This new curve is good news for all students — especially freshmen still calling themselves ‘pre-Haas’ — but it’s only going to be applied to classes starting this spring. Previous courses taken at Haas still fall under the old curves of 3.2 and 3.4. Being Berkeley kids, though, this simply isn’t enough. Revolution must be called for! Take action against The Man! Haas kids were so outraged at the fact that this policy is not being applied to previous semesters that they went so far as to create a Facebook event in protest.  We can picture the dean now, calling in all the troops and barring his doors now that the online world is in on the fight for curve equality.

The event was created as a forum to spread awareness of the change and get people to take action through means like letter-writing. They call for everything taken from fall 2011 — the last three semesters — to get that GPA boost, because that’s when a majority of those affected started at Haas. After all, with the competitive open business market ahead of them after graduation, we can imagine they’d want the highest GPA possible to up their job odds and not have to face the “Less than exemplary from one of the best business schools in the country?! For shame, we can’t hire you.” At least, that’s what we think business execs would say.

Do you empathize with the business kids? Wish your mean curve was higher? Or are you one of those English majors who don’t even know what it means for a class to have a curve? Whichever the case, keep an ear out for Haas friends complaining or rejoicing over the change! Thanks to the Clog, you can now chime in and sound extra smart about business-y current events. Not a bad way to spend a few study break minutes, if you ask us.

Contact Erum Khan at ekhan@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter @erumjkhan.

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Other engineering majors that are going to make the big bucks after graduation include some of Cal’s best-known bleary-eyed students this time of the year: EECS and mechanical engineering. Look at Cal alumni Arthur Fong, class of ’43, who was one of the first electrical engineers to work at Hewlett-Packard. Or Sanjay Mehrotra and Gordon Moore, who founded SanDisk and Intel, respectively. We imagine they looked like death warmed over during their own dead weeks, but it certainly paid off.

And WSJ did deign to acknowledge the lesser-paid majors. In fact, humanities and social science graduates will see a whopping 1.9% salary increase this year. That ought to cover the student loans.

However, despite that mind-blowing increase in income, grads in the humanities and social sciences will still start off with salaries significantly lower than those of the engineers or business people — nearly $60,000 lower. Since we know everyone in the humanities and social sciences went into those fields for the money, we figure they weren’t already aware that they will have a lower income. But hopefully they’ll accept that fact knowing they’re going after their passions.

It certainly isn’t bad to go into a stable field with a good starting salary. If you’re on WSJ’s list, kudos! If you’re not, just remember that this information is nothing new: Engineering and business have been the typical money-making degrees for a while. But, hey, we’re at Berkeley! Despite the obvious potential salary divide that will vex us in the future, our inclusive community can coexist in this diverse academic sphere.

Image source: Argonne National Laboratory under Creative Commons

Contact Jessica Rogness at jrogness@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @jessarogness.

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Despite consistently being ranked as one of the best overall undergraduate business programs in the nation, new rankings from Businessweek place the Haas School of Business at a low 57 out of 124 on return on investment, or ROI. The rankings, released Friday, rate private and public undergraduate business programs by comparing median starting salaries of graduates to the rate of annual tuition for each school.

While UC Berkeley’s undergraduate business program was ranked 11th overall by Businessweek and third overall by US News, the programs gracing the top 10 for ROI include those at schools like the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Brigham Young University in Utah.

According to the report, the Haas undergraduate program is ranked low for return on investment due to an exceptionally high tuition rate despite being part of a public institution. UC Berkeley’s undergraduate tuition rate is the fourth-highest for a public university at $14,985 per year, the report states.

UC Berkeley graduates of Haas earned $4 per tuition dollar spent, which is lower than the average amount earned by graduates of other public universities, which was $5.99, according to the report.

This, however, does not seem to be much of a deterrent for many Haas students set to graduate in the coming weeks.

“Paying student loans is definitely concerning,” said graduating Haas senior Richard Tran. “But I’m fortunate enough to have found a job.”

Additionally, though tuition may be a high price to pay, many undergraduate Haas students said they were reassured by the connections, networking and recruitment opportunities that Haas has to offer.

“For most Haas graduating seniors, paying off tuition is not a problem, since most graduate with a job,” said graduating Haas senior Elaine Huang.

The median starting salary for Haas graduates is $60,000, according to Pamela Tom, the school’s business media relations manager. Among the schools ranked by Businessweek for ROI, this is the fourth-highest starting salary for public school graduates and 11th overall.

“Employers view Haas as one of the finest in the country,” said campus Career Center Director Tom Devlin. “Therefore, the average salary of Haas bachelor graduates is always within the top 10 of undergraduate schools.”

Devlin also stated that the average salary for Haas graduates has remained consistently high for many years.

“These numbers reflect what employers think and what employers are willing to pay for our graduates,” Devlin said.

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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Following Berkeley’s acclaim as the world’s best public school by US News & World Report many months ago, it now has another couple notches in its already staggering belt. US News ranked three UC Berkeley graduate programs best in the nation and placed another three in the top 10, proving that Cal is the place to be for a number of disciplines — some that you might not associate with being top of the line.

By virtue of the telling average GPA — which should be seeing reforms coming to it in due time — the always fair test scores and the number of people who get the distinct privilege of putting the title “doctor” in front of their name, the English, history and sociology departments ranked first in the nation overall. Not only does this bring meaning to some of the more obscure parts of campus like Barrows Hall, but on the off chance you’re taking an undergrad English class that’s taught by a professor who teaches the graduate course, it might actually be worth it to pay attention instead of playing Temple Run 2 on your poorly concealed phone.

The College of Engineering continued its third-place finish from last year, which seems to be an inevitable outcome considering that the criteria used to determine this ranking included reputation of name and student-to-faculty ratio – categories that MIT and the pay-for-your-degree Stanford would seem to have a decided advantage in. Haas School of Business also held firm in its seventh rank, notably beating out everyone else in the top 10 in terms of cost of attending. You could save a cool $5,000 by attending Haas as opposed to a depressingly rainy place like Pennsylvania and still receive a better education than a couple of Ivies. Despite their relative success, we at the Clog believe that seventh place doesn’t warrant the incessant construction to continue on Eastside — especially when they’re splurging money on custom backpacks for all of its students.

The last major winner was the School of Law — yeah, that school of law with the gigantic brass panels that obnoxiously reflect the sun’s glare in the midafternoon. We use the term “winner” lightly, since it actually dropped a couple of spots, but still managed to stay afloat in the top 10, coming in at ninth. The biggest surprise wasn’t necessarily the drop, but that Yale supplanted Harvard as the No. 1 institution for law. No word yet on whether this will be a major plot hole in the epic TV series “Suits,” but they still have three months to refilm all the episodes, so we aren’t all too worried.

One quick note before you snap back to reality and your GSI calls on you for the answer to the question she just posed. As much as you may resent being stuck in class when the next few days of freedom taunt you from the other side of the door, you may actually want to pay attention. You may end up sticking around at Cal far longer than you expected.

Contact Uday at udaymehta94@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid

Image source: (left-to-right) Ingrid Taylar, Corey Seeman, & Jarek Piorkowski under Creative Commons

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UC Berkeley’s departments of history, English and sociology ranked first in the nation overall. The College of Engineering and the Haas School of Business maintained their positions at third and seventh, respectively, while the School of Law faltered in rank by two places and returned to its 2011 ranking of ninth.

“We’re thrilled, of course, about our number one ranking,” said Ethan Shagan, chair of the department of history, in an email. “Great faculty attract great students, and great students attract great faculty, so we’ve been able to feed off of our own success.”

Additionally, more than 14 specializations within the graduate programs scored first-place rankings, including four in the English department, three in history and two in engineering. Every specialization examined by U.S. News & World Report across all graduate programs placed within the top 10 in their fields.

Among its particular specializations, the department of sociology ranked first in historical sociology, a subgroup in the department mostly composed of newly hired faculty.

“It reflects that the new people we have hired are being ranked as top scholars and recognized as leaders in their field,” said Raka Ray, chair of the department of sociology.

Despite budget cuts to state funding, UC Berkeley graduate programs have maintained top rankings since 2009.

“We’re especially proud that we managed to sustain that excellence throughout the budget crisis and have now emerged out (of) the other side still ranked number one,” Shagan said.

Rankings for business, medicine, education, engineering and law schools are determined by indicators such as average GPA, mean test scores, acceptance rates, student-to-faculty ratios and number of doctorates granted. However, rankings for other disciplines are based solely on reputation, which is determined by extensive surveys and feedback from graduate program administrators.

While graduate schools of law, business, education, engineering and medicine are ranked by the report annually, other disciplines, such as social sciences and humanities, are ranked periodically on an irregular cycle.

“U.S. News is probably the most well-known among academic rankings and the one that comes to mind when students are considering graduate programs,” said Karen Rhodes, executive director of marketing and communications for the College of Engineering. “And as far as we’re concerned, it’s an accurate reflection of the quality of our programs.”

UC Berkeley ranked 21st among national universities in the current U.S. News & World Report rankings. It stands at fifth place in reputation among universities worldwide, according to Times Higher Education rankings report published earlier this month.

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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The researchers aim to use economics to discover why the widespread adoption of safe and affordable solar-powered lamps has been so slow in developing countries like Uganda.

“The question we have to answer is, ‘Why wouldn’t households choose these lamps over traditional kerosene lanterns?’” said Brett Green, an assistant professor in the Haas School of Business and a researcher for the study.

The research will be partly financed through crowd funding, a system that allows interested people to contribute financially to the project online.

Rural families who use kerosene lanterns face ongoing fuel costs as well as significant health risks, Green said. Although better alternatives exist, families are distrustful of other light sources.

“I was showing one of our lamps to a mother and child and they were afraid of it,” Green said. “I had to show them that I could touch it without being burned. He added that the availability of cheap imitation products has made rural families distrustful of anything labeled “Made in China.”

However, one of the most significant barriers to the widespread adoption of solar lights is the fact that individuals and prospective retailers are unable to pay costs upfront and have no access to credit.

“For these people to purchase inventory, they need access to free credit,” Green said.

As part of the study, the researchers will offer a risk-free trial to build trust and confidence in the product, followed by the extension of a free line of credit. Strong incentives will be given to encourage sellers to return their profits to distributors.

Green added that a co-researcher, professor David Levine in the Haas School of Business, has had success with a similar experiment in the past while researching ways to encourage Ugandans to switch from open-flame cooking stoves to safer, more efficient models.

“David’s past research suggests that a free trial and rental-payment system will have considerable success,” he said.

Through a strategic partnership with BRAC, the world’s largest nongovernmental development organization, the research initiative will have access to a network of 640 women across rural Uganda.

The women in each test group will be provided with four $20 lamps, which they can then sell at a 20 percent markup. By spending their profits on purchasing more inventory, the women are equipped to grow and sustain their own business.

“There will be variable credit and contract options in the initial distribution effort, which will allow us to better understand the economics of how best to approach the introduction of solar lamps into these areas,” said William Fuchs, an assistant professor in Haas and co-researcher for the study.

Assisting the group in the field is Ugandan economist Vastinah Kemigisha, who will serve as a liaison with BRAC on the new lamps’ distribution.

“I look forward to meeting all of the women involved in distributing the lamps and seeing the change it will bring to communities,” Kemigisha said.

She added that the potential change for families and communities is huge. Brighter lights from LED-based solar lamps allow children to study in the evening and give adults more time to work. Many solar lamps can also charge cellphones, which help rural families connect to the world.

If successful, the researchers hope the project will serve as an incremental step in bringing safe, affordable light to the 1.3 billion people worldwide who lack access to electricity.

Contact Natasha Osborne at nosborne@dailycal.org.

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The annual “40 Under 40” awards aim to recognize 40 young Bay Area business leaders who make significant contributions to their industries. This year, Kimber, the chief operating officer for Recurrent Energy, received the award for developing solar power as a competitive energy source in the Bay Area.

“It’s recognition for seven years of my life,” Kimber said. “Most people go into business and think it’s going to be rock-star glamorous, but it hasn’t really been that way. For the last seven years, we’ve worked our butts off.”

Kimber graduated in 2007 with an MBA in finance from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Following graduation, he joined Recurrent Energy, a solar project developer, where he was promoted to the role of vice president of finance after only 18 months.

“I hold him up to my current students as an example of how to succeed in the energy space,” said Haas professor Severin Borenstein, who taught Kimber in a business course in spring 2006. “This is an industry where people are selling ‘green’ more than reality. He’s someone who tells it like it is, and that’s why he’s so valuable.”

Kimber noted that his time at Haas gave him the opportunity to transform his career. While at UC Berkeley, Kimber co-founded the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative, for which he now serves as an advisory board member.

“There are a lot of articles I’ve been reading about what a bad investment business school is and how you can get a better return networking,” Kimber said. “Yet the piece left out is that business school is a time for reflection on yourself.”

BERC aims to tackle energy and environmental challenges by connecting a network of students, faculty and professionals in the fields of energy and resources. To date, the group has nearly 3,000 members.

“You can make anything happen,” Kimber said, noting UC Berkeley’s high degree of student initiative. “You have places like Stanford that have more top-down control, but I really liked being part of Berkeley because we didn’t need a lot of direction, and we were able to build a very lasting element to the energy offerings on campus.”

When asked about what advice he would give to current business students, Kimber emphasized how important it is to “block and tackle,” or learn practical business-building skills.

“A lot of people come into business school wanting to be big visionary entrepreneurs,” he said. “Understanding the vision is more about the depth of understanding of basics and hard work.”

Contact Mia Shaw at mshaw@dailycal.org.

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The regional final in San Francisco is one of five competitions happening around the globe as part of the Hult Prize, a business competition that awards its winning team $1 million to fund a business plan addressing social issues. The UC Berkeley team was named a regional semifinalist last month.

“In the semifinals, it’ll be tough to come out of San Francisco and the Pacific Rim because there are so many cool and creative teams … but we like our chances,” said Kris Cuaresma-Primm, team captain and an MBA student at the Haas School of Business.

Each year, the competition focuses on a different social problem. This year’s theme, chosen by former president Bill Clinton, centers on global food security.

The UC Berkeley team’s business plan focuses on using technology to alleviate hunger in urban slums. According to Cuaresma-Primm, the team will reveal the details of its enterprise on Saturday and plans to implement its project in Jakarta, Indonesia.

“A large number of people who live in urban slums live in Indonesia, and Indonesia is actually really huge but has been neglected,” said Leanne Fan, a team member and senior statistics and interdisciplinary field studies major.

Operating on a “Lean LaunchPad” business framework, the team consists of four students from across a range of disciplines that each add a unique skill set to the team.

“We’re people from so many different backgrounds coming together with high-tech and low-tech solutions to give affordable, delicious, nutritious and ready-to-eat foods in urban slums,” Cuaresma-Primm said.

A.J. Renold, a graduate student in the School of Information, previously worked in microfinance and believes in a business mantra of “doing well and doing good.”

“(I) approach social business space with the mindset of how I will do well with the people I touch with my business,” Renold said.

The team also includes Agung Nugroho, a Haas MBA student from Indonesia who brings with him a networking base in Jakarta.

Cuaresma-Primm said that the UC Berkeley community and the Haas Center for Responsible Business played an important role in helping develop the team’s business idea.

The team that wins at the regional final will advance to the Hult Prize global final and pitch its idea at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York this September.

Fan said that even if the team does not win the prize, it will continue to seek alternative funding methods to build its business.

“The beauty of the core idea is that it pivots very well, bringing together technology that can be used anywhere in the field of social good,” Fan said.

Contact Christine Tyler at ctyler@dailycal.org.

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Together, UC Berkeley, UCSF and Stanford University will coordinate the NSF Bay Area Regional I-Node Program, one of five Innovation Corps nodes established by the NSF across the country. The three universities will use the NSF’s $3.75 million grant to establish training programs to link researchers to the business aspects of innovation over a three-year period.

“The combination of the three schools makes for an incredible asset,” said Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Blank, an entrepreneurship lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and the Stanford University School of Engineering.

According to node manager Andre Marquis, executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at the Haas School of Business, the goal of the program is to educate scientists and engineers on how to create startups while simultaneously giving them the opportunity to test their business ideas.

Blank explained the importance of getting scientists past what the NSF calls the “ditch of death,” or the gap between when NSF research funding runs out and when a team is credible enough to raise private capital.

The I-Corps will teach entrepreneurs the Lean LaunchPad framework, a training program Blank developed for his UC Berkeley and Stanford classes. With an emphasis on frequent customer feedback, the method challenges researchers to test the applicability of their proposals in the business world.

“Every team has to meet with 100 customers over the course of the program to test their hypotheses,” Marquis said. “The method is to do experiments on your business model to figure out whether there’s a business behind your technology.”

The program is a hybrid of both on-site and online lectures. Thirty Bay Area startup teams will spend three days in the classroom and five weeks watching online lectures. Teams will be expected to pitch ideas to other teams weekly and to keep a blog documenting their findings.

According to Marquis, the node also hopes to facilitate open access to research between all participating institutions across the country.

To assist researchers in bridging the gap between science, engineering and business, the NSF hopes to build a “national innovation ecosystem” of universities that would allow academics to capitalize on financial opportunities that their research offers.

In his blog, Blank noted that compressing the time for commercializing scientific breakthroughs and reducing the early-stage risks of new ventures will mean more jobs, new industries and a permanent edge for innovation in the United States.

According to Blank, commercializing science and technology locally and nationally could give the country “an enormous competitive advantage.”

Contact Mia Shaw at mshaw@dailycal.org.

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