<p>I've read in the newspaper that class sizes are not so good at Dartmouth despite the image it gives off. Would recent/current students or parents of recent/current students please give their opinions on that issue?</p>
<p>son 08 ...freshman english class 18 students ..sat around a boardroom table rather than a classroom setting..most students dont experience that til senior year or grad school</p>
<p>I think the one problem with reading any article in any school newspaper is that the information is rarely reflective of the the undergrad population as a whole. They are ususally subjectivly based on which side of the ax the writer feels that they want to grind. </p>
<p>It is one thing to present manage the facts and state something like after polling 1050 student in the class of 08, we have found blah, blah blah" Getting random quotes from 2 or 3 professors or a few students is not the voice of the over 4000 undergraduates and hundreds of faculty memebers at the college and sends a skwewed perspective.</p>
<p>One of the departments that the writer did highlight was the economics which is one of the most popular majors (along with government) at the college. At the introductory level most classes at any and every school are large and tend to get smaller with advanced courses. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, it is the choice of the student to decide the level of interaction (if any that they want to have with their professors). There is a difference between knowing the professor is available if you want/need to make contact, and professors being unavailable period.</p>
<p>I can only speak for my daughter's (also an 08) experience at dartmouth which again is not reflective of the experience of all dartmouth students. She said that she has had no problems connecting with professors as they have always been assessible to her. This has been her experience from her largest chem class where the professor really did know each student by name, and wrote them all indiviudal notes at the end of the term, to her abnormal psych class (large intro lecture class) where professor has availed her self to meet D before or after class to speak about a concern she had, to connecting with a professor about a prospective government class which she is taking winter term. </p>
<p>She e-mailed the professor, to inquire about a class (Re-examining Religion and politics in the Modern World). She said the professor gave her an immeadiate response about the overview of the class, then sent a follow-up e-mail which he sent her the syllabus (for a class that does not start until january) and said he would meet with her if she needed to talk about the couse before making a decision to register.</p>
<p>She is also a major in one of the smaller department (religion) and from her experience the professors have been extremely accessible to the point of of her blitzing (e-mailing) them to ask a question to getting a response back "if you are available we can meet now to discuss it, I'll wait for you"</p>
<p>All in all colleges while being percieved as "perfect" are filled with imperfect people and there really is no perfect school.</p>
<p>As Sybbie was alluding to, part of it depends on what department you will be majoring in. I plan on minoring in German, and my German class this term has 8 students. Of course intro classes, and lots of science classes, are going to be large, but you will find that everywhere. Classes such as Econ 1 are capped at 45 here (friend from home takes econ at her state school, class has 300 students in it!), and middle level econ classes are capped at 35. That isn't horribly large, (will be much, much bigger almost anywhere else), and that leaves the student PLENTY of time/opportunities for personal interaction, you just need to take the initiative. I back up Sybbie's experiences, the professors go out of their way to help you, and also to forge relationships with you when they see you are interested. My class sizes this term: 8, 15 (freshman seminar, everyone takes one, capped at 15), and about 35-40 (math class). Next term I will be in classes (tentatively) of 7, 45, and 68 (science class). For freshman year, that isn't bad. It will only get smaller from there.</p>