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From: max@eros.uucp (Max Hauser)
Newsgroups: soc.college,comp.edu
Subject: Re: Access to USENET for non-comp sci majors at undergrad institutions
Message-ID: <1994@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 06:11:14 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.1994
Posted: Thu Oct 29 06:11:14 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Nov-87 02:44:57 EST
References: <515@unirot.UUCP> <894@vsedev.VSE.COM>
Sender: news@ucbcad.berkeley.edu
Reply-To: max@eros.UUCP (Max Hauser)
Distribution: na
Organization: U.C. Berkeley EECS CAD Group
Lines: 42
Keywords: USETNET ACCESS
Summary: Wrong question
Xref: mnetor soc.college:949 comp.edu:743

In article <894@vsedev.VSE.COM> marv@vsedev.UUCP (Marvin Raab) writes:
>In article <515@unirot.UUCP> gib@unirot.UUCP (the gibster) writes:

>>Do most colleges and universities give access to USETNET and the Internet
>>if they have it? Are there any special restrictions that usually apply?

>   I love it! I wonder how many colleges/universities which currently
>do not allow students access to electronic networks (BITNET, USENET)
>will reconsider if a large portion of recruits include that in their
>criteria in choosing a college....Queens College, CUNY: Are you listening?!

But of course usually it has nothing at all to do with "allowing students
access to Usenet"; the problem is that most schools are strapped for
computers, disk space and terminals. I'm sure that most schools with
some Usenet activity would love to give access to anyone who comes
prepared with, say, their own workstation and disks, and also is
willing to share say 80% of these with others on the campus (which is
what often happens to scarce resources in a university when someone
brings them in -- it would be a good early introduction to the academic
world, a side of it that most undergrads are gloriously ignorant of).

Since none of the postings so far have mentioned giving students
computer resources, which I think is the real key issue here, and a
very complex one, the posters must have implicitly assumed that 
incoming students would supply all of their own -- and in that case 
I'm confident that most if not all schools would oblige with Usenet 
access. End of query.

Oh, don't forget to budget for your modem phone bill for UUCP traffic,
unless you can finagle a hard-wired access to a backbone site...

In any event, the colleges "in demand" routinely turn away several
applicants for each position they have, a process that is very clumsy
and that few faculty or admissions officers are really happy with.
Some of them literally lose sleep over it, because of course they are
rarely certain that they chose the right ones. If lack of "free" CPU 
cycles and Megabytes causes some students to self-select themselves 
out of the applicant pool, it will make life just a bit easier for
those who have to choose among the remaining hordes. Besides, it will
also keep down the gibberish on the Usenet, already pandemic.

Max Hauser / max@eros.berkeley.edu / ...{!decvax}!ucbvax!eros!max