<p>Old:</p>
<p>I believe supermtt is pretty much right. Intro anthro courses can be fairly large, say in the 60+ range, but are rarely found in the really huge lecture halls (500+). After the introductory courses, classes tend to get a lot smaller. Certainly she'll meet a lot of football players. Anthro tends to be a popular major with them.</p>
<p>I liked my large lecture classes at then all-male Rutgers. Actually the only really large lectures were in Western Civilization and the introductory American History Survey both of which were taught by some of the best professors in the Department of History. They were highly entertaining and well-planned. </p>
<p>These were introductory courses and the getting the basic facts and theories were critical. I could take notes without worrying about another student wasting time with stupid questions. We had a break out sessions once a week with a grad student where we could ask the stupid questions and go deeper into the readings and the issues raised in the lectures.</p>
<p>There is nothing inherently wrong with large lectures.</p>
<p>When I was at MIT many of the freshman enormous lectures (1000+) were taught by Nobel Prize winners and reknowned scholars. They were wonderful. I can still remember some of them years later. There was one lecture in Physics (AP French) that was so good--"shooting the monkey" to illustrate trajectories--that I went to it again the next year. Ditto Gene Brown (discovered most of the B vitamins) on the Krebs cycle. Salvador Luria taught my freshman biology course, two years after he won his Nobel Prize... and when he presented his own research, he was mesmerizing. (Luria had a thick Italian accent which made him hard to understand.... but was worth the effort.)</p>
<p>My husband still remembers some of his fluid dynamics lectures from RPI, particularly the ones that began with a bang... literally.</p>
<p>Big lectures can provide the instructor/lecturer and his staff--all twenty or thirty TAs--with the opportunity to really create memorable and amazing lectures. But sadly, too many big lecture courses are ordinary.</p>
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When I was at MIT many of the freshman enormous lectures (1000+) were taught by Nobel Prize winners and reknowned scholars.
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<p>William Schonfeld of UC Irvine's Political Science department (still teaching <em>cough</em> years after I graduated, too) does a lecture on Rousseau's Emile in his "Intro to Poli Sci" course that used to bring in graduate and upper division students just to hear it again. It was the only standing-room only class I ever attended. I heard the lecture several times as a student and it always earned a standing ovation. </p>
<p>I guess you had to be there.</p>
<p>Large lecture classes in popular majors are a bonding opportunity -- half of the kids on your freshman floor are taking them. You study together. You complain together. You take the exams together. If you happen to not be Jewish, you make multiple copies of the notes you took at the lecture that was held on Yom Kippur and pass them on to your friends. It's a rite of passage.</p>
<p>A mix of large and small is good. </p>
<p>I had a large music history lecture taught by an older professor who peppered his lectures with personal anecdotes--he had been to Bayreuth to hear the Ring cycle and the seats were extremely uncomfortable. He belonged to a literary society and gave a paper on xyz. I think some of us, both female and male, wanted to be like him when we grew up.</p>
<p>I have also had small classes taught by "professors" who didn't teach anything, with discussions involving other 19 year olds who didn't really know anything either.</p>
<p>I agree with Marian and echo the advice of a previous poster: sit up front where the serious students are. They're the ones whose phone numbers you need to get.</p>
<p>Decades ago, I had several huge (500 student) lecture classes. None were taught by TAs or adjunct professors. Some were snoozers, some were fascinating, one was standing-room only because so many students who were not enrolled showed up to watch the show. </p>
<p>In one case (500 student geology class), the professor actually had a seating chart made up and all the TAs were required to attend every lecture and take attendance. They also noted if they saw you dozing, and if caught, you paid the price. Frankly, I thought it was a good idea and worked well. I happened to be assigned a seat in the front row, directly in front of the lectern, so there was no dozing for me, even though the class met at 7:50 am five days a week.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, your description of large lectures is unfair to many of the profs I know who teach them. My H volunteers for this duty once a year, partly to be fair to the junior faculty, but also to give himself an opportunity to try out his corny jokes on a large audience. He is careful to rewrite lectures and present up-to-date information every time he teaches the Big One. He also reworks the exams extensively and meets with the TAs to make sure they are properly reviewing the material.</p>
<p>None of that is to say I am a fan of the huge lectures. All other things equal, seminar size is better for a multitude of reasons. I don't know about Rutgers, but many publics are trying hard to beef up their Honors College programs; one of the features is much smaller intro classes.</p>
<p>An additional consideration is the size of lab classes, especially upper level science courses. Publics have to run some larger-than-ideal sections because lab space is expensive and therefore limited.</p>
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Tarhunt, your description of large lectures is unfair to many of the profs I know who teach them.
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<p>Midmo, you and I will just have to disagree on this. I'm glad your husband takes the responsibility seriously. Good for him. As for being fair to junior faculty, all I can say is that my experience has been that these classes are quite popular with senior, research-oriented faculty because they tend to require less work, overall, than smaller and higher-level courses. </p>
<p>As for presenting up-to-date information, this varies by field, as you know. A good friend of mine, and my next-door-neighbor, is a distinguished physicist. He teaches an entry-level physics class for poets. He's good at it, but I would venture a guess that all but one of his lectures, the last one on modern concepts such as string theory, haven't changed a bit since the first time he wrote them.</p>
<p>That's not a bad thing. As I said, he's good at it. But it does tend to keep his classroom workload under good control.</p>
<p>In regards to Rutgers, I as a parent would be very concerned about the effect of the budget cuts on the education the institution can provide and the size of lectures.</p>
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According to The Star-Ledger, a newspaper in Newark, N.J., Rutgers will kill 750 jobs, through attritition, layoffs, and nonrenewal of contracts. Some 400 of the job cuts will affect part-time adjunct positions, but teaching assistants and unspecified other faculty and staff posts will also be eliminated. As a result, almost 800 courses will not be offered, raising the possibility that many students will not be able to graduate on time, even if they can afford to pay the sharply higher tuition and fees.
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<p>Above from: <a href="http://chronicle.com/news/article/713/rutgers-u-adopts-grim-budget-to-deal-with-state-cuts%5B/url%5D">http://chronicle.com/news/article/713/rutgers-u-adopts-grim-budget-to-deal-with-state-cuts</a></p>
<p>and also about the cuts
<a href="http://www.rutgers.edu/FY2007budget/pdf/impactstatement.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.rutgers.edu/FY2007budget/pdf/impactstatement.pdf</a></p>
<p>the cuts are one reason we're concerned about cost. although it is not official a FA rep told me they will not give need based grants to anyone with an EFC over 4k.<br>
NJ state grants don't go to anyone with an income over 50k I think.
So RU may be 20k out of pocket, on top of DD loans.
Add to that the potential for large classes with fewer TA and it's scary.
NJ's high property taxes has translated into rage at school districts and colleges, since we can't vote on town buildings, salaries, road work, mandated federal programs etc.
Who people think will earn enough to pay into Social Security to keep them going at retirement I don't know. Although most cannot be convinced that their SS benefit is NOT the interest from the money they put into it.
sigh.
The upside is that I have rarely met anyone who, once they "had" to go to RU, didn't end up having a great time, and if grades are good, easy entry into grad school.
pass me some chocolate.</p>
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As for being fair to junior faculty, all I can say is that my experience has been that these classes are quite popular with senior, research-oriented faculty because they tend to require less work, overall, than smaller and higher-level courses.
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<p>That's interesting. My H was chair of his department for 10 years, in charge of teaching assignments. One of the many reasons he refused to continue in that position any longer was because of all the b****ing and moaning from senior faculty when he assigned them a large lecture. A lot of profs who are not natural actors really hate being on the stage, dealing with rude students who read newspapers, come in late, jabber to their neighbors. They just find it all distasteful and "beneath" them, I guess.</p>
<p>midmo:</p>
<p>Perhaps the willingness to do classes like these varies by deparment? I think that's probable, and it could be that our different experiences reflect this. Personally, I loved these classes because I'm perfectly comfortable being on stage and the workload was less than what I had to do for other classes. The reason I no longer do them is that I feel they do not and cannot use the best pedagogical techniques available to us, and I find that galling because I care about that sort of thing.</p>
<p>I understand the economic issues all too well. But I don't have to like them. And, BTW, I sympathize with the plight of any chair of any department. I've been in a situation where the chair rotated among tenured faculty ever three years. I highly recommend it. It meant one has to be plagued by these things only for a short while, and that one has to be less than a tyrant for fear that one will be treated tyranically by the next chair.</p>
<p>Thanks for the perspective.</p>
<p>OldinJersey-
Being a resident of NJ myself, I know where you are coming from. High state income taxes, high real estate taxes, high medical costs, high fuel costs, high auto insurance costs, high home improvement costs, etc. etc. etc.</p>
<p>Ditto on the chocolate!</p>
<p>My niece in is the Douglass honors program. I know she had to take some special Douglass classes, like something about women's issues (I am not sure of the exact name of the class) which she thought were a waste of her time. There is another issue which she encountered, which I also found out about when investigating two other large state universities for my own kids. It seems that, in many cases, non-majors are not allowed to take courses in certain departments. For example, my niece is a very talented and accomplished musician, but, as an English major, she is only allowed to take one introductory course in Music Theory (which is below her level). My son considered attending Penn State, but was told that non-computer science majors could take only one intro CS course. My daughter, an accomplished artist, looked into Penn State and Delaware, and found out that non-majors could not take most of the Art courses offered. This does not seem to be an issue at the private university and the private LAC my kids chose. This issue may or may not be relevant to your daughter, depending on her interests and which departments she might want to take classes in.</p>
<p>Not sure how this will effect DD. Douglass is no longer a college within the RU system, but a Residential Woman's something-or-other. She does want to live there if she picks RU.<br>
The music situation at RU is complicated. They have the Mason Gross School of the Arts. There is a separate music major that is not performance oriented. My neighbor's girl went though this as well. I think if you audition for MG then you can be in performance oriented classes.
If a child is interested in art or music classes at a big school my thought is to contact the dept and bring a portfolio in to be seen.
DD will be perfectly happy to not bring along her cello. If she majors in anthropology she will minor in biology, but if she gets the BS in evolutionary bio she will, I think, try to minor in Medieval Studies. I could be way off base but somehow I suspect that's not going to be giant lectures.
RU does not make switching around and taking various classes easy in some cases, I've heard.</p>
<p>Rutgers gains nothing from the property taxes, which support school districts. NJ has never adequately supported RU, and is wasting away a fine, class one research institution, which generates revenues to the state through its contributions to the economy in agriculture and commerce.</p>
<p>Despite the doom and gloom of budget issues, drive to Rutgers and see whats going on. They are in fact building up infrastructure, investing in certain sports (ie Rutgers Footabll, womens basketball), the campus is jumping with activity inside and out.</p>
<p>Big lecture classes really depend on the subject and the professor. More so the prof. IN the sciences, big lecture classes were broken down into smaller more manageable lab sections. Yes, TA's handle these lab's. Remember, your professor was a TA once before too! So, I would not just label all TA's as bad. </p>
<p>Big lecture classes are over and done with after Freshman year.</p>
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Despite the doom and gloom of budget issues, drive to Rutgers and see whats going on. They are in fact building up infrastructure, investing in certain sports (ie Rutgers Footabll, womens basketball), the campus is jumping with activity inside and out.
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<p>Although I believe Rutgers is a fine research institution, I believe it leaves a lot to be desired. I have been on the Rutgers Busch campus at least thirty times and IMHO it has no aesthetic appeal whatsoever. Other than the Student Center and the Natatorium, there is NOTHING close enough for students to walk to. No stores, no theaters, no pizza places, no nothing (i know 'no nothing' is improper English). Even the Stadium is a hike. It (Busch campus) really has very little overall appeal. Speaking of Rutgers' football...don't even get me started. They are investing in football at the expense of other sports. (men's tennis, men's fencing, women's fencing, men's swimming and diving, men's heavyweight crew, men's lightweight crew- all eliminated in fall 2007) When was the last time Rutger's football attained Academic All-American status? Like I said, don't get me started...</p>
<p>Additionally, with the constant complaint about New Jersey's brain drain, the NJ Stars program is eliminated. That coupled with cuts in course sections program cut-backs. scaled back services and increased tuition will just increase the 'brain drain'.</p>
<p>I really think it is a shame. A state that has some, IMO, of the best high schools in the nation has a flagship university that appears to be in trouble.</p>
<p>In all honesty, I am rooting for Rutgers. It is one of nine US institutions of higher education chartered prior to the Revolutionary War. It is unfortunate that it is the one with the woes.</p>
<p>William and Mary had some woes too recently. The football program will be making money next year. No D-1 sports program can succeed without football carrying its weight and making millions to support the rest.</p>
<p>barrons-
Hopefully, you are right...and...hopefully that money will be first invested in academics...and then to bring back some of the programs that have been cut.</p>