Undergraduates and UC Schools

As one who transferred from a community college to graduate from a UC school and returned to teach at the community college level, I can offer a hardy amen to Moore’s column.

Several years ago, I was asked to teach an “honors” class in introductory psychology. Such courses were established for the benefit of students who had qualified for UC admission but who couldn’t be placed on a UC campus (as compared to my regular community college class in the subject, which was already treated as equivalent and transferable to UC).

Curious as to the nature of this alleged superiority, I sat in on the “equivalent” classes at a UC school. I also checked out several such classes at a Cal State campus. I discovered that if I were to teach this subject at the same academic level as UC and Cal State, I would have to lower my academic standards from those I used in my regular community college classes!

First, I would have to increase my class size up from 35 or so students to about 100 to 300 students. Then, I would have to stop my practice of assigning the entire textbook (one UC professor announced that he wouldn’t even test students on the text). Next, I would have to restrict my testing procedures to just two or three multiple-choice tests. And finally, I would have to turn over the majority of my teaching responsibilities to a graduate student.

LEON H. ALBERT

Los Angeles Valley College