University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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he clock clicks . . ORALS t ' s 7 pm and you ' re watching rera JSJ Family Ties. You ' re sitting back, relaxed, enjoying a Q of Zachary ' s deep dish special along with a cool, refre a gwg Coke. Every- thing ' s perfect with this picture exce ' rt r the minor, maybe even pressing, fact that you do have a midterm In Stat 21 — TOMORROW, at 8 a.m. All you have to do Is stay up all night £Lnd cram everything Into your head. Don ' t feel bad that you ' ve waited until the night before the exam to study. Hey, you ' re Just like any other of the 96% of students who procrastinate, who prolong the ex- tended vacation.

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Brain size has never been proven to have any correlation to intelligence — Neanderthals had bigger brains than modem humans and no one argues that they were any smarter. And say- ing that homos exuality can ' t be genetically determined is ludi- crous. Being gay doesn ' t erase a person ' s desire to have kids. A lot ol gay men and women who haven ' t come out are rais- ing families, and more and more lesbians are being artificially in- seminated. The argument just doesn ' t stand up. — Nancy Keizer, Anthropology major hours on. Not that we necessarily came to an agreement, but we discuss, we lay out our positions, and we say what we think and why we think it. If there ' s anybody else who does this in an introductory class, I never heard about it. Most of the kids don ' t come, but the opportunity is there for those who want to learn something. How many big classes have you taken? In how many of those classes did the instructor make himself available for discussion sections? For most professors, you can ' t talk to them at all. Past and present students have been overwhelmingly positive, Sarich notes. I ' ve gotten one negative letter and lots and lots of positive ones. The amount of acrimony in the class decreases markedly as the semester goes on in the sense that whether the students agree with me is not the important point. They see it as an interesting opportunity to discuss things. This is true even of people who violently disagree with particular issues. The students are great. Any number of students have said or written to me that my class is the best educational experience they have. What I think they mean is that it ' s the class that made the greatest impact on their thinking. Despite a controversy that caused a lecture to be cancelled and several demands for his dismissal, Sarich felt, This Anthro I last semester was surely the best Anthro 1 I ' ve ever done. It was a combination of having more of my own readings prepared, good notetaking. more contoversial topics, some new topics I tossed in that weren ' t present before, good students — some ver ' , very sharp students who wouldn ' t let me get away with anything — and a good bunch of TAs. If you talked to students, 1 think they ' d tell you it was a really good class, Sarich claims. Even the Late Night Notes were what Sarich termed a best-seller. there were twice as many subscnptions as there were students in the class — and subscription requests have come from all around. The debate certainly hasn ' t prompted Sarich to change any of his views. If anything, it has strengthened his belief in them. It ' s interesting to me that some of my faculty enemies have used the term ' brainwashing ' — what that means to me is that I ' m an effective teacher, and I ' m effective at getting across points of view, he explained. I do something on this campus that nobody else does.

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1) It ' s your final grade that counts. 2) The professor is lousy. 3) You ' re not going to major in this anyway. 4) You hit your plateau. Ba- sically, you ' re too stupid. 5) You don ' t know it now, so you won ' t know it later. 6) The curve will be low. 7) You can always change to P NP. 8) You can always drop the class. 9) You can always take the class over again. 10) Better yet, you can always change schools. PEOPLE • Studying 27