When I first arrived at Berkeley, I went to the campus bookstore to see what books were being used in the math courses. I also looked around other parts of the bookstore and discovered that students here can major in Peace and Conflict Studies (abbreviated as PACS):
Naturally there is a course in the PACS major which uses a book about Gandhi, the original guru of nonviolence:
Nearby I saw two more theoretical peace and conflict studies books (click on the photos for a better view):
These photos raise an important question: what's with the "short introduction" subtitle in both books? The "very short introduction" doesn't seem any shorter than the plain short one. Maybe the Gandhi book should be retitled "Gandhi: a short man".
In the online catalog for this major, it says "no coursework may be taken on a passed/not passed basis". That is, every PACS course taken by a PACS major must have a letter grade (A, B, C, D, or F) instead of a grade of passed (P) or not passed (NP). On the webpage describing the PACS courses, however, I found that six of the PACS courses (PACS 94, 98, 99, 197, 198, and 199 -- look particularly at the title of PACS 94) can only be taken on a passed/not passed basis. In particular, PACS 99, whose title is Supervised Independent Work Study and Research is "usually restricted to PACS majors". That means an independent study course in PACS is intended for students who can't use its mandatory passed/not passed grade. Uh-oh, I see a conflict there. I hope some upper-class majors in peace and conflict studies can apply their knowledge of conflict resolution to untangle this paradox. Come to think of it, why is a supervised course of independent work necessarily graded as passed/not passed? Is it impossible to evaluate independent study in PACS more carefully than a crude evaluation of passed or not passed?
Since PACS faculty have so much experience giving out grades of P or NP, they might be able to provide the computer scientists some insight on the P vs. NP problem, although I expect if their assistance is requested they will definitely suggest the correct solution is P. After all, a grade of NP would just create more conflict in the world.
Naturally there is a course in the PACS major which uses a book about Gandhi, the original guru of nonviolence:
Nearby I saw two more theoretical peace and conflict studies books (click on the photos for a better view):
These photos raise an important question: what's with the "short introduction" subtitle in both books? The "very short introduction" doesn't seem any shorter than the plain short one. Maybe the Gandhi book should be retitled "Gandhi: a short man".
In the online catalog for this major, it says "no coursework may be taken on a passed/not passed basis". That is, every PACS course taken by a PACS major must have a letter grade (A, B, C, D, or F) instead of a grade of passed (P) or not passed (NP). On the webpage describing the PACS courses, however, I found that six of the PACS courses (PACS 94, 98, 99, 197, 198, and 199 -- look particularly at the title of PACS 94) can only be taken on a passed/not passed basis. In particular, PACS 99, whose title is Supervised Independent Work Study and Research is "usually restricted to PACS majors". That means an independent study course in PACS is intended for students who can't use its mandatory passed/not passed grade. Uh-oh, I see a conflict there. I hope some upper-class majors in peace and conflict studies can apply their knowledge of conflict resolution to untangle this paradox. Come to think of it, why is a supervised course of independent work necessarily graded as passed/not passed? Is it impossible to evaluate independent study in PACS more carefully than a crude evaluation of passed or not passed?
Since PACS faculty have so much experience giving out grades of P or NP, they might be able to provide the computer scientists some insight on the P vs. NP problem, although I expect if their assistance is requested they will definitely suggest the correct solution is P. After all, a grade of NP would just create more conflict in the world.
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