<p>My son was accepted at some great schools including, Cornell, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, BC and Richmond. With a couple of weeks to go, he is leaning towards UVa. We love it too, but we all wonder about getting lost in large classes, being taught by TAs and not benefiting from the experience of getting to really connect with professors. Although active and friendly, he is a pretty shy kid, so he is not likely to be a kid who will be overly proactive reaching out to professors.
I am looking for any feedback on what to expect regarding the size of UVa and how it impacts the class experience and otherwise. I mention the other schools in case anyone has experience to comare them to UVa.
S was accepted to arts and sciences and will likely major in math and science, but is not interested in a pre-med track.</p>
<p>UVa is a large research university, which means both TAs and professors are hit or miss - TAs could only be TAing because it is required of them while they would rather be researching, and the same is true for profs. We have a website where you can read reviews of professors, called thecourseforum, and that’s the best way to go. If he is doing math/science, his classes will be small after his first year or so anyways.</p>
<p>You haven’t mentioned the reasons why he likes UVa over the other fantastic schools on your list.</p>
<p>appzilla – one of the best things about UVa, is that for a research institution, MOST professors really like to teach and are good about teaching undergraduate courses, including lower level courses. In big classes, students can remain anonymous if they choose to. But, in every case when my son has made the effort to meet a professor out of class (at office hours, etc.), the professors have been very welcoming and remained connected to my son. TA’s though can be hit or miss.</p>
<p>appzilla, When my youngest was accepted two years ago and we went to DOTL, I went to a parent session which was lead by 5 professors. They were there to answer questions. Someone asked the question about students connecting with professors for research. One of the best answers given was by a professor who said he had kids of the same age and he understood how difficult it could be for some students to make a “cold call” and reach out to a professor about research. He actually commented that back in his college days, he found it so hard to go into a professor’s office during office hours and ask about research. He then went on to say how great it is and how helpful it is especially for the quiet/shy student, that students can now connect with a professor before meeting them through email. I thought this was a great idea. A well written email can definitely help break the ice for a student. Plus if a prof isn’t in a position to take on another student for research, it might be easier for some students to hear that in an email vrs. face to face.</p>
<p>Although this child did not chose UVA, her older brother is now in his 3rd year at UVA. He has been doing research for the past 3 semesters. His initial connection with the prof he is working with was email. At the time my son contacted this prof, he had never had him in a class and did not know this prof at all. My son researched different professors and their research to find ones that were doing things that interested him.</p>
<p>Other people can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that grad students mainly teach intro math and intro language classes. Because grad students are used, those classes can be kept down in size. Grad students also lead the smaller discussion classes that accompany larger lecture classes and run the science labs.</p>
<p>Yes, some classes at UVa are too large (particularly intro science classes), and some popular classes are hard to get into as a first year or second year student. The fourth years get priority in scheduling, then 3rd years, etc. Therefore, some students have to wait until 3rd year to sign up for popular classes. Within each year, there are also some preferences in scheduling for Echols and Rodman scholars and certain athletes (who have to work around busy practice and game schedules). </p>
<p>As the university adds faculty (which is planned), hopefully, class scheduling will be easier. Like many universities, UVa had some hiring freezes during the Great Recession, but they had no layoffs.</p>
<p>Today when I was visiting Cville, a student told me about a 400 level politics class with Prof. Sabato that is limited to 20 students, and there are 115 on the wait list. That is an unusually small class with an unusually popular and famous prof.</p>
<p>I had TAs teaching grad level math classes. UVA will do whatever they want, there are no “rules” about TAs that they can’t manipulate in some way. I had discussion TAs for psych and other social sciences. I had a TA teach my english class, and plenty of ed school classes. The best profs are “lecturers” - they are profs, but only teach (no research). The eschool even uses undergrad TAs (I was one). I also took a class where the prof led my section of discussion - that was cool. Technically the eschool has rules about when TAs can teach but I don’t know what the college’s rules are.</p>
<p>Yes, I should have added that grad students teach the first year composition classes, which are small.</p>
<p>For some subjects (such as history), the grad students would like to become professors and therefore typically have teaching ability and interest. There may be some science classes where the grad students are only interested in research, and the teaching may just be a chore to them.</p>
<p>Charlie, The student gave you misinformation today, Sabato’s 4000 level course has no one signed up for it, and hence no wait list. The students are not jumping on board for his courses like they used to. They are finding him quite full of himself and not what they expected.</p>
<p>The student I talked to sure sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Here’s an excerpt from the UVa course registration page that I think explains what is happening with Mr. Sabato’s seminar: </p>
<p>“Instructors who wish to control who can add into their class either before enrollment begins or when their class fills must request that the waitlist be turned off and that the waitlist capacity to ZERO (0) before April 1.”. </p>
<p>In other words, it appears, he wants to handpick who gets pulled off the wait list, as opposed to the standard ordering system.</p>
<p>I teach at UVA, was an undergraduate at Cornell, and a grad student at Johns Hopkins. All three schools use TAs in roughly the same way, mostly to teach discussion sections of large lecture courses, to run labs, and to teach freshman writing and beginning language classes. I suspect that BC and Northwestern are much the same, since all these are research universities with PhD programs. Richmond may be different–I don’t know much about it. However, many schools without PhD programs, who don’t have a graduate student labor pool to draw from, hire adjunct faculty to teach courses like freshman writing and beginning language classes. These people might be, technically, “professors” (and they might be very good, dedicated teachers). But they are often not full-time employees and they are often paid extremely poorly, so they may be desperately cobbling together jobs at several different colleges and universities.</p>
<p>TAs do not mean “bad teaching”. When I was an undergraduate in a science major, I found my TAs absolutely invaluable in helping me grasp the material. The lecturer in a large course is supposed to supervise and mentor his/her TAs but the quality of supervision varies a lot.</p>
<p>Now that I advise a lot of first-year students, I try to steer them to a mix of large and small classes. If your son attends UVA, he should look into the USEMs, which are interdisciplinary small seminars especially for first-year students. These are all taught by faculty, generally faculty who are unusually interested in teaching and in the topic of the seminar.</p>
<p>My son is majoring in math and computer science at UVA, and hasn’t had any problem connecting with faculty in either department. Most of his math classes have been fairly small and all have been taught by tenured/tenure-track faculty.</p>
<p>Re Sabato’s class: while the vast majority of courses at UVA fill on a first-come, first-serve basis, there is an option for professors to select which students are permitted to enroll. Some specialized upperlevel classes are like this; so are some classes that require special expertise (for instance, advanced fiction or poetry classes).</p>
<p>Your responses were very helpful. Thank you!</p>
<p>We are in Charlottesville now and spent most of the day on grounds. Our son plans to sit in on one very large intro Chem class, and one smaller Calc class tomorrow to see what each is like as well as to gauge if he wants to use AP classes to opt out or retake them at UVA.</p>
<p>Son a rising UVA sophomore who wants to major in physics. </p>
<p>1st semester classes – 1st yr seminar oriented towards math - 15, advisor seminar studying original writings re salem witch trials – 15, linear algebra - 30, psych class - 40, intermediate french I - 20, philosophy class - 30. All taught by profs with a once a week small group discussion lead by TA in psych and philo classes. </p>
<p>1st yr 2d semester: Physics II – 35, intermed french II – 20, class on e european folklore - 25, intro computers – 40, and civil war history class - 35. All taught by profs with a once a week small group discussion lead by TA in Physics II class. </p>
<p>2d yr first semester – Physics III - 24, Physics Lab (4 hours a week) - 6, advanced french I - 20, and ord diff equations - 30. All taught by profs with a once a week small group discussion lead by TA in Physics III class.</p>
<p>I want to chime in once more… What everyone has said is definitely accurate. Some profs/TAs are good and some are bad. But you are still getting a public university education. I went to visit one of my close high school friends at her very small private college and the education there was totally different. Everything was hands on, guided practice, the prof was not just lecturing for you to read at another date, it was all about examples and actually understanding the lesson. I was really put off after being at UVA for a year and a half at that point actually! I thought they were being “babied.” So you really do need to visit schools and decide which education is for you. I am very much a self directed learner and the slow pace would have driven me nuts. I like being able to synthesize myself. You really have to choose for yourself how you want to be taught.</p>
<p>I don’t really know about intro classes because I skipped most of them, but at least for math and physics everything besides grading was handled by professors for all of my junior level and up classes</p>
<p>Just to report back, S attended an Intro Calc class taught by a TA, Sean Droms (?) and he thought it was excellent. About 20 students in the class.</p>