<p>Life would be so simple if “Highly ranked research university where prof’s primary focus is his research and UG where teaching students is primary focus of faculty”.</p>
<p>Then all of us idiots who went to research universities and sent our kids to same could be chastised for … well… being idiots.</p>
<p>I had classes at a large research U which took place in the largest lecture hall on campus which had students standing in the back, sitting in the aisles, standing outside the doors in the hallways. Registration was capped at the maximum capacity of the room and still- dozens of students made it their business to show up during their free time just to listen- they’d been shut out of registering, but the lectures were so fascinating and compelling that they’d rather stand in the hall then miss the opportunity.</p>
<p>My kids had Nobel laureates and other “famous people” as well as just plain fantastic professors. Sometimes large lectures, sometimes small symposia, sometimes medium sized (20-30) classes.</p>
<p>You guys need to get out more. Whoever started the fiction that large classes are bad and small classes are good never took a boring seminar in college with 8 other, similarly bored students, or a phenomenal large lecture where students would applaud and give a standing ovation after every single class.</p>
<p>Newsflash- what gets some of these “brand name famous professors” their fame- is often their teaching. Their ability to communicate and reach and teach and provoke. You can’t seriously believe that every single parent who sends their kid to a large research U does so because they are too stupid to understand what good teaching is?</p>