Dear Professor Azhar,





With all due respect, we are writing this petition to voice many concerns raised by our classmates in regards to the final exam. We feel that the final exam for UGBA 106 is far too long, and feel like as if we are having 2 separate final exams: 22-pg group assignment & 13-pg individual assignment, wherein each portion will clearly take the same, if not more, time that we would study for 1 entire final exam for a 4 unit class. Though we are aware that the individual assignment has previously been reduced from 15 pages to 13 pages to accommodate for similar concerns, simply reducing 2 pages is not nearly enough.





We feel that, especially for a 3 unit class, having both the individual and group portion of the assignment (35 pages of write-up combined) as a final exam is too much for us to handle, and directly limits us to study for other exams outside of the Marketing class. For brief comparison, students were assigned to write a 8-page final paper in UGBA 107 over an entire semester. With this said, it rather seems overwhelming for a business class of equivalent units to ask the same students to complete a 13-page write-up for the individual portion over a final exam, on top of the 22-page write-up for a group assignment (which is also a final exam), when the students all clearly have other exams to study for as well.





Moreover, these 2 assignments (group and individual) are clearly 2 different assignments - the group assignment is specifically on the Pepsi/Nanda Case, whereas the individual assignment is on the general overview of the course. Just because 2 entirely different assignments are combined and labeled as "Part A" and "Part B" cannot become "one final exam." We currently feel that we are given 2 separate final exams that take double the amount of time of all the other classes' final exams, and this should not be the case for any classes, let alone for a 3 unit class.





Therefore, we would like to ask for one of 2 options listed below:





1. To completely get rid of the individual assignment for the final exam - for all students. Currently, the grading seems to be weighted as 15% on individual assignment, and 20% on the group assignment. However, we would be happy to have the group assignment to be weighted as 35%, and since many classes in Berkeley have final exams weighted as over 30%, we strongly feel that this is a fair claim.





2. To provide the choice for students: to go with Option #1 (and have group assignment weighted as 35%), or the normal option to complete both the individual and group assignment (where individual portion is weighted 15% and group is weighted 20%). This way, by providing students with choice, students who feel inclined to complete the individual portion of the assignment may do so if need be.





However, the overall idea is that students should be given a choice. Either the group or the individual portion should be optional, and it is unfair to have both individual and group assignments mandatory. One of them should clearly be optional as each of the portion takes as much, or even longer than, studying for a normal Berkeley final exam (furthermore, as aforementioned, they are assignments that are different from each other).





Though we appreciate your willingness to provide us with more assignments to promote better learning experience through UGBA 106, we are too overwhelmed with this one class, with 2 separate (and extremely long) assignments to complete for the final exam. Giving us the option to focus more of our efforts on one project rather than spreading ourselves too thin would allow us to produce higher quality work and analysis. Our wish is that you could consider our desperate request to lessen our burden going into the final exam, and we hope our voice could be heard through this petition.





Thank you very much for taking your time to read through this petition, and we genuinely hope that our concern could be heard.





Best Regards,

Students of UGBA 106