Friday, December 10, 2004
Wow
Just wow. Maybe she wanted to go out with a bang. It appears the Daily Cal editorial writer still thinks she's in high school. On dead days:
...leaving us with only one weekday to prepare a semester’s worth of material negatively affects far more students than a session will help.
First off, yeah, but the amount of benefit a summer session gives is huge compared to the negative effects of one dead day. Secondly, you had the whole semester to prepare for a semester's worth of material. You're supposed to be adult enough to recognize that you have to study as you go, rather than stick it all in at the end.
The university also fails to comprehend how difficult it is for UC Berkeley students to compete when other comparable universities—such as Harvard and Princeton—give their students a whole week to study. Such generosity isn’t a problem because instructional days are limited to 130, while UC sets the bar at 146. Why are we burdened with three more weeks of school?
Oh, man. Just oh, man. First off, we don't have to compete with Harvard and Princeton on our finals. They take different finals than we do, so it's silly to compare them. Where we do compete with Harvard and Princeton is on how knowledgable we are when we leave, and by having more instructional days, that gives us the advantage.
But oh my God. Seriously. "Why are we burdened with three more weeks of school." This isn't high school anymore! You don't have to go to college. If school is a burden, don't go to more school! Clearly, this writer was forced into college by her parents or something. This also shows the great difference between real majors and liberal arts. In real majors, having more time means you can learn more stuff. In liberal arts, though, time is not spent learning but showing how smart, moral, logical, emotional, kind, or tolerant you are. So for those folks, I guess it wouldn't bug them to axe classes. But for those of us studying in real fields, every extra day is an extra tool we can learn to solve problems in the future.
. . .
|
. . .
|
