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Comment by Ar-Curunir | Hacker News Reader

lol. I highly doubt that that he was thinking that. You're spouting a lot of nonsense in that post.

The consensus here at Berkeley is that this is simply a ploy to get students to drop the class because there isn't enough space for everybody.

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Sure, but how is degrading people to disgust them out of taking your class any less reprehensible? It's pretty clear the rules are nigh-unenforcable, but the misery it threatens students with is awful and treats students like children and criminals.

How is this degrading? Its merely strict.

I don't know about merely strict.

"If you are disabled and require special arrangements for exams, you must contact the instructor with full documentation by 5PM, August 30. The alternate exam will be an oral exam, closed-book, closed-note, cumulative over all class material and will be scheduled at 9AM on Sunday, December 15."

I think its clear the Prof is being slightly 'Darwinian' in his approach to teaching the class. But its a bit of a streatch to call this "degrading".

closed-book, closed-note, cumulative over all class material and will be scheduled at 9AM

Sounds like a real-world job interview, no?

I think the bar for "degrading" behaviour in academia should be set higher than something that would be everyday normal in "the real world".

Except it's only for disabled students. Regular students get the normal exams, so it's literally "slightly Darwinian"

I think you are missing the context. In the US (Berkeley) this is an almost certainlyadministrative accomodation (ie, a favour) required by law to make the test "more accessible". Which is code for easier.

Providing exams for disabled students is not degrading, if such accomodations are helpful. Other forms of accomodataion (eg, relaxing of standards or deadlines) may reasonably be subject to abuse, in the absence of direct oversight. Etc.

If there were some actual evidence this was an act of intimidation or "humiliation" it would be interesting to see such supported. In all likelihood, it would probably lead to a situation of legal jeapordy for the University.

They have to kick people out of--essentially--number theory classes in Berkeley because they are too popular?

> The consensus here at Berkeley is that this is simply a ploy to get students to drop the class because there isn't enough space for everybody.

Rinky-dink (non-Berzerkely) universities do this by setting configuration options in the registration software such that only a certain number of people can register each semester. If you get in a bit late and have a transcendentally good reason to need that course that semester, the professor is allowed to sign a small form which overrides the software and lets you in anyway.

In short, unless UC-Berkeley's software is stuck in 1968 just like its politics, the reason you gave is highly unlikely.

The issue is that they weren't expecting there to be so few TAs, and as such the system allowed many more students to enroll than they ended up being able to support. (Granted, the registration system here is pretty old, but it's not as horrible as you describe.)

It's literally emulating phone lines that dial in. Telebears is a massive piece of shit.

Source: Current Berkeley student.

Telebears is certainly shit, but it's not to blame for this particular fuckup.

Nah, there's software. You're right it's a political issue. The administration is happy to create classes and then not properly staff them with TAs, graders, etc. They say it's due to budget issues but it's really because they want to transition the university to have more large (profitable) classes.

Well The software that we use is rather bad, but that's not the problem here.

What happened in CS161's case was that the department had originally planned to have a certain number of students in the class, and was looking for TAs.

They weren't able to find these TAs, and that led to the cancellation of three out of seven sections.

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