There’s now more evidence why professors are begging University of California overseers to reinstate standardized testing — as shocking rates of students are failing computer science courses at the University of California, Berkeley.
The percentage of failing grades were higher this past spring than in previous semesters, according to an analysis done by the student newspaper Daily Californian.
More than 35% of students failed an entry-level course described as “a gentle but thorough introduction to computer science,” the analysis said, when previously the failing rate was typically 7%. Two other courses also saw significantly higher failing grades as well.
UC Berkeley teaching professor Dan Garcia, who taught two of the courses, told the Californian that he blamed students heavily relying on artificial intelligence models to get through the class. Some models, such as Anthropic’s Claude, are well known for being able to create code.
Nearly 30 students in CS 10 were caught cheating on take-home exams, he said.
“But in other cases, it’s students who are leaning a little too hard on LLMs to do their work for them, and then at exam time just really aren’t ready,” Garcia said.
Garcia also noted that students are now mathematically underprepared. He was one of 1,300 UC faculty that shockingly said in a letter they’ve been forced to teach “middle school” math in Calculus and other courses.
They blamed a 2020 vote by the University of California Board of Regents to stop requiring SAT and ACT scores in admissions after lawyers representing low-income students argued the metrics were “racist.”
The California Post reached out to the UC system for comment.
Another professor, Gireeja Ranade, told the Californian that one student even told her a linear algebra class at UC Berkeley had an “open-internet, open-AI policy” for homework and exams.
“We really need to make sure that we are preparing our students to be solid, contributing citizens and leaders — these are Berkeley students: not just next year or the year after, but for the next 40 years of their lives,” Ranade said.
