Hacker News Reader

Comment by ak217 | Hacker News Reader

No, it's just that Berkeley STEM courses are harder.

In my experience it's more that more prestigious schools have a very talented student body, who are not at all used to failure. If something gets hard for the first time in their life, more of them are likely to say 'well that's not my thing' and switch, rather than say 'I guess I'm not a genius I'll have to work hard'. Calc III is Calc III -- you can look up the video lectures at MIT and see for yourself. The books, topics, pace, are mostly pretty standard at most universities, with some exceptions.

Also bigger, more prestigious universities seem to care less about their students and more about their research: see: TAs who are incapable of teaching, can't speak English, etc. When you're taking a difficult subject and lecture is a waste of time because your teacher can't communicate it's no surprise people drop out. They didn't sign up to self-study by themselves for a semester and take a final.

Not just material-wise, but also in terms of competitiveness

This is a valid point. The EECS department at Berkeley essentially sets the distribution of letter grades that will be assigned at the end of each course[0], so there will always be many damned smart students who end up getting really low (or failing) grades because of their performance relative to their peers.

I majored in CS at Berkeley, and there were only one or two professors that I can recall who strayed even slightly from these departmental guidelines. For me, the harsh curves essentially ruined what would have been an amazing educational experience. It was basically a perpetual preparation for the next exam, because you were always competing for your spot on the grade scale.

This is a very real deterrent for not only students who need a decent GPA (e.g. for grad school), but also for those who want to actually enjoy their time at university.

[0] http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml

I dunno, this distribution seems reasonable to me: 17% A's, 50% B's, 20% C's, 10% D's, and 3% F's

Are you saying that the caliber of student in the EECS department of Berkeley is so high that even the bottom 13% of the class would have gotten C's or B's at another school?

The problem is the 3.0 median. At my law school, where most people majored in social sciences at places like Berkeley, Michigan, etc, 3.0 is a bottom of the barrel GPA in terms of getting admitted. I think the median is like 3.8. Our peer law schools won't even take someone with below a 3.2-3.3 or so. Meanwhile, 3.3 was a great GPA at the engineering department at Georgia Tech when I was there.

You can complain about grade inflation, etc, but at the end of the day you're telling that 18 year old kid: "don't even try to major in engineering, because even if you keep up with your highly qualified peers you'll still kill any shot you might have had at a non-engineering graduate program."

I was comparing that distribution to the schools I've been a student and taught at (Virginia Tech, William and Mary) in CS. It seemed on par. Then the point is not about Berkeley, but all engineering departments.

> Are you saying that the caliber of student in the EECS department of Berkeley is so high that even the bottom 13% of the class would have gotten C's or B's at another school?

Certainly not any other school in general, but at your average university, probably yes. That's not so hard to believe given the competitiveness of Cal's engineering programs.

I find it hard to believe. I've encountered - both as a student and as a teacher - too many bright, seemingly qualified students who just don't work hard enough and get their work done to accept that claim.

You very well could be right. But what's meaningful here is that Berkeley is hard, and that was the original point :)

the people that just missed the cutoff for those spots are probably top of their class at whatever regional university they ended up going to.

also i'm sure there is some of that percentage that are capable but fucking off and not doing homework because they are 18 and just moved out of their parents house.

the people that just missed the cutoff for those spots are probably top of their class at whatever regional university they ended up going to.

Entirely possible, but I think that says more about the capricious nature of admissions at elite colleges.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com