Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucbvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!decvax!ucbvax!prabhaka From: prabhaka@ucbvax.UUCP (Aloke Prabhakar) Newsgroups: net.college Subject: Re: C.S. Dept. woes Message-ID: <302@ucbvax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 18-Apr-84 03:25:14 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.302 Posted: Wed Apr 18 03:25:14 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 19-Apr-84 03:41:24 EST References: <2540@csu-cs.UUCP> Organization: U.C. Berkeley Pretty Pictures Research Group Lines: 54 I also appriciated Tim G.`s little expose. I had a fairly lengthy net-conversation with him on the subject. It would seem that the situation is much the same almost everywhere. What follows isnt so much a flame as it is a revelation that we are feeling the same thing many of you are. While it may seem suprising, the situation here at UCB is not too different. Facilities are pretty much limited to a VAX 780 and a couple of rather restricted 750`s. Unlike our friend from CSU, our instuctors are not so great. Yes, they are very qualified from the technical/theoretical aspect, but they could care less about undergrads. This year %60 of all undergraduate teaching hours were taught by visiting lecturers. One can easily go through the CS major here without ever talking to a tenured faculty member. In order for an undergrad to "climb" out of the classwork machines onto the research machines he/she must do a lot of very hard work. The classwork-780 (ucbcory) at this very moment has a load of 21 and more than 40 users on it. The next assignment is seven days away. The research machine I am on has 10 users (mostly idle) and a load of 1. Classes are practically impossible to get into in the upper division. Someone mentioned that they had HP`s for their graphics classes. We just got an undergrad graphics class this year and it only holds 30. (the major is more than 400). Applications to the major number is very high, so lower division classes are hard for "filtering" purposes. (This often tends to squeeze out hackers and others who are very interested, even talented, but simply dont have time/interest to write 10000 line Pascal programs.) 150 applied to the graphics class last semester. In short, my friends, what we have here is a national phenomenon. College students these days go to college mostly to get jobs. There may not be any at this rate. I came to this school to get a good education, not to ensure myself a well paying job. It makes me rather upset to see someone in the CS major who, 10 years ago, would have been in Pre-med because "thats the place to be." Anyway, I dont mind reading more letters like this. It make things a bit easier. I hope the rest of you feel the same. (flames about these letters, however, to /dev/toast-on-a-stick or /dev/pig.) Aloke Prabhakar Computer Systems Research Group, UCBerkeley wouldnt-it-be-funny:...moskvax!kremvax!mcvax!decvax!ucbvax!prabhaka USENET:...ucbvax!prabhaka ARPANET:prabhaka%ucbarpa@Berkeley