. Almost all classes are not large and even large classes have smaller (20-35 students) discussion sections.

Let's come up with something new to attack Berkeley than the "oh the undergrad classes are huge so it's bad " argument.

+1

Sorry. I am a faculty member in higher education and really did not know that any universities offered classes that exceeded 1,000 students at a time.
How can that POSSIBLY be considered a quality way to educate young adults?

Again, Berkeley undoubtedly has many smart faculty members who produce world changing research...but the fact that the school's administrators allow this to go on borders on educational malpractice to me.

Offering 1000 student lecture hall intro courses (with small discussion sections) is not unique to Berkeley. Many public universities offer such courses. In fact, it may do some good to have some of the K-12 private school/Harvard/Yale students to experience some of these classes to experience "real life" to help them become better human beings.

Oh, and you can choose to donate to public universities so that their class size can decrease in the future if the clas,s size bothers you so much.

+1

Cal is all about research and graduate programs, not undergraduates.

My undergraduate kid was happy there were many research opportunities for undergrad and that he could take graduate courses as an undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So does that mean Target is "better" than Nordstrom because it's cheaper?

If you could get the same quality of product at Target prices and Nordstrom prices wouldn't you recommend the one with Target prices? Wouldn't you find a company that could deliver both quality and cost savings to be better?

Similarly if you had two people running two races, one on even ground, and one uphill, and getting the same times, wouldn't you consider the person running uphill to be a better athlete? Wouldn't his coach bet the one you want?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So does that mean Target is "better" than Nordstrom because it's cheaper?

If you could get the same quality of product at Target prices and Nordstrom prices wouldn't you recommend the one with Target prices? Wouldn't you find a company that could deliver both quality and cost savings to be better?

Similarly if you had two people running two races, one on even ground, and one uphill, and getting the same times, wouldn't you consider the person running uphill to be a better athlete? Wouldn't his coach bet the one you want?

You are ignoring the trait of being snobby or status-conscious, which seems to be rampant on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So does that mean Target is "better" than Nordstrom because it's cheaper?

If you could get the same quality of product at Target prices and Nordstrom prices wouldn't you recommend the one with Target prices? Wouldn't you find a company that could deliver both quality and cost savings to be better?

Similarly if you had two people running two races, one on even ground, and one uphill, and getting the same times, wouldn't you consider the person running uphill to be a better athlete? Wouldn't his coach bet the one you want?

You are ignoring the trait of being snobby or status-conscious, which seems to be rampant on DCUM.

Aren't they also liberal democrats all in on diversity, equity and inclusion at the same time?

[Anonymous]

Yes, and many of the elite schools put tremendous effort into being diverse (and giving opportunities to first generation students). They can afford to underwrite strong students who are under-represented.

The 2nd and 3rd tier SLAC's have a harder time threading this needle.

[Anonymous]

Because it is headed by an African American as the president of University of California.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Cal is all about research and graduate programs, not undergraduates.

My undergraduate kid was happy there were many research opportunities for undergrad and that he could take graduate courses as an undergrad.

I was a graduate student at Berkeley. I never had any undergraduates in my grad-level classes. I did interact with undergrads as an instructor, in both discussion sections for larger classes and seminars of my own design. I felt bad for the undergrad who came to me for a letter of recommendation that I was completely unqualified to write. He did not feel that any of his professors knew him well enough to write about him.

[Anonymous]

For most majors, not worth the out of state cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Berkeley is great if you are a graduate student or a professor doing research. But if you are an undergrad, not much, except you are contributing much of your tuition to support the staff for their research while you cram in the huge classrooms trying to make sense what the teaching instructors are saying in a rush. The thousand person classroom experiense is just not great.

l
Ain’t that that truth.

It was like that when I went to school there decades ago, and it's like that now (so my friend's kids tell me).

That is the way Berkeley and the UCs were built. Research and grad programs are built on the backs of the undergraduate programs.

My only class with less than 40 students during 4 years studing engineering at Cal was 1 quarter of freshmen English. I had inspiring and charismatic professors who were tops in their field, but in general faculty, administrators, even department secretaries treat undergrads like dirt. My faculty advisor who I met with every quarter for 4 years refused to write a recommendation letter for my grad school app (i got into grad program at Stanford regardless).

It's a giant rat race, you either sink or swim, learn to fend for yourself, and the experience builds character.

My son is at a top Ivy and has huge freshman classes (STEM and CS) and says administrators treat the students like dirt. And it is impossible to get to know professors.

[Anonymous]

UC Berkeley-
Undergraduate classes with less than 20 students - 52.9%
20-49: 27.7%
50 or more: 19.4%

So over 80% of undergraduate courses at UC Berkeley have less than 50 students. Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, MIT, CMU, USC are also in the 80s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UC Berkeley-
Undergraduate classes with less than 20 students - 52.9%
20-49: 27.7%
50 or more: 19.4%

So over 80% of undergraduate courses at UC Berkeley have less than 50 students. Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, MIT, CMU, USC are also in the 80s.

That should shut lot of Bocas who only know one false information about Cal - they have large classes it's awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So does that mean Target is "better" than Nordstrom because it's cheaper?

That's one of the dumbest analogies I've ever seen. You clearly didn't go to Cal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UC Berkeley-
Undergraduate classes with less than 20 students - 52.9%
20-49: 27.7%
50 or more: 19.4%

So over 80% of undergraduate courses at UC Berkeley have less than 50 students. Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, MIT, CMU, USC are also in the 80s.

Yeah, and most of those classes with less than 50 students are in humanities. I had fewer than a handful of stem classes with less than 50 in all my 4 years there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UC Berkeley-
Undergraduate classes with less than 20 students - 52.9%
20-49: 27.7%
50 or more: 19.4%

So over 80% of undergraduate courses at UC Berkeley have less than 50 students. Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, MIT, CMU, USC are also in the 80s.

That should shut lot of Bocas who only know one false information about Cal - they have large classes it's awful.

Who is really doing the teaching in those classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UC Berkeley-
Undergraduate classes with less than 20 students - 52.9%
20-49: 27.7%
50 or more: 19.4%

So over 80% of undergraduate courses at UC Berkeley have less than 50 students. Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, MIT, CMU, USC are also in the 80s.

That should shut lot of Bocas who only know one false information about Cal - they have large classes it's awful.

Who is really doing the teaching in those classes?

Professors.