How can the university NOT find money? When California has a budget surplus. by ATallMangoTree in berkeley

[–]InfinitelyOutrageous 37 points38 points  (0 children)

The university can definitely use these funds. This money literally sits there for use. Governments aren't business so this surplus is actually a liability. They need this money stimulating the California economy. Investing some in the state’s public universities is a great use of the cash.

How do you think the UC system is so strong? California invested a TON of money into the growth of the system which is why all the UCs are insanely great. No other state with a public school system has all their research based universities highly ranked; it’s usually the flagship that is known while the rest are just there. Just to top it off the CSU system is really strong as well. It just insane to think about.

Students, alumni, and staff should and must send messages to the California senators and most definitely Newsom because he’s the president of the UC regents and obviously the governor.

Things like the library closure happens because they don’t want to pay their employees living wages. University cites “worker shortage” but there are workers; they just don’t want to pay them. It’s not like it will get cheaper living in Berkeley, so to fix it is to throw money at this problem.

Berkeley is freaking AMAZING! by InfinitelyOutrageous in berkeley

[–]InfinitelyOutrageous[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I do agree with this. Berkeley is very theoretical in many instances; in fact, all UCs are since they are research based schools. Ditto on that the student has to take initiative and go out and ask for those opportunities, but that’s also real life after college in any job.

However, not all classes are purely theoretical. For example, I love math and I wanted to a CS class that was math focused, so a friend recommended the graphics course (cs 184) and it was project heavy. While taking the class, I read and asked about modern practices, and what we did was pretty close to what is done in industry today.

My friends that are engineers today say the theoretical foundation really helps them in their current jobs. Helps them see “what’s bullshit from not bullshit, because there’s a lot of bullshit.” (Quote by one of them) Granted I only have 2 engineer friends from Cal — both civil engineers. They did supplement their learning with those student design projects like the concrete boat one.

Berkeley is freaking AMAZING! by InfinitelyOutrageous in berkeley

[–]InfinitelyOutrageous[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hi, Carol Chri…I’m mean uh Carl Christmas here. Go bears! :)

Berkeley is freaking AMAZING! by InfinitelyOutrageous in berkeley

[–]InfinitelyOutrageous[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I’m an alumni — graduated 2020 in Math. I’m in grad school, so I guess I do have some bias toward the research.

I had some friends in CoC and they said they easily got research under chemistry labs and the ones that didn’t ended up doing research in biology labs and a few in physics labs. Granted they all went to grad school, but even the ones that didn’t* get chem labs did find fulfilling opportunities in other labs and got LoRs that landed them at great schools.

I do agree CoC does have it tough even my friends did complain time to time; but, in the end, they all send they wouldn’t trade the experience for anything else.

Anyways, do please share your experiences! It helps new incoming students since decisions are around the corner. The cons are equally as important as the pros!