2/8 Why does UC suck so hard? I did undergrad at UCB and I hated it.
Professors couldn't teach, class workload was high, and the system
was designed to "weed out" students and demoralize them rather
than teach and encourage them. I always got lower grades than I
deserved for the amount of work I put in. I don't know if this was
because of the curve which insists that 50% of students should get
C's and only 10% A's or what, but my GPA was mediocre and
self-confidence shattered. After UCB I took classes at another
(private) school, maybe not quite as good at UCB but Top 50 in
order to remedy my "academic deficiencies". I got straight A's
there and was usually one of the top 1-2 students in the class.
Professors seemed to like to teach and when they gave exams they were
on the concepts they told you that you should know. This is not
the same thing as spoonfeeding answers, but just telling you what
was important to know and what wasn't so that you don't waste time
trying to memorize 500 pages of the text. So I finally got my GPA
up and had the choice of a couple of different grad schools, one
of which was UCLA. This is my first year at UCLA and it is like
Cal all over again! Massive amounts of work to get a B-,
professors who sneer at your inadequacies, and a tendency to give
exam problems on exactly the material that was not covered in
homework which means you have to read (and remember) 500 pages of
technical text in 4.5 weeks and there is no chance to know if you
are grokking the material not covered in homework until the exam.
I am in the middle of the pack of my peers and getting discouraged
again. I've started to talk to a few of them and for many of them
they have taken the same class *BEFORE* at some other school. One guy
told me he had taken it *AT UCLA* as an undergrad and got a C and now
wants to retake it. Well, shit. I guess the school shouldn't care
how you got to a certain level, but the playing field seems messed
up to me. I was talking to a friend in grad school at a prestigious
private school and he said it's not like UCLA at all. That same
friend went to an exclusive liberal arts college for undergrad and
then started grad school at UC Irvine, which he also hated, before
switching. So it seems to me that the problem is with UC. My prof
even told me he has battled the department about making some
changes (such as having 2 midterms instead of 1 because of the
amount of material covered) to no avail. Since UC recruits from the
same pool of professors as every other school then why is learning
at UC such a bitch? I told my professor I think I want out and to go
to a private school, which is when he confided the above to me.
Were all UC professors beaten as children? Is it some State thing?
They seem to really enjoy watching you fail and only cater to the
top 5% they see as elite enough to join their ranks. Yes, this is
how academia is, but why isn't it like that elsewhere? Two classmates
that went to much, much worse (by reputation) private schools for
undergrad got their PhDs from Harvard and USC, crediting their
professors for refusing to let them fail or quit and encouraging them
and pushing them to achieve the best they can do. They love their
professors/advisor and will probably donate $$$ back to their school.
What I want to donate to UC is a swift kick in the ass.
\_ I knew all of this when I went to UC Berkeley. I went anyways,
because I couldn't get into any other school. I have to say
your experience will vary greatly depending on your personality.
If you're seriously upbeat in nature and have a thick skin,
it'll work out greatly. But if you're just exploring and
trying to understand yourself, it's not a very nurturing
place to be at.
\_ Totally agree with what you're saying. In the corporate world,
your super l33+ coding skills don't mean much. CONFIDENCE wins a
lot, like promotions and leadership. Cal totally lacks this. It's
a great place to know how to hack. Great place to do publications
and to get into academia. Not a great place to climb up
in the corporate world.
\_ Maybe you should stick with community colleges. They seem to be
more your speed.
\_ Thanks, UC Professor! I'm surprised you didn't let me know
Wendy's is hiring! I don't want to miss out on that opportunity!
\_ I went to Caltech and UC both for undergrad and while the classes
were smaller at Caltech, it was also a much harder workload. The UC
is a really sink or swim kind of place. You don't think people are
paying an extra $100k for a private school education for nothing,
do you? Why did you go to UCLA at all, given your experiences, it
sounds like you would have prefered a private school. Did you not
want to pay the extra cost? -ausman
\_ I think Caltech undergrad is an extreme example. Caltech is also
known for being brutal to its students for no good reason. I know
lots of people who went to Caltech and are now underachieving
because Caltech destroyed them. That's not a plus in favor
of Caltech. However, consider a school like Pomona College (where
my acquaintance who tried UCI went) or Stanford. No one would
consider them easy and yet the attitude is not "us" (professors)
versus "them" students. They want their alumni to succeed. I went
to UCLA figuring that: 1) It might be different, 2) Maybe
the problem at UCB was my own creation. However, it's shocking
how these first quarters at UCLA at like being at UCB all over
again. Factor in all the standard UC bureaucracy and I probably
will transfer to a private school. Cost was an issue, but
not the main issue. UCLA's strengths were more closely aligned
with my research interests than others I was accepted into.
I think seeing how much UCLA is like UCB crystallized that:
1) Somehow these issues are endemic to UC
2) UC doesn't work for me
However, what troubles me is *why* when I was able to get along
just fine at other universities that just happened to be private.
To me it seems like a problem worth investigating and fixing,
because we waste a lot of talent at UC, just like Caltech
wastes a lot of the top minds in the country. At least Caltech
doesn't have an obligation to the public to educate, though.
\_ Stanford doesn't seem all that different from Berkeley.
There are both asshole profs and nice ones. I'm not entirely
sure where you get this idea of UC being super different.
Maybe your problem is self-fulfilling prophecy.
\_ It's not really the profs. UCLA's profs are sometimes very
understanding. At UCB I would say I had too many profs
that were TAs or else visitors who didn't at all know what
the students had/had not covered leading to disjoint
curriculum because the tenured profs didn't like to
teach, but not that they were assholes necessarily.
However, the administration at private schools wants
students to succeed and more often listens to their
input. When a student at UCB wants to leave no one cares.
When a student elsewhere wants to leave they want to know
what went wrong and how they can fix it. Privates are
constantly reviewing the curriculum and addressing
deficiencies in order to retain students and be sure
that their alums succeed and bring glory to the
school. UC points to the 2% who succeed through sheer
god-given brilliance and claims that their system is
working and the other 98% must just be stupid and not
worth educating. Students at UC seem to have much less
leverage over the faculty, which is why teachers like
HH Wu are still teaching and there are Korean TAs teaching
who don't even speak any English. When the students at
privates complain the school does something like pair up
a non-native speaking TA with a native speaking TA or
whatever. You might call that coddling, but I call it
common sense. UC just doesn't care. Take it or leave it.
That's too bad. UC is really more a place to educate
yourself despite the school/faculty, not a place for them
to impart their knowledge to you. I think there's a much
less adversarial and more cooperative relationship at
Stanford from what I can see having talked to those
who attended and current professors there.
\_ Do you believe that only 2% of Cal students graduate?
\_ Muddling through the system will graduate you,
but it won't help you achieve your goals. Cal
students are bright and very motivated so they
deal, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Ironically, Cal profs I had outside of science
and engineering were usually extremely supportive
and interested in sharing their research and
promoting interest in their field. Science and
engineering profs mostly wanted you to go away.
Exception were astronomy profs, who always
seemed glad you came to office hours. Math profs
were the worst, often not even showing up to
office hours. Ridiculous.
\_ So it is not all UC profs that you think are bad,
just the science and engineering ones, right?
\_ Possibly. Too little experience in other
departments to say. I will say science and
engineering professors are worse in my
experience.
\_ The UC does not have the resources to coddle students.
You never answered my question as to why people are willing
to pay so much more for private school. I think the answer
to your quesions are obvious.
to your questions are obvious.
\_ People are willing to pay a lot more for a lot of reasons,
one of which is snob appeal. State schools have a bad
reputation which is probably deserved in most cases,
although not necessarily deserved by good publics like UC.
I don't want to speculate what motivates people to pay
more. Why don't you, since you already have (speculated)?
It's partially a resource issue, but I think it's
cultural. Even if you gave UC 3x the budget the mentality
would not change, IMO.
\_ The UC does not have the resources to coddle students.
You never answered my question as to why people are willing
to pay so much more for private school. I think the answer
to your quesions are obvious.
\_ I think it is obvious: you get a better education at
an expensive private school, that is why people are
willing to pay more for it. With the much higher teacher
student ratios, the money for better labs, better
libraries, full time live in professional advisors in
the dorms, more tutors, etc, you *should* get a better
education. I think your claim that the UC would do the
same job with 3X the resources is ludicrous. Do you know
any public college in the US that has the climate you
found at private school?
\_ Well, you said it: UC provides a poor education.
\_ I don't really disagree with you, though I would
use the word "mediocre" rather than poor. The
best, most inspiring teachers I had were the ones
at San Diego Community College, which is where I
went between Caltech and UCB. I learned much more
at the UC though, but that was outside the class
room, in The Web, from other students, etc. I also
learned how to fend for myself, which is a pretty
useful skill to have in life.
\_ http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Humor/UCB-fail.jpg
\_ I don't believe that you know "lots of people who went to
Caltech and are now underachieving" since they admit less
than 300 people per year. How many do you know?
\_ A lot. I've known people at Caltech since I was in
high school through a mentor-type program and I know a
lot of alums who also know alums: both grad students
and undergrads. I would say I've met probably 100-200+
alums: maybe more than any other school other than UCB.
I even know some current grad students and current
and ex-faculty. I also have a membership at the
Athenaeum. They are not all underachievers, but many are
relative to their potential. In fact, I fired one that
worked for me. I don't think that Caltech brings out the
best in its students. I think a lot are exceptional and
do well in spite of Caltech, but I also know a lot that
don't even really have careers and just kind of drift
from one thing to another. BTW, lots of Caltech
students have the same opinion of Caltech and helped
shape my opinion of it. Many complain that Caltech
ruined their GPA. A surprising number who did undergrad
never went to grad school because of this. That's
sad, because I think most of them, if not all, are
capable. I think Caltech has among the highest % of
undergrads who then go get their PhD but they should
given who is accepted so that's a little misleading.
85% of Caltech undergrads graduate versus 97% at
Harvard. Do you think it's because Harvard students
are smarter? That Harvard spends more $$$? (Caltech
spends $200K per student.) It's pure culture.
\_ What percentage of Caltech graduates go on to get
PhD's vs. Harvard UG? Do you think the grad schools
don't know how tough the grading scale is at places
like UCB and Caltech? If you are sure you want to go
\_ I suspect no. Not at least, for say econ PhD
admissions. If you got a GPA of say 3.3, you're
screwed as rarely a top 30 department will bother
with your file. Usually it doesn't matter that you
have completed a bunch of honors or graduate
courses, have a math double major, good LoR, etc. I
know this based on my personal experience.
\_ I have heard otherwise, at least as regards to
Physics graduate schools. How were your test
scores? I am kind of surprised to hear that
you could not get into a good grad school with
a 3.3 from Cal. What was your UG major?
to grad school in science then Caltech is a good place
to go, if you don't know what you want to do with your
life and need some time to figure it out, it is a
terrible place. UCB is the same, just not as extreme.
\_ I always summed it up as: "At Berkeley, you have a right to fail,"
which was a refreshing contrast to HS, where you were coddled and
reprimanded for not turning in a HW, even if you got 100% on all
the tests. Also, by "refreshing" I mean a C- in my first semester
math course (Math 53) because I had the bad habit of not doing
HW, and then never really learned the material. Separately, I
thought almost all the CS profs at Cal were good (Smith was the
exception). What CS profs had curves and were not supportive of
students?
\_ I didn't take a lot of CS. I had Yelick and BH and Hilfinger
and they were all OK. I took a lot of physics, math, chemistry,
and engineering classes. I wasn't a CS major.
\_ Physics seemed to have a combo of great and terrible profs.
7A in particular seemed to have good profs. Also, I've heard
only good things about profs that taught H7[ABC]. I only
had bad math profs. EE was mixed as well. What are
"engineering" classes? E45, E190? E190 was a great class.
\_ 7ABC all sucked. Dalven, Lys, and I cannot even
remember who else. I also had Clancy for CS now that
someone else mentioned him and he did the absolute
minimum. `
\_ I had bad math profs and mostly bad chem profs, but mostly good
bio profs and a really great biophysics advisor. (Glasser)
\_ As a current undergrad, I must say every CS prof I've had
so far has been pretty much awesome (with the
exceptions of Clancy who basically didn't teach and instead
left us to suffer with some godforsaken "web 2.0 teaching"
thing... damn you UCWise, and Bodik who seemed like a
smart guy but had the worst 164 curriculum ever (it was
basically a "who can come up with the ugliest Greasemonkey
hack class)
Current list - Brian Harvey (61a), Dan Garcia (61c),
Anthony Joseph (162), John Wawrzyneck (150), Michael
Franklin (186), Dan Klein (188), and also Babak Ayazifer
(EE20) have all been decent (and some of them very
excellent) professors. I have Patterson as my faculty
adviser and he's been great too. Maybe you just chose the
wrong profs? I've also had very good TAs for
61a,c,162,and 150. (Some grad some ugrad).
Just a current student's opinion... --steven
\_ You obviously never had Alex Aiken. Charming personality,
awesome slides, horrible lecturer/speaker, does not care
about students (hates office hours).
\_ At UCB, my best learning experiences were summer classes, less than
30 students, taught by TAs.
I took a class at Stanford. It wasn't that different from UCB.
The exams tried to throw twists at you so you couldn't directly
apply what they actually taught in class, you'd have to figure
new stuff out, and you don't have enough time. In any case
most of the class basically fails miserably so it's curved and
you end up with like a B+ anyway. The project was pretty wimpy
in terms of time compared to engineering class projects at Cal.
Stanford did have a strong student feedback mechanism and the
prof changed some things in response to ongoing feedback.
I would have doubts about sending a kid of mine to Cal as an
undergrad. I wasn't really happy at Cal, it was huge and I
wasn't motivated to trudge to classes each day. The whole
"giant lecture hall" class style is pretty bad in general though.
The pace is too slow or too fast and often the fancy professors
are bored/boring.
'furd had a nice online archived video system in place though.
You could watch all the stuff on video, complete with a closeup
view of what the teachers write, and you can replay it at multiple
speeds with pitch-corrected sound, which definitely helped me
stay awake and zip through boring bits but still hear them.
\_ +1, my SITN experience parallels with yours. It's really great
to log into one of their empty, powerful workstations to do work.
I really hated having to fight through my ways in Cory Hall and
Evans which most of you don't even remember. Stanford had superb
computing facilities, and their professors really take the time
to talk to you even though the classes were still big (40-80ish).
\_ I agree with everything above. Well said. Berkeley fucks its
students in the ass. No doubt about that. But then, so does
every flagship state university. The only difference is
that due to being the top state university in the country,
may be in the world, at Berkeley you get the rat race
experience of all flagship state schools SQUARED, and many
other UC campuses are not that far behind. I remember how I
had to fight like mad to get a B+ or A- even in a frigin
Rhetoric 1B or History 7B class. Lots of professors look
for ways to screw the students and lower their grades. I
have utter respect for UCB undergrads in the hard majors
who maintain a GPA above say 3.7. At the same time, I do
suspect that many of Cal's B+ students would probably
strive somewhere at an Ivy League school, have a 3.95 GPA,
beautify CV with multiple research experiences, graduate
with honors, get glowing LoR from professors, and have no
problems joining top graduate programs. At the same time, I
wouldn't take it for granted that an average "honors"
student from a private school (which is most students they
have since most get some kind of honors) like Stanford or
Ivies would necessarily even have a 3.5 GPA at Cal. I might
want to add that things are not as bad as it might sound.
You just need to learn how to navigate the system by the
end of your second year or so. For example, most upper
division courses in both of my majors (math/econ) had 30
students or less (or had honors or advanced versions of
those courses with small enrollements). I had no problems
registering for undergraduate seminars with only 10
students, which allowed for very good close interaction
with professors. Most professors who taught my upper
division courses really cared about teaching and did a
pretty good job. |
http://csua.com/feed/