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February 21, 2005 Vol. 76,
no. 6S
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| COMMON
GROUND: Students leave Math 1B, one of the
proposed courses in the common freshman year curriculum, which would
require all freshmen to take the same classes their first year and
make it easier to transfer from department to department.
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College
faculty seek first-year flexibility with proposed "common freshman
year" curriculum
As any undergraduate student
knows, when you apply to the College as a high school senior, you either
choose a department or apply to the engineering undeclared program.
It's difficult to choose a department and it's difficult to get into
engineering undeclared. Then, as freshmen, students take their specified
classes. At this point, making a change is difficult.
"By the end of their first year, students have made a substantial
commitment," says Associate Dean and ME professor Dave Auslander,
"and there are real barriers to transferring from department to
department. And that's, of course, a tradition of going to college:
changing majors."
For the last few years, the College has been working to solve the problem.
The proposed solution is a common curriculum for all freshmen, regardless
of which major or program they're in.
"We're trying to build a curriculum so that, by the end of
the first year, there are no barriers to transferring," says Auslander.
For example, under the proposal, freshmen would take Math 1A, Science
(Chem 1A for most students), Engineering Design and Analysis, Freshman
Seminar or Engineering Survey Course, and an elective in the fall. In
the spring, they'd take Math 1B, Physics 7A, Computing/Computer
Science and an elective. Computing for engineers and engineering design
and analysis are two new courses under development.
Auslander says the proposal is not intended to lengthen the time students
spend at Berkeley; departments are being asked to adjust their curricula
for the last three years to mesh with the new program.
College faculty are still assessing the idea, but Auslander says they're
on track to begin implementation in fall 2006.
For more on the common freshman year, go to http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/faculty_staff/facmtg-fa04/common-1st-yr.pdf.
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