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| 2009/2/8-15 [Academia/OtherSchools, Academia/UCLA] UID:52534 Activity:moderate |
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. |
| 2008/5/9-15 [Academia/OtherSchools, Academia/StanfUrd] UID:49905 Activity:high |
5/8 UC to raise fees to 18k a year or more:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/07/MN1510D554.DTL
A report released in April by the UC faculty Academic Senate says
the university has not recovered from the budget cuts earlier in the
decade and that the governor's latest 10 percent cut to its budget
will be devastating and force the university to rely more heavily on
student fees and privatization of the university.
To make up the difference, tuition and fees would have to be
increased from the current $7,500 a year to about $10,000
immediately, and to $18,000 in three years to keep the university
from losing its prominence, the report says.
\_ Yeah, privatize everything! Hooray! -Republican
\_ Hi Strawman Guy. It should be obvious to anyone with two brain
cells to rub together that the costs of some services should be
spread across the population while others should not. For
example, vaccinations should be covered and mandatory because
the cost of a plague in lives, suffering, and many other forms
of loss outweighs the cost of a $5 shot for every child. OTOH,
covering your sex change operation or your breast implants is
your problem and provides no societal benefit. Somewhere in
between those two extremes is a reasonable middle ground that
people far more intelligent than a cheap shot troll like
yourself are still trying to find.
\_ Boob jobs don't provide any societal benefit???
\_ No more than your sex change operation.
\_ You must not be motd boob guy.
\_ Definitely not. The 5 minutes a day I spend here
is already too much. I don't compound that error
by following those sorts of links from here.
\_ I don't see a very good reason to subsidize UC. Why not subsidize
all universities? (i.e. subsidize the student, not the school)
Also, why is there both Cal State and UC?
\_ The last question, you could answer with only a moment of
thought or research. Community colleges, Cal State and UC
have different missions and serve different populations.
I think it's safe to say that California gets excellent return
on its investment in UC, if you really want to look at it
from a pure economic perspective. -tom
\_ If it does, then why not make that relationship explicit
in the form of loans?
What is the mission difference with CSU and UC? UC is
just better? I've good things about Cal Poly grads.
\_ read the mission statements, or the state constitution.
-tom
\_ Did you go to Cal? Please make out that check for 50k you
owe the state for your subsidies ASAP, thanks.
\_ Did you? I guess Cal isn't so great if it can't teach
basic logic. Do you really think that I should agree
with something because I supposedly benefitted from it?
I pays me taxes like anyone else. That doesn't mean I
agree with how it is used.
\_ I don't see the logical disconnect. I bet you,
personally, have reaped great rewards from your
California taxpayer subsidized UC education. I
have every right to mock you.
\_ Again: my personally benefitting or not has zero
relevance to the discussion. I would have
benefitted under a general subsidy as well, or
from loans etc., or from a more competitive
private market. Undergrad education is wasteful
as all get out. There is little reason to even
be at Cal for the first two years. The classes
are gigantic and you might near do as well by
or better just watching the class on video.
are gigantic and you might near do as well or
better by just watching classes on video.
My first two Cal years were mainly interesting from
a life/social perspective
\_ We actually do both, right? We provide subsidized loans
and Pell Grants to any student, but we also provide public
schools for those who cannot afford private school, even
with a moderate subsidy. I know it goes against the
libertarian ethos to provide something of value on the
basis of merit, as opposed to the wealth of one's parents,
but that is what the People of California have decided to
do, and I agree with them.
\_ Why not just increase the grant and loan programs?
It's not against my ethos to provide something on merit.
I am fine with private scholarships and there are lots
of those. Communism is against my ethos.
\_ If the loan and grants were distributed equally and
all the UCs were privatized and charged whatever the
market would bear, then poor (and middle class) kids
would be shut out of attending the best schools. You
could fix this by granting additional State funded
scholarships on the basis of merit, but that would be
"Communism" again. I hope you can see how society as
a whole benefits when the brightest get the best
education, as opposed to simply the ones born to the
wealthiest parents. But you probably think working for
the benefit of the greater good is "Communist" as well.
the benefit of the greater good is "Communist" as
well.
\_ Scholarships aren't the form of communism/socialism
I'm referring to here; I'm looking at government
entrance into markets it has no place in. So why
have the public schools at all instead of more
scholarships? Determining who the brightest are
is not clear anyway... I met many dumbasses at Cal.
If loans are guaranteed on favorable terms then
even the poor can attend the best universities.
\_ when did we give the Cato Institute a soda
login? -tom
\_ Brit Humes is good looking!!!
\_ I see your point and don't really disagree with
it. Getting from here to there is kind of hard
though. Just because selecting for potential
ability is difficult doesn't mean we shouldn't
try to do it. People have been doing so at least
somewhat successfully since the time of the
Mandarins.
\_ I believe in Turkmenistan the government actively attempted
to slash education funds in an effort to make the population
stupider (less unrest when you're stupid). They have great success!
Go Turkmen!
\_ Reagan's dream will finally be realized.
\_ Star Wars?
\_ I will say this much. If UC is going to charge the tuition of
a private school then they'd better match private schools in
terms of the educational experience. I put up with a lot of
crap at UC because I realized it was a public school. However,
if was paying $20K per year my expectations would have been
completely different.
ver,
if was paying $20K per year my expectations would have been
completely different.
\_ Bingo! All the Stanford folks I know had an infinitely better
experience and got much more out of it and still do years
after they graduated.
\_ Well, they better for (when I was in school) $100K more.
However, if UC wants to charge like a private then they
need to realize that they can't offer the same product
they offer now.
\_ UC doesn't *want* to charge like a private. UC,
along with every public service offered by the
government, is under assault from corporatist
ideologues; thus, its funding has been repeatedly
cut while costs have been rising, and it is being
forced to raise fees, which, you're right, puts it
in a disadvantageous position relative to comparable
privates, and which in turn is exactly what the
ideologues want. -tom
\_ Wow, been re-reading your Little Red Book a lot
recently? Corporatist ideologues? Can you name a few
of these corporatist ideologues who are out to destroy
the public university system in this state?
\_ Do you feel it would be in a disadvantageous position
relative to comparable privates if it charged the
same as the privates? Because the feeling I get is
that it would be, which is a knock on UC.
\_ How many top private research institutions have
over 200,000 undergraduates? How many campuses
have over 30,000? The problem space is different.
-tom
\_ Is Cal becoming a factory assembly line of
graduates?
\_ Becoming? I thought that was its purpose.
\_ Pick any given campus for your comparison.
\_ How about Stanford? They have something
like 8K undergrads. Their mission is not
to educate the top 12.5% of California high
school students; if it were, Stanford would
be a much different place. UCLA and
Berkeley are #1 and #2 in the country
among top universities in enrolling Pell
Grant (low-income) students as a percentage
of the undergraduate population. (35% and
32%, respectively). That's part of the
charter and mission of UC, and while it makes
the environment more challenging to manage,
I also think it's part of what makes UC a great
institution. -tom
\_ How would you know UC is a great educational
institution? Did you ever attend a UC
class? Where is your 4 year degree from?
\_ I see you're out of arguments. -tom
\_ Why is it more "challenging to manage"
low income students? They are still
among the best and brightest.
\_ Dozens of reasons. They have unusual
schedules and take longer to graduate
because they're working while going to
school, or they have to take time off
to help their family. They are often
the first person in their family to
go to college, so their family can't
provide them as much advice or support,
and in many cases doesn't value
higher education in the same way that
a fourth-generation Harvard family
does. There's overhead in dealing
with their patched-together financial
aid package and work-study awards. -tom
\_ I don't think any of these reasons
have to do with why students at
private schools are treated well
and students at UC are treated like
crap in comparison. Kids at private
schools are likely to receive
financial aid as well from many
sources. Just because some kids are
low income doesn't mean they create
much more overhead. MIT or Stanford
will take the best students they can
get - wealthy or not - and still
provide better experiences for
students because they have to in order
to compete against Caltech and
Princeton for your (or the
government's) dollars, while UC gets
the money (and the students) no matter
what. Sure, UC might compete for some
of the best students but judging
by the scholarships awarded they
don't compete very hard. Overall,
UC seems to feel you need them
more than they need you, which is
not the situation at private
schools where every student is an
extra $30K a year. That's one reason
why privates don't fail people out.
It's like tossing away $30K.
\_ look, it's simple; exceptions are
expensive, and low-income students
generate more exceptions. For
that matter, there are diseconomies
of scale in managing students when
one class is as large as the
entire enrollment of Stanford.
The student experience of being
in an 800-person Bio 1B class
will not be the same as the
experience of being in a 200-person
class. The institutions are not
directly comparable because their
missions and resultant environments
are totally different. -tom
\_ Why not look at a small UC
campus and compare to Stanford?
You may be correct that the
missions are different, but
consider the disincentives
UC has to do any better. As
far as "exceptions" I am
going to guess there are
more made at private
schools. UC is very much a
"no exceptions" environment
whereas at private schools
every single student is
treated like an exception.
\_ I'm willing to bet that by
any metric you can devise,
Cal is more diverse than
Stanford.
\_ *LAUGH* you talk as if
diversity is a good
thing that everyone
loves to have *LAUGH*
Take a look at Denmark
and Irvine. Economically
and socially homogenous
and nice to live.
\_ Shut up white man
\_ Asians tend to stick
to communities or
*towns of their kind
\_ What does that have
to do with anything?
Most high-caliber schools
are actually pretty
diverse, but are you
somehow implying that
diversity == crappy
administration,
staff, and policies
or that somehow
having many races of
people on campus
therefore makes it
more expensive to operate
and makes the environment
more hostile to
undergrads? Where are you
heading with this
argument?
\_ I don't mean ethnic
diversity (although
that's clearly also
true). I mean that
Berkeley has more
non-traditional-age
students, more students
who take time off to
work, more work-study
students, more
community college
transfers than
Stanford. All those
populations are
more expensive to
manage. And 32K
undergrads are more
expensive to manage
than 8K undergrads.
-tom
\_ I'm not convinced
on your last point.
Why should that be
the case?
\_ Find me an
institution with
32K undergrads
that doesn't
have a huge
bureaucracy. -tom
\_ Just compare
UCB and USC.
It's not
like USC
doesn't have
bureaucracy,
but the
experience is
much, much
better. You
believe what
you believe
because you've
worked at UCB
so long and
been
indoctrinated
into the
"that's the
way it has to
be" mentality.
It doesn't.
UC sucks
even compared
to some other
large schools
like Texas
and UVA.
\_ USC is half
the size of
Berkeley,
and less
than 10%
of the size
of UC. -tom
\_ USC is
almost
exactly
the same
size but
has more
faculty
and
staff,
which
is one
reason it
makes for
happier
alumni.
USC has 15K undergrads, _/
less than half of Cal. -tom
And small UC campuses don't
compete with Stanford. I
know a lot of people who
were quite happy at Santa
Cruz, but it's not a top
research university. -tom
\_ UC is UC. My gf went
to UCSC and it's the
same crap everywhere.
Also don't tell the UCSC
PhDs in programs like
astrophysics and
linguistics (both Top
10 in the nation) that
it's not a "top research
university". You know as
much about UCSC as you do
about everything else
that's not related to
biking.
"UCSC astrophysicists, for
example, were recently
ranked first in a survey
measuring the impact of
research on the field."
http://tinyurl.com/57wcfy
UCSC is a top research
university and at the same
time schools like Harvey
Mudd are not, but we're
not talking about
research. We're discussing
undergrad education. UC is
great for the price, but
if the price becomes $20K
I'm sending my kids
somewhere else.
\_ UCSC has *one*
department which is
a top research
department, and that's
because they made the
guys who used to live
up at Lick Observatory
come down to teach
at UCSC. There is no
comparison between
the research done at
UCSC and Berkeley,
UCLA, Stanford, or any
of the other top
research institutions.
UCSC's purpose isn't
to be a top research
institution. There's
really no point
in continuing this
conversation if you
don't understand that.
-tom
\_ *THREE* top 25
departments and
more that are
still good. They
just got money
for a stem cell
research center.
They do a lot of
world-class research
in biology and
ecology. UCSC, by
virtue of offering
PhD programs at all,
is engaged in
research.
Your arguments don't
hold water. Every UC
is engaged in
world-class research,
not just UCB and
UCLA. I'm not
sure why this
matters anyway
when discussing
undergrads.
Your point seems to
be that UC ignores
ugrads in favor of
research, which is
exactly my beef with
it.
\_ My point is that
UCSC and Stanford
are not
comparable
institutions,
any more than
Berkeley and
De Vry are.
They are not
competeing for
the same students
or the same
faculty. -tom
\_ My point
is that
UCSC still
sucks for
students
even though
it's not
"large and
diverse"
because it's
still UC.
\_ prove it.
-tom
\_ let's
make
this
as
nar-
row
as
pos-
ib-
le
\_ Did
you
attend
UC?
Were
you
happy?
Yes, but that proves nothing. -tom _/
\__ Does Cal or UCLA make money from enrolling out-of-state and
international students? If so, maybe that's one way to help the
financial situation. (I think it doesn't get government subsidy
for those students.)
\_ no.
\_ No, but they charge them a hell of a lot more.
\_ They money all goes to the UC Regents. Did you ever pay your
own fees?
\_ Yes, I wrote lots of checks payable to UC Regents. But I
thought that was just for accounting purpose. -- PP |
| 5/20 |
| 2007/9/21-24 [Computer/SW/Editors/Vi, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:48141 Activity:nil |
9/20 MIT student wears art to airport, almost gets shot.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/259095
\_ I spent many winter and summer vacations in Boston, and I can
testify that Bostonians are, in general, retarded. And I'm not
talking about the MIT student here.
\_ when I first heard about this I thought it was an intentional act.
after you look at it, well, it's been spun like mad by authorities.
http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/09/21/star_simpson |
| 2006/6/12-15 [Reference/BayArea, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:43367 Activity:nil |
6/12 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13278190 Seattle is smarter than San Francisco. \_ These comparisons are idiotic. Where does Cambridge (home to MIT and Harvard both) rate? Is it more important to have 100 MIT grads people or 200 U of Florida grads in your community? What if the U of F people also have Master's and the MIT people do not? What difference does it make if the community in question is 1000 individuals versus 2000? In short, there is no way to quantify "best educated" let alone what it might mean in terms of impact to a community. \_ hey, it's All Surveys Are Worthless Guy! \_ who? \_ emarkp's follower \_ Wha? The trolls are becoming more nonsensical! \_ Dunno, but he's making himself happy doing it so whatever. It's harmless. |
| 2006/2/27-3/1 [Academia/OtherSchools, Academia/GradSchool] UID:42018 Activity:high |
2/27 http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/06/pf/college/professor_pay/index.htm I'm making more than my professors! HAHAHA! Proof that academia is for suckers. \_ As I recall, CS professors make a LOT more than that. The 100s of useless English PhDs are throwing off the numbers. \_ Indeed. I know physics profs at top, well-funded research schools can start out at over 100k, when they're assistant profs. \_ Well, they have tenure. See you in New Dehli. \- The Chronicle WEEB site had the list of the compensation of a lot of the top paid University staff ... most of the big $$$ were medical school faculty and CS/Engineering profs but strangely Vaugn Jones was one of the top paid profs. Also, this doesnt factor in a lot of perqs like number of hours expected, outside consulting income, jobs for spouses, sabbaticals, travel opportunities etc. \_ Professors usually make a lot more through, as you say, outside consulting income. They also receive perks like free travel to conferences, free computers, and so on. I know that at Caltech, for instance, certain well-compensated faculty receive use of Caltech facilities, which can include university-owned housing. Even at Cal the Chancellor gets use of a house. At Caltech (at least 8 years ago) tenured faculty often received $400K interest-free to buy a house with the condition that they split profits proportionally with Caltech when/if they sell the property (and pay back the $400K) I know one particular professor received $1M interest-free for housing when he took an offer at Caltech. This is their way of retaining faculty in an expensive place like California. Certain individuals receive large bonuses, large payments to their retirement plans, free medical for life, and so on. There's a lot more to compensation than mere salary. \_ Vaughn Jones is one of the top paid profs because he's a fucking Fields Medalist. Winning the Mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize when it's not even awarded every year is a big deal. I imagine UCB's Turing award winners are similarly compensated. -dans \- yes i know VFJ is a Field's Medalist. I also know the other fields medalists and nobels and turing award winners are nowhere close by in the compensation list. the highly compensated people in CS were people list (i do not recall what year borchards and mcmullen left). the highly compensated people in CS were people like patterson, not KAHAN. BTW, the 2006 FM should be interesting because of the uncertainty over the age of that strange russian fellow. see wall discussion etc. also there are some giant figures here much more famous than the "avg" fields medalist, e.g. CHERN. i think the fields medalists may be better compensated by the university than econ nobels or turing award winners because they have less scope for outside income possibly. actually after some thought, my guess is somebody tried to capture VFJ [as with CMCMULLEN and say PSCHULTZ] and UCB managed to hold on to him [unlike CMCMULLEN, PSCHULTZ]. because they have sless scope for outside income possibly. \_ Compensation for faculty is largely set by hiring and retention cases. So the faculty who are most highly paid probably got that way by getting a lucrative offer from Harvard/MIT/Stanford and getting Cal to match it. -tom \_ Clearly VFJ is a better negotiator than those other Field's Medalists. -dans \_ Which is different from "Vaughn Jones is one of the top paid profs because he's a fucking Fields Medalist." And the question still remains, do the compensation numbers significantly miss some of the accomodations to faculty ... maybe one guy got a spouse hire in lieu of +40k to salary." And why did VFJ beat superstars in say English [this was post-GREENBLATT leaving, also post [this was post-GREENBLATT leaving, alswo post KARP etc.] \_ Sciences bring in money, and English doesn't. When a top science research prof brings in a 5 million dollar grant the University taxes that at something on the order of 50%, in addition to \- believe it or not, at a research university a 50% burden is pretty good. isnt harvard's burden around 80%? also i am aware of this, however somebody like GREENBLATT [or stanley FISH] are special cases, in case you are not familar with them. and this is also nicely seen on small scale ... like people who work on practical stuff liek microprocessors [PATTERSON] vs airy fairy theory people. the tuition that they charge the grad students which gets paid out of the PI's grant. I would also claim that science benefits society and creates new ideas, whereas academic English "scholarship" does neither. Obviously this is subjective, but I'm clealy not the only one who thinks this way, and that is reflectded in salaries. \_ A society is more than the flashy gadgets it creates. If we don't support the arts then we're nothing as a people. \_ I couldn't agree more. The fact that you automatically equate university English "scholars" with the arts is laughable, however. They're not writing novels, they're cranking out endless unreadable academic shit that no one but themselves will ever read, and that has no bearing on real \- well not everybody is a JUDITH BUTLER. for example an associate of mine did his phd in the english dept here ostensibly on HFIELDING but wrote a bunch on the history and develoment of copyright [since you need some protection for to make writing a career your could make money at] and he now teaches in at HLS. so some of this is actually interesting work which touches real world issues and isnt just trendy inscrutable humanities nonsense. of course he was sort of a rockstar here and the other eng phd i've met writing on thrid rate authors would be serve society better plugging holes in dikes/ dykes. writing. Their role as teachers is extremely important to society, but that always comes second at a school like Berkeley. \_ A second quartile science/engineer is more likely to produce something of value than a second quartile medival historian. This is why an avg engineer gets $100k say for his dayjob and an avg musician needs a dayjob. \_ I had no idea that being a prof was such a poorly paid job. I'm glad I choose law skool over grad skool. \- I'm glad I chose CS. --mstonebraker \_ FYI, starting salary at a Tier-1 research school (top 50) for a 9-month appointment for CS/EE fresh-PhD assistant professors is in the $75k-80k range (so $100k-110k or so including summer salary, which is typically part of the startup package for a couple of years but needs to be covered by the professor's research grants in the long term). Benefits are typically very good compared to industry, but of course no stock options. \_ There are plenty of Cal professors who have become filthy stinking like Prof. Brewer *cough*__/ rich during the .com boom. So there are lots of side benefits. Haven't you ever had Hilfinger talk about being an expert witness, talking on the phone for a few hours and making a killing? |
| 2005/11/30-12/3 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:40784 Activity:nil |
11/30 How do I find back issues of the Jerusalem Post from
the early 60's, like 1960-1965?
\_ Build a time machine.
\_ See if a university library near you has it on microfilm or
microfiche. It looks like Berkeley only has 1960-61, but UCSB and
UCSD both seem to have all the years you're looking for. |
| 2005/5/16-17 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:37716 Activity:nil |
5/16 Director of undergraduate writing at MIT thinks the new SAT is lousy:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/05/17/sat/index.html
\- the last two lines are pretty funny. "the SAT is divided into
3 parts ... i came, i saw, i bullshitted" --psb
\_ Better than "I came, I peed, I shitted".
\_ Sounds like it really is measuring ability to succeed in US
universities then.
\_ Not to mention the ability to climb the corporate ladder. |
| 2005/5/7-9 [Reference/BayArea, Reference/History, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:37566 Activity:high |
5/6 MIT Time Travel Conference:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/06/national/06time.html
\_ You should go/have gone. We will have/had a great time. Even HG
Wells will make/made an appearance.
\_ well you can always travel back in time to make it.
\_ Well, see you in the past, folks!
\_ Well, see you guys in the past!
\_ I showed up, but they weren't letting any more people into
the conference hall. Got to see the countdown at the (much to
small) landing pad though. The smoke machine was a little hokie,
but the milk and cookies that someone had left was a nice touch.
--darin
\_ Nobody from the future came because they already knew the party
sucked.
\_ I predict that in the future MIT will not be a place of choice for
parties.
\_ We should try this again, but at CSU Chico instead. -tom
\_ Yeah, SF is the place of choice for parties. Why else
would they build Starfleet Academy there?
\_ If I had to bet money on the Bay Area of the distant future,
I'd put my money on the Philip K. Dick square, not the
Gene Rodenbery square. |
| 2005/4/16 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:37223 Activity:high Edit_by:auto |
4/16 MIT Prankster submits an auto generated paper, AND it gets accepted:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/04/14/mit.prank.reut
\_ Old. This was posted several days ago here.
\_ Keywords: bogus conference eddie kohler |
| 2005/3/10 [Academia/OtherSchools, Academia/StanfUrd] UID:36621 Activity:high |
3/10 So the University of Colorado won't fire Churchill (free speech) but
they will fire a professor who's a christian.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2748616,00.html
\_ A totally one-sided opinion piece. They could try actually
asking the university more beyond the answer "his teaching
was not up to the department standards." Note how they just
sort of deflect that they're not quoting the school. They
quote the prof being fired quoting another prof (from whom
they got confirmation), then say a dean denied the quote. They
never say what the dean said was the reason.
\_ I agree. I'm willing to believe that a double-standard is
being employed, but that article is terrible. You really
shoot yourself in the foot by using that article to portray
your point of view.
\_ There is a HUGE difference between what a tenured prof can get
away with a what a lecturer with a MS can do. If Churchill had
be the latter he would have been fired instantly. That's the
whole point of tenure.
\_ It's actually more severe than that. Some schools hire as many
as twice as many junior faculty as they have tenured positions,
*expecting* to fire half. If you don't have tenure, you're
really just a temp.
\_ that's academia. Are you surprised?
\_ Expecting to fire them or just leading them on until
they eventually go away? I doubt that many are actually
fired. Do you mean layed off?
\_ You can call it whatever you want, but I know MIT works
this way. If you get an offer as junior faculty there,
at least in physics, you know you have around a 50/50
chance of survival, and that you may get the axe just
because your field lost out that year. I have a friend
who turned down an offer there for exactly that reason.
There are plenty of top places that do not operate this
way, however.
\_ At MIT the phrase is "hire three, tenure one". But neither
Stanford nor UC (any campus) work in that way.
\_ I HAVE NO USE FOR YOUR FACTS! DO NOT YOU BRING YOUR FACTS HERE! |
| 2005/1/10-12 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:35641 Activity:nil |
1/10 So why did Gordon Moore donate $600 million to Caltech and nothing
(AFAIK) to Cal?
\_ CalTech is the best. (iirc Moore has given several million to
Cal for EECS and MSE).
\_ Gordon Moore was Cal alumnus of the year a few years back. He's
given lots of technical money (see above, also maybe go look at
the nice plaque in Hearst Mining with his name high up there), and
he's the main guy behind funding the UC Moorea research station as
well. |
| 2003/10/21-27 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:10712 Activity:nil |
10/20 UCB IS&T is hiring! /csua/pub/jobs/UCB-IST (Originally posted to
BayLISA jobs mailing list.)
\_ will I have to deal with tom holub?
\_ if you don't want to deal with me, you'll fit right in. -tom
\_ Nice.
\_ I thought UC only hired people with college degrees?
\_ Get some new material, already.
\_ That material is still working nicely. I want to know
how someone without a degree can feel so superior to all
those around him who have accomplished something which
he failed to accomplish and never will. Is it just
false bravado to soothe his damaged ego or does he
really truly feel superior and if so, what is the basis
for those feelings? The ant walks among giants.
\_ did tom fart really hard in E260 12 years
ago next to you and you've never forgotten? get a
life.
\_ College degree is just a piece of paper. s.jobs |
| 2003/5/29-30 [Academia/Berkeley/Classes, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:28575 Activity:insanely high |
5/29 Related to the career thread below...do schools really help
make a difference in terms of salary, career advancement, etc?
Everywhere I've worked, people from Cal States make almost
as much as me and I never have a fancier title either.
\_ Actually, some economists have done studies of this
sort of thing. Controlling for your ability, school
doesn't have that much of an effect except if you
are really smart and go to a 3rd rate school. Then
you tend to make less money than a smart person who
went to a competitive school. -fab
\_ Hello. Just thought I would point out that
taking a sample of people with the same ability,
and observing their school and their salary will not
tell you the effect of school on salary. You cannot
determine effects from observations in general. -- ilyas
\_ There are surveys that track people through the life course.
Random samples of people. For example, the national
longitudinal study tracks a random sample of seniors
through college and into the labor market. By "controlling,"
I mean "throw the ability variable" into the regression
eqn. Nothing wrong with that. -fab
\_ First place I worked at, HR asked me if I had a degree. I said
that it was from Cal, and asked whether they'd like to see it, and
was told "no, your having a degree from there means enough".
Started at ~$75-80k. Depends on company, country, area, luck,
economic situation, but yes, it helps to have a degree from a
good school to get the interview. -John
\_ education from Cal gets you in the door. Once you are working,
it is all up to you to advance your career.
\_ For me, a degree from MIT gets you an interview, pretty much
automagically. A Cal degree gets you laughed at. Seriously,
it's moderately depressing how few resumes of Cal grads cross
my desk.
\_ I had four MIT co-workers. Three are smart. The fourth
is actually kind of dumb. All four were promoted, though.
Caltech gets similar respect. As for Cal, there are two
others, including one very respected but I am sad to say
that my old secretary had a Cal degree (current is from
UCSD). That was really hard to accept.
\_ Cal is a big, diverse school -- the degree in question
matters at least as much as the University.
\_ I've met 2 significantly stupid MIT grads, one of them
a MIT PhD. The rest (certainly numbering in the many
10's) were all more than average bright. That's a better
hit rate than any other school in my experience.
That's why MIT boys get the auto interview.
\_ I haven't met any really stupid MIT people. What is
an example of something dumb he/they did? All the
people who did caltech undergrad have been really
smart. Berkeley depts like MassComm or PhysEd are
of course a world of difference than say Physics.
I cant think of any "really dumb" UCB physics people.
\_ Something dumb: Used drop tests from a helicopter
to test a parachute instead of a wind tunnel despite
much contrary advice with predictable (bad)
consequences. Is this IQ 80 stuff? No. Is this
a credit to MIT, though? (The Cal guys were on the
right side of this one, FWIW).
\_ A MIT boy once interviewed with me who can't answer
simple 6.111-type questions. Another guy I am
working with now with can't reason his way out of
a paper bag even with written directions. I spent
an afternoon trying to explain cache associativity
to him and finally gave up.
\_ not my field, what's 6.111?
\_ It's the MIT version of CS150, except
much harder (or so the MIT boys tell me).
\_ how would they know unless they took both
at which point they'd already have the
experience from one to make the other easy?
\_ Don't be so parochial.
\_ You almost had something to say.
Would you like to try again?
\_ No. I'm not in the business of
providing people with directions
to reason their way out of paper
bags.
\_ Take a look at past exams, hws and
projects for 6.111 and compare with
150. 6.111 is *much* harder.
\_ Did they dumb down 150 recently?
\_ 6.111 was much harder than 150
even 15 years ago. It wouldn't
surprise me (and in fact I'd think
it likely) that 6.111 has always
been more difficult than cs150.
\_ Can I send you my resume?
\_ If there are any insecure motd readers who are saying
to themselves, "Really? People will laugh if they see
I have a Cal EECS degree on my resume?", the answer is
no, unless the company is run by Stanfurdites or MIT people.
\_ Yes, they do. Not always the way you think, though. There are
always certain schools preferred because their programs are good,
past hires worked out well, or the boss likes students from that
school for some reason (alum network). The company matters, too,
as does the type of work. --dim
\_ I've had a few former managers who've made side comments like,
"he's from such-and-such school, he's smart". Sometimes they
really were smart but not always. It's a matter of perception.
Certainly, going to a good school won't hurt you unless you're
at the kind of place that has hiring managers that don't hire from
top schools because the hiring managers have small parts.
\_ could you explain that last statement?
\_ small dick = insecure = don't want anyone smarter
\_ A few things I have learned:
1) Public schools have a lot of schmucks that I wouldn't trust to
do anything worth while, but who successfully slipped through
the system without offending anybody.
2) The top percent from any school is great (whether it is MIT,
Cal, or CSUN).
3) Being able to communicate is extremely important (and if you
haven't yet noticed, that isn't high on Cal's list for its
EE grads).
\_ But when the ya know, right, eh? Whassup dauwg? Know what
I mean?
\_ I have a Chemical Engineering degree. And I can tell you this,
Cal is very respected in the Petroleum / Chemical Engineering
field. Also, my experiences is that Cal carry a big weight
when you apply for grad school. I would agree with the earlier
post. Cal degree give you an edge to get an interview. It may
not carry as much weight as MIT/CalTech or even Stanfurd, but
it give you an edge over all other schools. The rest is
up to you. Life is a struggle, and the struggle doesn't end
even after you obtain the degree.
-career never took off, but felt that Cal
had treated me fairly.
\_ interesting. my career took off but I don't think Cal treated
me fairly. it was the worst few years of my life. however,
after the sheer Hell that was Cal, everything else is easy.
want, and got all A's for the final 3 papers.
\_ care to elaborate on your career? my life at Cal
was also the darkest days in my life...
-Chem Eng, age of 30, still need career advice.
\_ In brief: I make a shitload of money doing what I like.
\_ ...yet somehow, either before or after your time at cal you
figured out how not to use phrases like "cal carry big weight"
unlike the above. This comes back to the point above about
communication skills.
\_ Before, actually. I learned at Cal that writing well was
of no value. My papers in fuzzy classes would get C/B
grades because they didn't like the content even when the
classes were supposed to be graded on correct grammar,
spelling, etc as in Subject A, English 1A, etc. I saw
other people's papers I'd be ashamed to turn into my HS
English teacher, which the reader bloodied with corrections
get an A+ and a note at the end about how great the paper
was. I started writing crap papers with the right content
and my grades went up too. Fuck Cal. --bitter alum
\_ Me too. For my English 1A class with 6 papers, my
and fucked her and gone over to Sproul to drop.
grades went B, C, D, and then I realized what they
wanted, and got all A's for the final 3 papers.
\_ well, it looks like we all learned a useful lesson
from 1A/1B. Grad students in English and
comp lit are stupid assholes. I actually told
one of them to fuck off once. I had gotten an A on
the first paper, but they told me that they would
give me a straight F for the class if my attitude
didn't change. they had started talking about
how relativity meant that everything was relative
or some other horseshit, and were not interested
in what i had to say about what relativity is really
all about(i was a physics major). So flipped the
stupid cunt off, told her "fuck you" and
went straight over to sproul to drop.
\_ I would've rather flipped the stupid cunt open,
fucked her and gone over to Sproul to drop.
\_ No, you wouldn't. You didn't see her.
\_ The best thing about a Cal degree is writing right here on
the MOTD with my homies and the one or two brave enough
homettes.
\_ YO DAUWG!
\_ GO BEAH! |
| 2003/5/6 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:28348 Activity:very high |
5/5 What is the hot chick ranking for the UCs? I'm pretty sure UCB
isn't ranked so high but I'm wondering if it's better than say
UCD or other UC schools.
\_ UCLA has h0t ch1x0rz.
\_ Which school has more hot chix, UCLA or UCSB?
\_ UCB = last. How could you possibly think UCB >> UCD? They've
got all those healthy and friendly farm girls. UCB has drug
addict whores putting out for hits and taking third helpings in
the food line at the dorms.
\_ UCD=hot white chix. UCB=hot azn chix
\_ so much hate! |
| 2003/5/5-6 [Academia/UCLA, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:28334 Activity:very high |
5/5 What are the rankings of the UC schools? I know that UCB=1 and
UCSC=last, but what about the UCs in between?
\_ Generally UCB=1, UCLA=2, UCSD=3, the rest suck.
For some things UCSD > UCLA.
\_ can you be more specific?
\_ CS theory for example.
\_ CS Networking (Protocols/Routing/Switching)
\_ I don't know... UCLA is very buff at CS networking.
\_ Hmm, I hadn't heard that UCSF sucks.
\_ UCSF isn't a general university. UCSF is great, of course.
\_ UCSF is the #1 med school in the nation. They
have a pretty good Law School as well.
\_ First, the law school isn't at UCSF, it is UC Hastings!
UCSF only does biomedical disciplines (and only graduate).
Second, they are never ranked #1 overall for med-school,
Harvard, Mayo, and JHU are often, and usually ahead of
them. And anybody who cares about overall rankings instead
of discipline based is most likely going to the wrong
place.
\_ Heh. Then you're already starting from behind. UCSC!=last and
never has been, except for its fledgling eng program.
\_ since when is UCSC last? I thought UCI or UCR was last.
\_ UCR is solidly in last in terms of difficulty to gain
admittance. --dim
\_ I thougt UCSB the party school is last.
\_ Ranked by what? Hot chix? Reputation? Glaucoma sufferers?
\_ It depends on the program, really. UCSB is mostly pretty weak,
but their physics program ranks very highly, for example. -tom
\_ As a physicist, I know about them kicking ass in physics,
particularly high energy theory and condensed matter
experiment. I would have guessed that their EE would have
to be first rate, given the massive army of 3-5 semiconductor
people there.
\_ All this stuff about best schools and just about every one of you
babbles about academics as if it matters. If you're not in a PhD
program it doesn't matter. If you are you already know the best
schools for your field. It's all about the hottest chicks. The
rest is bullshit.
\_ If anything, the overall school reputation matters _less_ for
a PhD student, not more. I can see how hiring BS/BA people can
be influenced a little by school prestige, but for a PhD grad
looking for a job, it's all about their research really.
I school prestige is something low self-esteem people care about,
kind of like they care about their sports team performance. |
| 2003/1/18 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:27142 Activity:nil |
1/16 What is UCB's CS research funding compared to say, the Furd, CalTech,
MIT, etc? |
| 2002/10/4 [Academia/OtherSchools, Academia/StanfUrd] UID:26097 Activity:kinda low |
10/3 Where can I get undergrad rankings? Interested in Harvey Mudd, etc
etc.
\_ 1. harvard
2. princeton
3. yale
4. mit
5. - 9. various other east coast schools
10. stanford
11. cal
12. - 200. more warm body environments
201. harvey mudd
\_ U.S. News and World Report?
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php
\_ US News' rating system is pretty arbitrary, and doesn't apply
at all to schools which only have undergraduate programs (like
Mudd). -tom
\_ sure, it's arbitrary, but when people say a school is ranked
such and such, they are refering to the usnews ranking,
wether it's stupid and arbitrary or not. i've worked with
several people from all of the schools listed above since
graduating, and am damn glad i went to cal and not some
stupid east coast school where all the students are
identical.
\_ Identical can be good. Cal has so much variance, ymmv a lot.
There are really smart cal grads (like myself) and really
dumb ones (like you, heh). At your stupid east coast school,
what you see is what you get (alllooksame).
\_ One can make the argument that providing teaching alone does
not make a good undergraduate environment, especially for
people who actually wish to become scientists and engineers
themselves. I agree with that argument.
\_ i also agree.
\_ The counter-argument is that at a school like Mudd,
undergrads work directly with their professors and are
given top priority, which doesn't tend to be true at
research universities. It's a tradeoff. -tom
\_ CS ranking or overall?
\_ Where do CalTech, CMU and Cornell rank?
\_ Caltech |
| 2002/10/3-4 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:26087 Activity:very high |
10/2 I was talking to some punk who graduated from Mudd who claimed that
MIT was a terrible ugrad school. Also talked about rampant grade
inflation at MIT. Is MIT known to have grade inflation? I always
thought that it didn't.
\_ Mudd is psycho. they have four majors, and the addition of the
\_ 7: bio, chem, cs, eng, math, phys, ss
"soft" field of bio was recent and very controversial.
SEALs can talk shit about Marines, but Marines are still tough.
\_ Mudd is a school with "little man's syndrome"; to some extent
they are more interested in being difficult than in actually
teaching. -tom (former Mudd ugrad)
\_ Didn't know you were a quitter.
\_ Oh so they're like CalTech?
\_ I think they strive to be harder than CalTech--there's
definitely a rivalry between the two schools. In the
school yearbook there's a "blackout" page where they take
a photo of the original freshman class from 4 years ago
and black out everyone who didn't graduate in 4 years.
There's sort of a perverse pride in their level of
difficulty. -tom
\_ The rivalry is all in Mudd's mind. Tech students
are barely aware of Mudd. -former Tech'er
\_ When I visited CalTech they made a big deal
about the cannon and Mudd stealing it. -tom
\_ The last couple of times I visited CalTech,
the people in flem would talk about it, and
the rest would brush it off as flem doing
its thing. I really don't think most techers
care about mudd whatsoever.
\_ A HS friend left sometime after a class in which the
high on a midterm was 13 (of 100).
\- dont you need to ask "what would the high on the
midterm have been if it was given to caltech/mit
students?
\_ we know if it were cal, it would be like 3.
\- i suspect if it were berkeley, the average
might have been lower but the top score would
have certainly been higher.
\_ that's farily common in P-Chem. They have "honk if
you passed P-Chem" bumper stickers. -tom |
| 2002/6/27 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:25228 Activity:nil |
6/27 Does MIT have a football team? How about CalTech?
\_ University of Chicago is a school with very high
addmissions standards, a good education, strong
academics and grad programs, great research, tons of money,
and no serious atheletic recruiting/scam programs
at some point they decided they were sick of the bullshit,
and it has not harmed them in any way. that doesn't meand
you can't have excellecnce in athletics, just not at the
expense of everything else. just look at the cal tae kwon
do team: great athletes just competeing for the fun of it,
not beacause they are supported by some athlete welfare program
and provided with free cars and whores. last i checked
they were one of the best teams in the country, while our football
teams always suck in spite of the cars and whores.
\- Robert Maynard Hutchins got rid of the UChicago football team.
[remember where Fermi build his reactor?]. There was a lot of
alumni controversy. He then pushed a Western Civ program and
did a lot to make UChi the "hardcore" school it is today.
RMH was an interestin guy ... he was dean of Yale Law in his
late 20 I believe an president at UChi in his early 30 I think.
He used to say "sometimes i feel like exercising ... so I lie
down until the feeling goes away." --psb
\_ Harvard and Yale do.
\_ I see where you're going with this. demonstrates
exactly what sort of study body results when no
athletes are enrolled.
\_ Their team made the front page of Sports Illustrated in the
late 80s. Who knows if the team is still around.
\_ How many (*good-looking*) women does MIT/Caltech have?
Stanford? UCLA? USC? Chico State?
\_ by answering that you just further my point.
\_ I'm assuming you mean before they try to commit suicide
by immolation in their dorm rooms. |
| 2002/5/3-5 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:24701 Activity:very high |
5/3 What kind of idiot is MIT prof Stuart Madnick?
\_ The best kind. The kind that can be bought.
\- yeah if i were an attorney or we could get him to a csua
meeting i would ask him "are you stupid or bought off?" --psb
\_ Apparently doctoral degrees from MIT can be brought too because
he has one.
\_ Holding a doctoral degree from MIT does not imply that the
holder of that degree is an individual of good character.
\_ There are plenty of professional expert witnesses. Most of them
don't get busted in such a public case. They needed to prepare
him better which is MS's lawyer's fault. He's just your standard
say-anything-for-bucks expert.
\_ Maybe that's the problem: MS-lawyers teaching an MIT professor
about the meaning of "Operating System".
And MIT PhD's and MIT Professors are not your "standard
say-anything-for-bucks" expert -- they are supposed to have
higher ethics. Can you imagine a UC Berkeley prof testifying
on the stand like that? We'd run him/her out of Berkeley.
\_ You can buy a UCB prof too, but MS didn't want to pay
the extra 10% fee.
Shame on MIT.
\_ ahh... to be young and idealistic..
\_ Why does someone always beat me to it? I was thinking
exactly this as I read the naive post above and then BAM!
someone else has said it already... sigh.
\_ ahh... to be old and slow...
\_ You can buy a UCB prof too, but MS didn't want to pay
the extra 10% fee. Plus fly them cross country.
\_ Since when does a UCB prof cost more? Who the hell has
heard of UCB when compared to the blaring bullhorn that
is MIT? More like MIT/10 = UCB cost.
\_ it's funny how those of you who think so poorly of
Cal still have enough "self-respect" to stay at the
school.
\_ It's not funny. It's called "most bang for the
buck". Not all of us are on the Parental
Payment Plan and have to go to the best that
we can afford, not simply the best. BTW, you
called your mom and thanked her for all that
easy money lately? You should. She deserves
at least a phone call once a week.
\_ funny again. mommy didn't pay for me.
or daddy.
\_ Not all of us *gasp* are smart enough (or had
good enough grades/scores) to get into MIT, but
still see its superiority (if in nothing else,
than at least in reputation).
\_ preparing witness != teaching witness. Please report to
slashdot for legal education immediately! (yes thats a joke) |
| 2002/5/1-2 [Academia/Berkeley, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:24668 Activity:very high |
5/1 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=581&e=2&cid=581&u=/nm/20020501/tc_nm/microsoft_dc_260 MIT professor backs M$, what's next, Berkeley and Caltech? \_ Note that he is an IT, not CS, professor. http://web.mit.edu/smadnick/www/home.html \_ why shouldn't Berkeley back them up? they probably do already. universities aren't so gung-ho about open source and all those issues as csua'ers are; they just want everything to work seamlessly with each other, easy installations, etc. \_ Bzzzzt! You've been brainwashed by Bill and Co. Windows only works seamlessly with Windows. Integration with other platforms is only at Microsoft's will. They can and do take that away from you to charge you more for it at any time. It is always easy to install a virus into your system. The hard part is getting it out after you've sunk most of your IT budget into it. Microsoft makes the most pervasive and damaging virus ever known: Windows. |
| 2001/6/22-23 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:21604 Activity:kinda low |
6/22 Sexiest Geek Contest:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/svguest/sh062201.htm
\_ Xena needs Zex.
\_ Mr. Lara Croft?
\_ Noo.. some Mills College CS professor. She didn't look
that hot. I like Cindy Margolis better.
\_ http://www.sexiestgeekalive.com . I think the CSUA
can do better. --dim
\_ I agree. You think you can beat some of them dim?
One of them has a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from MIT.
\_ Hell, I work with PhDs (CalTech and MIT) who are
hotter than her. --dim
\_ would they actually show up for that
stupid contest? -tom
\_ No. So I guess the title is deceiving
since the sample was self-selecting.
"Sexiest Geek Without A Life or
Self-Respect" is a better name. Heck,
Kathy Yelick (MIT) is better than
the winner. --dim
\_ Aria Giovanni is good too.
\_ Damn!!1!
\_ Aria Giovanni and Tara Patrick are good too. |
| 2001/6/14-15 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:21518 Activity:very high |
6/14 "10 toughest colleges"
http://encarta.msn.com/collegeArticles/NeverStopStudying.asp
Hmm, we're not on the list. :-(
\_ Kalamazoo?? Basically, in order to assess
toughest colleges you probably have to distinguish
between technical and non-technical. Among
technical schools, I'd include MIT and Cal Tech
and then add the millitary academies (real curriculum +
millitary training). Among liberal arts schools,
I'd probably put the schools that take seriously
great books and foreign languages: St. Johns,
Deep Springs and then maybe Chicago, Swarthmore.
After that, you would add schools have tough majors -
if you want to take them: Berkeley, Michigan, the Ivys
and places like Amherst.
\_ "MSN"? gee.
\_ Any list headed by CalTech, I don't want to be on. -tom
\_ Thus spake the wise one, whose widsom was not good
enough for admission into the high temple of science
and learning.
\_ they smoke a lot of crack at Reed
\_ they smoke pot. especially at "Ren Faire". Portland is nice
tho. Rains a fuckload of a lot. Lotsa hippies and burrowood
shit.
\_ What's the name of the festival where they do
do the most digusting thing imaginable, and then
you get the cute girl next to you to do something
worse, like eating mealworms out of someone's
asscrack?
\_ CU73 42N CH1X W0U1D ! D0 7H47!
\_ That's just 23rd Ave, Portland's version of Haight-Ashbury.
\_ and the Reed Campus. I was there. No, Really, I was.
were you? Did you live in the mac-only dorms? Did
you see your roommates make bongs from soda cans and
drink microbrew peach ginger ale? Or are you a sodawanker?
drink microbrew peach ginger ale? Or are you a motdwanker?
\_ Yes, I've visited Reed. But I had more sense to go
to Cal than to go to a school like Reed. Portland's
not exactly the place to go for higher education
unless you want to go to OHSU and become a doctor.
Most of Portland is pretty well maintained. It's
a fairly liberal city but it's nothing like Telegraph
Avenue
\_ I feel gritty already just by reading this!
\_ what? did you really expect Berkeley to be on this list? are you
kidding?
\_ i'm glad berkeley is n't on this list.
\_ there's a world of difference between "10 toughest colleges" and
"10 colleges with students who whine the most". sure, mit and
caltech are most likely on both lists. the rest look verrrrrry
questionable.
\_ The Coast Guard Academy is on the list. That tells you all
you need to know. --dim
\_ What's wrong with the Coast Guard Academy? Thx.
\_ It's not exactly West Point, not that West Point is
all that. For fun, find out where celebrities went:
http://www.uselessknowledge.com/vmd/education.shtml --dim
\_ MIT and caltech _AND_ Swarthmore. Swarthmore is a pretty tough
driven place. --chris
\_ Swarthmore I'll buy. Reed, KZoo (Kalamazoo), Grinnelle? Yeah,
right. -dans
\_ Swarthmore. Anywhere else it would have been an C-
\_ I think basically these colleges run real curriculums but accept
average students, who have to work at a killer pace juts to keep up.
\_ Caltech and MIT have killer curriculums and admit only the
best of the best and then work them to the bone. The other
universities have average curriculums but accept shitty
students, the kind that would find Cal hard (hint Cal is
not hard).
\_ well, what is our criteria of hardness? if there are some
really hard classes but most people don't take them, what
does this mean? if most people are L&S weenies, then what?
if you do 16 units or more a semester of solid technical
classes, is that "easy"? or even less, since in the end
it comes down to time. is it hard because your peers are
smarter than you and set high standards on the exams?
is it hard because the material itself is hard to learn?
\_ The material covered is much more detailed and the
expected understanding of that material is much higher.
For example, you could not pass MIT's equiv. of the
7 series without attending a single lecture, section
and lab. At Cal it is trivial. Same for ld math. Its
harder to pass a ud or grad course with zero work, but
it can be done with a fraction of the work required
at CalTech or MIT. The Farm is no better than Cal,
and in fact its worse in some ways. (I've never seen
bigger bunch of whiners and sisses in my life. I keep
hearing things like, no fair, don't change the rules
half way through the course, we need extensions because
life is too hard when your dad make $1e6 a year, etc.) |
| 2000/1/25-27 [Recreation/Dating, Academia/OtherSchools] UID:17325 Activity:high |
1/24 And you thought Cal reshalls were bad:
http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/93/81/01_4_m.html
\_ not that anyone reads this thread anymore, but one of the other
"great pieces of legislation" that McGrath introduced was a bill
requiring grade-school teachers to carry handguns on campus...
\_ What's wrong with that? I think *everyone* should be required
to own and maintain a firearm.
\_ Cal reshalls are totally liberal and open. Even other UC's have
more restrictive dorms. Go to a religious schools and UC
dorms seem incredibly permissive ("You can have members of
the opposite sex in your room? Wow...")
\_ coed bathrooms. nuff said.
\_ Try the USCA co-ops if you want to learn what the true
meaning of "permissive" is all about. Cal dorms are
super nazi control freaks in comparison. In fact, you
really can't fairly compare. Different worlds.
\_ Exactly. Co-ed bathing. Co-ed rooms (though I saw
that go bad one semester).
\_ What happened?
\_ The obvious: they broke up, hated each
other but had to finish out the semester
because there was no where else to go.
-ex house manager
\_ Define "co-ed bathing" por favor.
\_ Members of opposite sex engaging in sexual
foreplay/intercourse in hottub/shower/tub.
\_ Happens in Cal dorms too. Even *gasp*
Foothill.
\_ are you on crack?
\_ Uhm, no, not like the co-ops. I doubt
any dormy has ever seen a hungry post-
sex couple emerge from their cave or
the hot tub, etc, and walk naked into
the kitchen to get food and return to
fuck some more. There's more sex in
the smallest co-op houses every night
than the entire dorm system. You
really shouldn't try to put "dorm" &
"co-op" in the same sentence.
--seen it in co-ops
\_ well damn. I should have been
in the co-ops.
\_ MUHAHAHAHAHA!! (evil laughter)
\_ Speak for yourself.
-Done it in bot places
\_ Not on a co-op quantity scale. We've
had honest Presidents too. Not on
a large scale, unfortunately.
\_ Foothill? Rape doesn't count.
\_ UC Santa Cruz has the most liberal on-campus dorms by far. --dim
\_ if you ignore the fact they close off the campus at 8pm
\_ How so?
\_ Co-ed everything. Underage drinking. Rampant drug use.
Tolerance to noise. Preceptors and RAs who turn a blind
eye to (or participate in!) parties and smoke-outs. I've
heard it's more strict now that they had some "problems",
though. I can't confirm. Cal seemed Fascist in
comparison. We always had to be secretive here. --dim
\_ Back when I did that kind of thing, I used to smoke
pot with my RA all the time -- what's the big deal?
\_ I wasn't smoking out in the Cal dorms but saw plenty
of it. What's the title for the student they put in
charge of the whole building? She was using the
freshman boys like they were going outta style.
\_ Hall Coordinators. And I was an RA, and I
drank with my Residents, but I only dated
Residents from other areas. You don't shit
where you eat.
\_ Speak for yourself!
\_ HC. That's it. Holly. She was hot.
Any pics? _/
\_ The deal is that at UCSC nobody cared. At UCB
the door had to be closed. There was always an
element of secrecy. I remember people having to
dump their beer down the drain in the shower. I
also recall an RA losing his job because he was
caught drinking with the students. At UCSC, it
didn't matter. No one cared and anything went.
It was similar to the co-ops. --dim (former USCA)
\_ Oh, hell, UCB's best policy was the I-don't-see-
it-I-don't-hear-it-I-don't-smell-it-I-don't-care
policy. Prepped me for life in the CIA.^H^H^H^H
\_ Until someone's daddy files a law suit against
UCSC. We were spending house money on acid at
my co-op. |
| 1998/5/6 [Academia/OtherSchools] UID:14059 Activity:nil 50%like:14602 |
5/6 sysadmin job at caltech /csua/pub/jobs/caltech-sysadmin --jon |
| 5/20 |