<p>After just 1 semester, my very shy and very bright daughter (National Merit Commended Student; AP Scholar with Honors, music and literary ECs) has left Sarah Lawrence College, where we thought she'd flourish, but where she found it to be too small, intense and imtimate, with too much personal interaction with professors(for her taste) and too much of an expectation (actually requirement) to speak up in tiny classes of strongly opinionted (and uncoventional), very vocal classmates (she is unconventional compared to her very mainstream, upper middle class suburban high school, but not so much at SLC). It was simply too overwhelming for her particular temperament. She is considering trying out NYU as a visting student, since she can commute from home, which she believes she'll prefer to dorm life.Can anyone shed some light as to the "culture" at NYU? Those who are there from her HS range from driven business types to hopeful actors and film directors. She is none of those, and would probably major in psychology, philosophy or linquistics/languages.
Obviously, the school and city are huge, and she desires a good degree of anonymity. But if the classes are small, would she end up in the same environment that she didn't like at SLC?Her grandfather taught at NYU in the 60s, but it's a different school now!</p>
<p>Hey My3Daughters:
Anonymity is definitely possible at NYU, and personal interaction with professors isn’t too prevalent. The classes are typically very large. This semester, I only had one class (a 16-person Writing class) that had less than 200 people in it. Even in that small class, we weren’t really expected to have too much of a personal interaction with our professor. When it came to the larger classes, personal interaction was basically not even an option. </p>
<p>I don’t think there is a set culture here… there really are a lot of students here, and your experience here depends on who you are and who you choose to hang out with. </p>
<p>I hope this was helpful :)</p>
<p>Thanks so much NYC2017! That helps a lot!</p>
<p>I have one daughter who graduated NYU as a vocal performance major and another who is currently there as a studio art major. Except for one or two large intro lecture classes in computers and nutrition, almost all of the classes that both daughters have taken were in the 10 to 20 student range.</p>
<p>I know there are large lecture classes in some majors, but I do not know what the situation would be for the majors/ minors your D would be considering.</p>
<p>I would definitely call each of the departments to find out about classes she may be interested in. For both of my D’s, because of the nature of their majors, their experience at NYU has been small intimate departments with small class sizes and close relationships with faculty and advisors.</p>
<p>^^Hmmm…that’s what I was concerned about. While I would think the vast majority of people favor and benefit from small classes with lots of personal attention, my daughter isn’t ready for that, and, having spoken to shy adults I know, may never be. I would say your daughters’ majors naturally lend themselves to smaller classes – I will have to check out the class sizes in her possible majors, as you suggest.</p>
<p>My3Daughters…your daughter is lucky to have you as a parent. Most parents would not understand what your daughter is going through and “force” her to continue at a prestigious school that she is uncomfortable attending. Everyone is different and has different strengths. Given time she will find a school that she is comfortable with.</p>
<p>If you go on NYU’s web site and then get on the registrar’s home page you can do a search for classes. It does not say the number of student’s per class in the descriptions, but at least you can narrow down what classes she may be interested in taking and then call the appropriate departments involved to see class size, etc.</p>
<p>My daughter attended NYU last year and her classes ranged from huge lectures (organic chemistry) to very small history and Latino studies classes. She was a dance major at Tisch, and of course those classes were small. I think your daughter could identifiy the size of class that she wanted, although I think the writing the essay class is required at some point. However, she will be very limited as a transfer student to what’s open at the time she registers. My daughter, who was a transfer, had a terrible time the first semester just finding classes that weren’t closed, so she ended up in some unusual courses. The premed requirements really fill up quickly. Even in the small classes, it depended on the professor the level of participation and interaction that was expected; in some she found a quite political bent to the discussion, and found her perspectives challenged by the professors and other students. She found this to be a great learning and growing experience, which she enjoyed, but it was somewhat intimidating, that’s for sure. However I think it’s more likely that classes will have too little attention on the individual student rather than too much, especially at the lower levels.</p>
<p>Thanks, all, for the insights, info and support!! I think she will start out taking lectures – I assume they are marked as such for registration – and those are bound to be large classes. We’ll go from there, but at this stage of her life, she wants to observe and absorb, learn and do her assignments and take the exams, and not have to engage in debates (that is the part of school I loved, but I wasn’t shy like she is), and be graded on sharing her personal opinions with students and professors. To me, that engagement is the best part of education, but her shyness (bordering on social phobia) makes that torture, and she is so bright and accomplished, I don’t want that to stand in the way of her getting a stellar learning experience, even if, for her, most of that comes from reading, listening and private reflection.</p>
<p>I checked on the website on Albert. All classes regardless of size are marked lecture. Some additionally have labs or recitations (small group meetings) that need to be registered for in addition to the lecture.</p>
<p>I thought they might show class size or how many students are registered, but I couldn’t find that. I suggest you call departments for this info.</p>
<p>Thanks for the research, uskoolfish! I will make the calls and find out for sure. I think as long as there is not a hard and fast requirement to speak in class, she will be ok.</p>