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Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

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Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#181

Post by mnau »

ivolimmen wrote: post #121

It's not just 'a person' or 'a student', we as a collective become more dumb. Very simple example to highlight this: Most developers use(d?) stackoverflow. Everything related to software development is stored there. The LLM's trained on it. Now a huge set of developers now longer go to stackoverflow to get answers. Or add to the collective. Stackoverflow is losing money (ad revenue). If / when stackoverflow goes away…

So is dead and has been for some time. 1500 questions per month. https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1926661

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#182

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

sndgndgndgndy wrote: post #78
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #71

>In addition, the guidelines state that “a typical GPA for a lower division course will fall in the range 2.8 – 3.3.” In spring 2026, both classes’ average grades were C-pluses, according to Berkeleytime, corresponding to a 2.3 GPA. As a Cal alum, I am actually really glad to see they are holding the line on grade inflation. I worked my butt off to achieve the GPA I did, and it would really suck to see my labor deval…

Unpopular opinion: turning public universities into an academic hunger games is diametrically opposed to their purpose for existing, which is to create an educated populace. Intentionally lowering the quality of instruction, as well as deliberately trying to trip students up on exams, is not improving educational outcomes for anyone. People who complain about "grade inflation" have completely lost sight of why public…

There are 10 different public universities in the UC system and 23 in the CSU system. The majority of them are not difficult to graduate. If you don't want a demanding education, don't go to a demanding university.

>Intentionally lowering the quality of instruction, as well as deliberately trying to trip students up on exams

I was happy with the quality of the instruction, and I didn't feel I was being "tripped up" on exams.

It's not about "hunger games", it's about challenging students to learn a lot of material and learn it well. Again, if that's not what you want, just don't attend.

The number of places where this environment exists is getting smaller every year: https://xcancel.com/CJHandmer/status/2060144837157118307#m

I'm glad the professors at Cal are working to preserve it there.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#183

Post by senorqa »

justinnk wrote: post #103
threatripper wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that this is an adjustment period that society has to go through. The way we are using electronic devices today, in some years it will probably be looked at like smoking cigarettes. And I'd argue that a lot of the "decline" is due to a shift of skills away from things that mattered more in the past toward other things that are not measured/perceived by the older generation.

Interesting analogy. I believe regarding addictiveness they may be compared. > a shift of skills away from things that mattered more in the past toward other things that are not measured/perceived by the older generation. Do you have any ideas what these things might be? As someone in his twenties, I’m sometimes saddened by observing that some of the skills I acquired over a long time (e.g., writing, coding) may beco…

Ages ago I had similar thoughts. Everything changed when I came to terms with the concept of change being the only constant. A bit of a cliché, perhaps, but profoundly true.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#184

Post by defrost »

fastidiousangle wrote: post #179

what if this is not due to AI use and instead due to the demolishing of standardized testing and "new Math" in the state of california?

New Math finally causes havoc 61+ years after introduction? Oh my.

* Tom Lehrer: New Math (1965) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6OaYPVueW4

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#185

Post by arikrahman »

The main thing I use as a fallback is to keep thoughts connected in a Zettelkasten. This interacts well with AI assisted information gathering, while firing synapses whenever a connection can be made. I use Tiago Forte's method of organizing as needed within a loose org mode confederation of atomic notes.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#186

Post by c16 »

My experience (n=1) is that while I'm definitely lazier on certain tasks, AI has opened up some much more complex tasks. There are many tasks which I still carry out which I don't trust AI with. Maybe it's a result of the codebase I work with being fairly complicated and math heavy, but I'd say the overall outcome for me has been: lazier application on the easy tasks, mind opening on the harder tasks.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#187

Post by acaloiar »

matwood wrote: post #124
HanayamaTriplet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the removal of standardized testing in 2021 was the real reason, then why is there a sudden spike of failure rates happening right now?

It takes time to work through the system and it has been steadily getting worse. It was already discussed on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48309233

I'm having a difficult time imagining how an admissions event in 2021 materializes in the spring semester of 2026 in a class largely taken by first-year students.

Could you explain?

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#188

Post by adamcharnock »

f311a wrote: post #158
adamcharnock wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wondering if there would be a benefit to inverting how we teach subjects now. Previously we would teach from the bottom, and build up. Semi-colon goes here, curly brace goes there, and then build up to architecture, systems, etc. But this doesn't seem to make sense when someone comes to a topic with an LLM in-hand. They need to know high-level techniques, architecture, best practice, etc. As they pursue the…

You can ask LLMs about high-level techniques, and their answers will usually be good enough. What you can't get from LLMs is the taste and judgment, which you can only obtain by having a strong CS base and coding manually for years. High-level techniques were never a problem. You could Google tens of articles on this topic. They are useless too, it's like learning how to drive a racing bicycle from reading a book. Su…

> which you can only obtain by having a strong CS base and coding manually for years.

I hope this isn’t the case. It is the route I took, but it also doesn’t seem to be a likely route going forward. Strong CS grounding is feasible for sure, but I have a hard time believing that a meaningful number of people will be spending the requisite years coding manually.

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#189

Post by alberto-m »

frollogaston wrote: post #138
somenameforme wrote: post #39

The likely 'real' reason is hidden in one paragraph within the article and has nothing to do with the implication of the eye-catching title: "Both Garcia and Ranade have joined more than 1,300 UC faculty in signing a petition calling for the reinstatement of ACT and SAT standardized testing scores for STEM admissions in the UC system. The petition and its accompanying open letter detail similar concerns with students…

Berkeley chancellor told students to vote for 2020 California Proposition 16, which would've repeated 1996 Proposition 209 that banned race-based admission in public universities. Prop 16 failed. Subsequently, Cal started ignoring SAT/ACT scores. I have to think this was their alternative way of taking fewer Asian students, who average highest on that. Soon after I got an email from the same chancellor praising the c…

(minor typo: repeated --> repealed. Sorry for the nitpicking but it confused me when I first read it)

Re: Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

#190

Post by himata4113 »

camelmel wrote: post #35

I have some sympathy for these kids. If LLMs were around when I was a student, I would've also used them to "speed up" my homework assignments then proceed to fail all my tests. Now I work mostly with PhDs who were at the top of every academic environment they've ever been in. And yet I can see their thinking skills rapidly declining as well; many of them can no longer brainstorm, code, think deeply, or write without…

This likely varies person by person or the way people adapted AI. For me AI replaced the boring part of writing code, but has not replaced the fun part of thinking about code and problem solving.
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