<p>Does anyone have any experience with what kind of class sizes you have as a student in the College of Science and Engineering? How accessible are the professors, generally? Any information is appreciated.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I do not have experience but my S is applying this year so we are investigating.</p>
<p>I have been perusing the course schedule to get an idea of class size: <a href=“https://onestop2.umn.edu/courseinfo/classschedule_selectsubject.jsp?campus=UMNTC&searchTerm=UMNTC%2C1149%2CFall%2C2014%2Cfalse”>https://onestop2.umn.edu/courseinfo/classschedule_selectsubject.jsp?campus=UMNTC&searchTerm=UMNTC%2C1149%2CFall%2C2014%2Cfalse</a></p>
<p>If you look at Fall 2014, many sections are full and have X for closed. To see class size for these click on ‘section status’ and a window pops up that lists course sizes for all the courses in that dept. Read carefully as sometimes different discussion dates for a lecture will be listed as LEC separately , when they all meet for the same lecture, which you can see by looking at the location and time. </p>
<p>My sense (someone correct me if I am wrong) is that intro courses run in huge classes of 300. Honors sections of these courses, if available, run in sections of 120-150. Many of these classes include once a week discussion groups, presumably led by TA, in smaller groups of 25.</p>
<p>In some depts the large class size is maintained all the way up through upper div., perhaps tapering off a bit in some classes. In other depts the class size drops sharply once you get to classes that are primarily for majors. Eg, math, where it drops to 25 after differential equations.</p>
<p>If you don’t have any AP English credit to bypass freshman English, that is a small class, as at most universities.</p>
<p>Also, they have fun quirky topic classes called freshman seminars that run in size 15-20.You can take these as freshman/sophomore. I believe you can take at most 2(?) and many of them satisfy gen ed requirements.</p>
<p>If you can visit, find one or more courses that meet on a day you will be there and email profs to ask for permission to sit in on the class. That is a good way to get a feel for things, though any one class on a given day may not be representative and best to sit in more than one if possible. We will do that later this week, but only time for one class, unfortunately.</p>
<p>If you are applying this year, students from the university may be calling you to chat. At least they are calling S. If not, you should contact admissions to see if you can get on their call list. You can ask them anything about life at the university.</p>
<p>Ok, thank you for the information. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer. I have applied, visited, and been accepted, but I am not getting any phone calls. Maybe I’ll check in with admissions. Let me know how the class visits go!</p>
<p>Freshman year the lectures consist of 100-300 people for Chem, Calc, and Physics (all 3 required for CSE). Physics and Calc have discussion sections with about 25 people in them. As for professors, they are extremely willing to meet with you during office hours or any other time.</p>