<p>
ucbalumnus:
The “LAC model” of small classes taught by faculty at the lower division level means that less faculty time is available for upper division courses, compared to universities where lower division courses are taught “in bulk” (and/or where substantial percentage of upper division students are transfers from elsewhere, usually community colleges). Less faculty time available for (specialized) upper division courses means that fewer different courses are offered, and they may be offered infrequently.
Well, no. Most professors at LACs and regional/master’s universities simply teach more courses to account for this. </p>
<p>For example, the standard teaching load at my sister’s LAC is 4/4. Here at UCLA, profs can get by with teaching two or even only one (!) course each quarter. </p>
<p>
bclintonk:
Where I think people get totally misled is in being bedazzled by the high percentages of “small” classes (less than 20 students) at private research universities. Is that a good thing? Sure. But the percentage of large classes is much more important in determining how students spend their time, because by definition, a lot more students are enrolled in each large class…There are lots of good reasons to like Stanford and other top private research universities, but small classes is not one of them.
Classes with 50+ students:</p>
<p>Amherst 3%
<p>Chicago 5%
<p>Georgia Tech 23%
<p>There will always be outliers. Harvard Mudd has 8% of its classes with greater than 50 students, a percentage far higher than Wake Forest (3%). UNC and Stanford share the same percentage of classes over 50 students (13%). Some LACs have even smaller courses - Davidson has no classes over 50 and only 3 over 40. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, blithely ignoring that a difference in class sizes between small private and large public universities can exist - often quite a big difference - is highly questionable. </p>
<p>I have done case studies of this before:
Take classics at UCLA, for example. It’s far from a popular major, and yet only two courses this quarter are small (a freshman seminar and a capstone seminar). The others have at least 40 students, and several have 100+. The courses in Greek and Latin are smaller but still larger than one would find at a LAC.</p>
<p>Alternately, consider art history, which accounts for a mere 1.5% of all majors. Only ~30% of the 20 or so courses offered this quarter (excluding tutorials/ind. studies) have fewer than 40 students. Sample class sizes include 51, 55, 77, 147, 165, etc. students. Compare that to a LAC like Grinnell, which caps virtually every class at 30 students, and the difference is pretty glaring.
Perhaps we should compare the sizes of the undergraduate classes at Berkeley and Brown this semester before citing anecdotal evidence, however.</p>
<p>Berkeley intro to poli sci: 333
<p>Berkeley average PS class size: 115
<p>Berkeley median PS class size: 55
<p>There are some stark differences between the two. Brown’s upper-level political science courses range from 3 students to 155, with only 3 courses having over 50 students. </p>
<p>At Berkeley, all except 2 courses have more than 50 students, and more than 1/3 have 100+ students. </p>
<p>The number of undergraduate courses offered at Berkeley this semester (21) is virtually identical to that of Brown (19) – in fact, Brown would take the lead if you factored in the separately administered IR courses. Given that Berkeley has twice as many political scientists on staff as Brown, one can draw one’s own conclusions about the dedication to undergraduate teaching.
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