<p>In American universities, there are essentially five ways courses are set up, although the terminology isn’t always the same.</p>
<p>Some courses, usually basic courses with huge registrations, are taught entirely or almost entirely in small sections (“small” meaning ~20), usually by graduate students. A single course may have 15-20 such sections, all covering the same material at the same time, but the entire course may never meet as a group, or may meet for only one or two lectures. This applies to something like basic math courses.</p>
<p>Large lecture courses are taught as described above. There will usually be 2-3 lectures a week, by a single full faculty member (with occasional guests), and then one additional meeting per week in regular small groups with a graduate student teaching fellow to discuss the lecture material, answer questions, review homework, etc. Required introductory and intermediate courses in most fields are taught this way.</p>
<p>Small lecture courses – for courses with fewer than 50 students, usually there are no discussion sections. There is usually still at least one teaching fellow associated with the class to whom you can go for help (and who will be grading your assignments), but class itself will involve a fair amount of back-and-forth with the professor.</p>
<p>Seminars – 15-20 students or fewer, sitting around a table with a single teacher (who may sometimes be an advanced graduate student). Supposedly lots of discussion, but sometimes indistiguishable from a small lecture except for the seating arrangements. Also, seminars rarely have exams or problem sets, and are generally graded based on significant individual papers done by the students.</p>
<p>Tutorials – Most departments have some structure for one-on-one tutorials for upperclassmen, although this can vary from department to department and university to university. This can be directed reading on a topic of interest to the student, where the student recruits a faculty member to supervise him and to read/grade whatever work product he produces. It is often a “senior essay” option or requirement where a senior does independent work over the course of an academic year and produces a significant paper under the supervision of a specific faculty member in his department. But neither of these usually involves the amount of contact one would have with one’s tutor at Oxbridge.</p>
<p>Most freshmen have most of their courses as the first two types, although most universities try to make certain their freshmen have at least one seminar per term. By one’s third year, the reason to take a large lecture course would be because it is really interesting and entertaining. At a place like Harvard, the largest courses will be those where the subject matter is of general interest and the professor known to be an excellent performer in front of large crowds.</p>