Can someone who has gone through/is going through/is familiar with Brown’s Political Science program let me know a little bit more about it? Specifically there’s 3 things I’d like to know:
There don’t seem to be that many courses offered each semester…did you feel like there was enough?
How knowledgable/experienced/approachable are the professors?
How many students were in your classes? Intro, mid-level, advanced.
Also, how are the facilities? I just did a tour but unfortunately didn’t get a look in on any of the lecture halls/discussion rooms.
Profs’ approachability is usually not the issue – it’s students’ lack of confidence in approaching them, especially during office hours. Colleges tout the Faculty-to-Student ratios – but this is irrelevant if the student doesn’t have the drive/confidence to speak with the instructors
Facilities: it’s not as if the PS department has its own lecture halls or seminar rooms. They use the ones that everyone else uses. They’re typical – nothing fancy, nothing ratty.
According to the political science web page, there are 32 graduate and undergraduate courses being offered in the fall semester. In what way is 32 courses “not that many”?
Poli sci majors also take courses in other departments, including urban studies, international relations, economics, environmental studies, public health, etc. So there are more than enough offerings to fill up your four years.
Someone who has more recent experience is welcome to correct me, but I would think the intro courses might have several hundred students, the lecture classes might have 30-100 students and the seminars will have less than 20.
@fireandrain Thanks. I meant there aren’t many courses in comparison to other colleges of similar size I’ve been looking at.
Do you know of any other universities at the same caliber of Brown that might have smaller class sizes? I really don’t want to go through intros/lectures the first 2-3 years with hundreds of other kids. I like schools like CMC or Williams’s approach, capping even intro classes around 15-20 and every class heavily relying on discussions, but those schools usually have 1-2,000 students, and I think that’s too small for me.
If it’s a large university, intro classes will be big. Some state universities have honors programs with smaller class size. If what you want is ONLY small seminar size classes, then small liberal arts colleges might be the way to go.
Now I’ll put in a good word for lecture classes. Sometimes listening to a brilliant professor discuss his speciality is spellbinding – you will learn more from the lecturing professor than from your peers who can give their opinions but know diddly squat about a topic. Lecture classes break down into a small seminar-size section once a week. Even small liberal arts colleges have lecture classes for some intro courses – and frankly, a lecture is a lecture whether there are 30 or 300 in the room. And if you plan it right, you can be done with lecture classes early and take seminar classes for most of your time.
@fireandrain I wish there were a top school that had at least 4/5/6,000 students and had small class sizes even for intros. It seems like they could just have enough professors/classes for courses in high demand and still cap the courses at a relatively low number. But I guess they just don’t exist.
Anyway, I assume you went to Brown, right? How long does it take until you get down to the seminars? And I assume the “sections” are led by grad TAs, right?
At medium size schools like Brown it’s impossible to hold intro courses down to seminar size. Only way to do that is to restrict enrollment. If 200 people want to take the intro class, your approach means having 10 professors. Just for that one class. That is not realistic.
And what benefit is there to a 20-person intro class if there’s no discussion, just lecture? As I said, there can be real benefits to large lecture classes. If they really repel you, don’t go to a large school or change your major.
Sections are led by grad students although some professors will lead one or two sections.
You can answer your question by doing some research on the Brown website. Look at the requirements for a Poli Sci concentration. How many are intro classes? If it’s only 1-2, then you’ll be in small classes by second or third semester. Many students are able to design a schedule with only small classes. It depends on your interests and the requirements for your concentration and individual department requirements. When I was at Brown decades ago, you could only take upper level history classes if you took an intro course first. That requirement no longer exists in history, but it might in some departments.
I’m still wondering what schools the size of Brown offers more than 32 Poli Sci classes a semester.
I’ll echo what @fireandrain is saying, as another Brown alum. Large classes are just going to be necessary in some circumstances, and will not detract from your experience. You need to learn the material in these intro classes before any kind of discussion-based curriculum will be useful for your learning experience. Even at smaller schools like the ones you mention, I’d bet that their intro classes may have small numbers, but are still primarily lecture-based.
I went to Brown in the '70’s and was a dual major, one of them being Poli. Sci. I don’t remember too many details, but I also don’t recall, then, a lot of large lectures in the major. One that I do remember, however, and really about the only class I remember easily, is a large lecture given by Prof. Ed Beiser, who was brilliant, entertaining, captivating, pick your own superlative. His reputation was such that people outside the major made up a significant part of the class, I’m pretty sure (thank you open curriculum). It wouldn’t have mattered how many people were in the lecture in terms of its value. He did use the Socratic Method, as the course related to the law, which was more of an instructional tool (for everyone) than of particular value to the student called upon. He also brought in Harvard Law students to run his sections – I think Prof. Beiser was going to HLS himself, or had gone. My TA was great and is currently a federal judge. These thoughts are just my way of echoing @fireandrain’s thoughts/comments with my anecdotal experiences.
@bonenz, I was just thinking about Prof. Beiser. His class was my favorite course I took at Brown. I was there in the 80s. I don’t recall the sections, but his lectures were amazing and very thought provoking.
Before everyone starts looking up Beiser, I need to warn that he died a few years ago.
I also took Poli Sci 116. One of the best courses I took, ever, and I still use the knowledge learned in that class. A large lecture, yes, but absolutely wonderful.
I’ve heard Wendy Schiller talk. I’ve got to think her Poli Sci lecture courses are fabulous.
i would definitely check out CMC if I were you You could start by examining interactive map on the Claremont McKenna website, which will show u howthe 5 Colleges are truly contiguous…its really like attending a mid-sized college/ university of 5-6,000,
Yes. Ed Beiser did die, so as @fireandrain says, don’t look him up, but my anectdotal point still stands – don’t shy away from large lectures. Brown has some amazing professors that can electrify a large room. I don’t know what the current roster is in any particular field, but the point to OP is (and this was only echoing what others in this thread said) that the focus on class size alone may be too narrow. And, by the way, I never felt that any class that I was in (bearing in mind that I graduated decades ago) was oversized. My D graduated last year and I never heard any complaints about class size from her either (engineering major).