Why Berkeley Is Number One

[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.

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.

You must have repeated awful lot of intro classes in your 4 years.

[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.

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.

You must have repeated awful lot of intro classes in your 4 years.

That's just how it was. Graduated with honors.

[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.

The statistics are misleading, because small classes are not evenly distributed across the various departments. At Berkeley (and probably all UCs), freshmen intro classes and cs /stem classes are huge.

Let's say a school with 2000 students has 50-50 CS and English majors. And students may only enroll in one class per semester. If this school offers two 500-student CS classes and 50 20-student English classes, the school can claim 50/52 or 96% of their classes have 20 students. Yet 50% of the population will experience the huge 500-student CS classes.

[Anonymous]

Some people assume large classes are bad by default. Interestingly, some courses I took with 200-300s are among the best ones across multiple degrees and majors. It really depends on the teaching skills of the teachers.

[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.

The statistics are misleading, because small classes are not evenly distributed across the various departments. At Berkeley (and probably all UCs), freshmen intro classes and cs /stem classes are huge.

Let's say a school with 2000 students has 50-50 CS and English majors. And students may only enroll in one class per semester. If this school offers two 500-student CS classes and 50 20-student English classes, the school can claim 50/52 or 96% of their classes have 20 students. Yet 50% of the population will experience the huge 500-student CS classes.

Relax, 40-60% of the CS/STEM classes' students are GONE within 5 weeks. Another 20-30% of the remainder will be GONE within another 3 weeks! There will be plenty of empty seats in the lecture hall/classrooms you will be lonely.

[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.

The statistics are misleading, because small classes are not evenly distributed across the various departments. At Berkeley (and probably all UCs), freshmen intro classes and cs /stem classes are huge.

Let's say a school with 2000 students has 50-50 CS and English majors. And students may only enroll in one class per semester. If this school offers two 500-student CS classes and 50 20-student English classes, the school can claim 50/52 or 96% of their classes have 20 students. Yet 50% of the population will experience the huge 500-student CS classes.

Relax, 40-60% of the CS/STEM classes' students are GONE within 5 weeks. Another 20-30% of the remainder will be GONE within another 3 weeks! There will be plenty of empty seats in the lecture hall/classrooms you will be lonely.

Not a ringing endorsement!

I still say, if the course content is important, they have to know this is not what quality education looks like.

(High school was free, and we would never put up with 50+ size classes there). Just because it is common, does not mean it is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The statistics are misleading, because small classes are not evenly distributed across the various departments. At Berkeley (and probably all UCs), freshmen intro classes and cs /stem classes are huge.

Let's say a school with 2000 students has 50-50 CS and English majors. And students may only enroll in one class per semester. If this school offers two 500-student CS classes and 50 20-student English classes, the school can claim 50/52 or 96% of their classes have 20 students. Yet 50% of the population will experience the huge 500-student CS classes.

Relax, 40-60% of the CS/STEM classes' students are GONE within 5 weeks. Another 20-30% of the remainder will be GONE within another 3 weeks! There will be plenty of empty seats in the lecture hall/classrooms you will be lonely.

Not a ringing endorsement!

I still say, if the course content is important, they have to know this is not what quality education looks like.

(High school was free, and we would never put up with 50+ size classes there). Just because it is common, does not mean it is right.

You are not responding to the counter argument and furthermore, you are not making much sense.

The course content is important. Berkeley is known for being rigorous especially in their STEM/CS courses but many still try. Don't bother applying to Berkeley if your snowflake wants watered down *easy A) education where students do not learn much including dealing with people of all backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Really? Look at a description for Graduate Student Instructors. Note that this in turn is trying to reassure them that they won't have to teach too much.

https://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/graduate-program/how-much-teaching-will-i-do

[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.

The statistics are misleading, because small classes are not evenly distributed across the various departments. At Berkeley (and probably all UCs), freshmen intro classes and cs /stem classes are huge.
.
Let's say a school with 2000 students has 50-50 CS and English majors. And students may only enroll in one class per semester. If this school offers two 500-student CS classes and 50 20-student English classes, the school can claim 50/52 or 96% of their classes have 20 students. Yet 50% of the population will experience the huge 500-student CS classes.

Relax, 40-60% of the CS/STEM classes' students are GONE within 5 weeks. Another 20-30% of the remainder will be GONE within another 3 weeks! There will be plenty of empty seats in the lecture hall/classrooms you will be lonely.

That was exactly my strategy to get into the over subscribed classes in Berkeley. If you are not persistent and just follow the path of least resistence, you won't graduate in 4 years. Typically every quarter, you won't get 1 or 2 classes needed to follow the recommended "track" for your speciality w/in the major. This inclues upper division (3rd & 4th year) as well as intro classes. The thing to do is show up for lecture anyways... many standing or sitting on the floor. Put your name on the prof's waiting list (the dept's waiting list is useless). As frustrated students leave after 1-2 weeks, you may have a chair to sit. After 2-3 weeks, enough drop to put you at the head of the waiting list, and the professor gives you a spot and informs the dept. It's not strictly following the rules, and you shouldn't have to at such an esteemed institution, but you do that to survive the rat race.

[Anonymous]

Rat race.

And somebody thinks this model is the best school in the country?

I would say that their criteria are flawed (understatement).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The statistics are misleading, because small classes are not evenly distributed across the various departments. At Berkeley (and probably all UCs), freshmen intro classes and cs /stem classes are huge.

Let's say a school with 2000 students has 50-50 CS and English majors. And students may only enroll in one class per semester. If this school offers two 500-student CS classes and 50 20-student English classes, the school can claim 50/52 or 96% of their classes have 20 students. Yet 50% of the population will experience the huge 500-student CS classes.

Relax, 40-60% of the CS/STEM classes' students are GONE within 5 weeks. Another 20-30% of the remainder will be GONE within another 3 weeks! There will be plenty of empty seats in the lecture hall/classrooms you will be lonely.

Not a ringing endorsement!

I still say, if the course content is important, they have to know this is not what quality education looks like.

(High school was free, and we would never put up with 50+ size classes there). Just because it is common, does not mean it is right.

You are not responding to the counter argument and furthermore, you are not making much sense.

The course content is important. Berkeley is known for being rigorous especially in their STEM/CS courses but many still try. Don't bother applying to Berkeley if your snowflake wants watered down *easy A) education where students do not learn much including dealing with people of all backgrounds.

The pp is saying that Berkeley does not act as if teaching the course content is a priority. Berkeley succeeds regardless because its undergrad students are smart, and ranking depends alot on research by faculty (many bad at teaching) and grad students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rat race.

And somebody thinks this model is the best school in the country?

I would say that their criteria are flawed (understatement).

The rat race gets worse as students learn they're unlikely to get the classes they want and sign up for more than they have time for. Seeing that, the administration offer fewer classes, over enrolls, and depend on students dropping to make the numbers work. So a student's path to graduation becomes less predictable, much like the current college admissioms process.

Students learn to never take "no" from administration for an answer. They appeal every decision, and admin responds by making appeals more difficult. So builds a huge bureaucracy unresponsive to student needs.