4 UC Berkeley crimes that Nixle doesn’t tell you about
If you’re on the Nixle alert system, then you’ve gotten all the community advisories about thefts, mountain lions in the hills above campus and other suspicious activity in Berkeley. But these crimes (hopefully) don’t impact your everyday life. There are probably plenty of smaller, more petty grievances that you’d rather be alerted about. Here are some of the crimes Nixle doesn’t report on — but maybe should.
No curve in a difficult class.
Sometimes there’s that one class that’s harder than it had any right to be. Almost every single student in the class does poorly on the tests, because the tests required perfect knowledge and application of every small detail from the course material. And this would be all right if there were some kind of curve, but (naturally) this professor doesn’t believe in that sort of thing. So, instead, nearly everyone in the class will suffer a blow to their GPA, and you’ll wish you were warned about it ahead of time.
A group member who doesn’t do any work.
Group projects are meant to be easier than doing the project on your own. That is, if all the people in the group actually do their work. When someone decides to be lazy and not do any research or reply to any messages, it can make a group project more stressful and more difficult. And if all your group members are like that, then you’ll really wish you were working alone. If you were at least warned that you wouldn’t be able to count on them, you wouldn’t spend the energy trying to get them to do their part (before eventually doing it yourself).
A 7 to 10 p.m. final.
Finals are already difficult, so having one go late is a nightmare. It can feel criminal to have to go into a test when it’s already dark out. An alert each semester about which classes will have this dreaded time slot would be nice. It might not help a student avoid a 7 to 10 p.m. final, but it would at least show our sympathy and support.
An 8 a.m. class with mandatory attendance.
Eight o’clock in the morning is too early for class. Even if you’re a morning person, it’s difficult to muster up the mental energy needed to genuinely learn things in a lecture that early. This problem is compounded if you’re required to be there. Not only will it make you hate the class because your grade hurts if you skip, but it also means there’s bound to be some obscure way the professor takes attendance. Chances are, attendance is an iClicker quiz or some other form of student participation — and it’s too early for that kind of thing. That makes the class borderline criminal.
Hopefully you won’t fall victim to any of these crimes in the next semester. If you do, remember to alert your friends and fellow students in place of a Nixle alert. The people have a right to know, and it can feel nice to complain about a nightmarish class to some friends. We at the Clog hope you have a crime-free semester.
Contact Zachariah Nash at znash@dailycal.org .