<p>Due to it's lower cost and great departments DD is seriously considering Rutgers, to which she's admitted. (waiting for admissions/FA from all first)
I worry about those big intro classes. Reading this a.m. I found the statement below on two different intro class syllabus pages. </p>
<p>"it is essential that you demonstrate respect for one another as well as for me and the TA. Please refrain from activities such as reading the newspaper, doing the crossword puzzle, talking on the phone, or working on assignments for other classes while in this classroom."</p>
<p>Um, what kind of feedack do you want? I had a couple of 300+ student lectures when I was an undergraduate in the Jurassic. I seem to have survived the experience. The discussion sessions attached to those big lectures ranged from outstanding to surreal. I imagine that hasn't changed either.</p>
<p>Like WashDad, I had huge lecture classes back in the day too. In my case it was so disheartening because at the Big State U that I attended, we never even wrote our names anywhere, we used our student number...7712159 was mine. Here I am, 30 years later and I can rattle it off like my children's birthdates. We never had discussion sessions.</p>
<p>thanks! What I am worried about is the level of education and even the survival level of freshman in giant classes.
I also wonder though not sure I can find out here - are all freshman classes, or most at any rate, this big at Rutgers and similar schools?</p>
<p>It probably doesn't matter much since it's so out of date, but the only giant lectures I had as a Political Science major were Introduction to Computer Programming (350+) and Introduction to Political Science (150 or so). Even my other undergraduate core courses were 50-ish or so students. Once outside a half-dozen core courses I rarely had more than 20-30 students in a class. This was at UC Irvine a LONG time ago. YMMV.</p>
<p>Back in the Jurassic I started out at a small LAC. Transferred junior year. Had to take one core req -Bio 101- at the U. 300 people. Still got an A. Learned the material. Did I bond with any of the other students, did I have a personal connection with the prof-obviously not.<br>
Other classes in my major, and particularly those I chose carefully were very small and much more hands on. I still remember one that was something like "Great Works of Literature". The reading list was 12 books, one of them was War and Peace. There were 2 of us in the class.
Moral of the story-the big lectures will be what they are, a student who wants to will also find plenty of opportunities for other styles of learning. IMHO.</p>
<p>I'm a sophomore at Rutgers. What does your daughter want to study? It completely depends. Will she come in with AP credit and be able to move on to upper level, smaller classes? Will she be eligible to take honors classes?</p>
<p>Certain intro classes are small-- i.e. Expository Writing, Language classes, etc. However, you can't expect Intro to Psych, Bio, or PoliSci to be small classes at any college, to my knowledge.</p>
<p>What might your daughter study? I might be able to give you some more info from there. Also, the newly created freshmen seminars might assuage some of your fears. I've never taken one since they're starting next year, but supposedly they should be cool-- a professor is supposed to lead a small class of freshmen in some sort of culturally enriching way?? I'm not really sure about how it's going to work or if they're going to follow through :). </p>
<p>If you sit in the front row of a big class, you're unlikely to be sitting next to students who want to spend the time talking on the phone or reading the newspaper.</p>
<p>I'm a freshman at a Big State U, and have had (or currently in) big lectures in the following: </p>
<p>Human Anatomy & Physiology
Developmental Psychology
Intro to Sociology
Business Law
Intro to Microeconomics (good old Econ 101)
Financial Accounting</p>
<p>None of these courses have been taught by TA's. All of my professors speak English :) The kids who read the paper, text, etc, generally aren't in the front sections and if your child sits in the front area they can pay attention better, atleast from what I've experience. </p>
<p>Also my school has "Supplemental Instruction" sessions at night for most of the harder 100 or 200 level courses. These are help sessions in groups of 15-20 students where a student who has previously taken the course with the SAME instructor and gotten I think an A- or above, helps with test review, problem sets, etc. And the SI Student also sits in on one section of the course so they are up to date on what's been discussed in class. Check to see if Rutgers has a program similar. I've been going to it for my Econ and Accounting and even though I thought I understood the material, the SI sessions REALLY help and statistically raise the grade by one full letter.</p>
<p>Here's the deal. Large classes pay the rent. Take the semester hour rates for the class, multiply by the number of students taking the class, and you can easily end up in six figures, depending on the school and the class mix. The TAs are paid dirt. The instructor, often a tenured member of th faculty, spends minimal time on the class because he/she already has all the lecture notes, the tests are multiple choice and machine scored, and TAs do all the work.</p>
<p>Students, on the other hand, would do just as well watching a videotape of the lectures and never coming to class. Distance learning, in which there is a chat function, might actually be a better experience.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, once one gets into one's major, classes tend to become smaller. The large classes are cattle drives. There's no getting around that. But they fund the smaller classes.</p>
<p>My son thinks that the biggest disadvantage of the large lectures are the lack of additional grading....ie:class participation, presentations. He has talked about this with one of his friends who is a freshman at Rutgers, and compared with the OOS he attends, which is 1/2 the size. My son can take the large lectures, but has found alternative options at his school if he wants them. So far he has only opted to take one large class of about 100. </p>
<p>Frankly, I found large lectures, and professors/TAs who don't speak English well to be a huge problem. I was not willing to put my son in that environment. He attends a school that is much bigger than I was hoping for, but I have found that since it is student focused, and focused on the undergraduate, they can make a big environment feel small.</p>
<p>My experience with large classes has been the way Tarhunt describes it. In fact, my bio professor just stood there and read word for word from our textbook. That was it, he did nothing more. Kids did not ask questions, he did not discuss, he did elaborate, but just read.</p>
<p>supermtt37 - she would like to major in anthropology, perhaps the BS track in evolutionary anthro.
If she takes the BA track she'd like to minor in bio but if the BS track she might look at the medieval studies minor, or still the bio minor.
Unless something changes her mind she'd live at Douglass.
She has completed AP bio, scored a 4. Now taking AP Calc, AP Physics. with luck and math tutor she should get a 4 in those as well.
the link above doesn't work through here, and haven't yet found the freshman seminar info.</p>
<p>You have to click the link... CC puts an ellipsis in between links to make them shorter but you can't copy and paste the link into a browser.</p>
<p>Sorry... I don't know too much about anthropology. It's not an incredibly popular major like psych or communications though, so after the intro class your daughter should find that the class size will be relatively small. (and for medieval studies, I doubt you'd get any large classes). However, a bunch of bio classes are large lectures: chem, organic chem, genetics, biochemistry, etc. are large lectures because everyone and their mom at Rutgers is pre-med. </p>
<p>Was your daughter invited to the honors program? If so, I'd suggest going to a scholar's day to meet the deans and talk to students in areas of study that your daughter is interested in.</p>
<p>By the way, I'm a biochemistry and philosophy double major. I was able to take a small organic class because it was an honors version. My biochem lecture was big though, but I still really enjoyed it because I really liked the professor and went to his office hours to talk about other topics. So, again, you're going to get a mix of classes at Rutgers. If your daughter chooses her classes wisely and tries to pick good professors, even the large lecture classes will be great. (i.e. my intro to philosophy lecture was amazing.)</p>