<p>Just curious what the class sizes are like at this place. I know the figures usually posted on websites aren’t acurate so maybe a student or someone who actually knows first hand can answer.</p>
<p>Just today, I spoke with someone from General Education (Nathalie- she was very nice) who told me the largest class they have is for 150 students, but it’s a huge exception to the norm, and used basically only for science labs. Discussing the size of English classes (which for undergraduate students at the typical university are normally auditorium-sized), Nathalie informed me that the class size normally does not go beyond 18 or 20 students.</p>
<p>I hope this is of some help…! :)</p>
<p>That’s pretty accurate. Some science labs can be a bit bigger, although the lecture portions stay smaller. I believe there are one or two general education classes that use the lecture halls (econ mostly), and an introductory 1-credit course in SIS that’s pass/fail, but that’s it. There are only two large lecture halls on campus - one with a 300 seat capacity, another at about 150. There are a handful that can fit close to 100, but those are rarely used for classes anywhere that large. At AU, “big” generally refers to 30-40 students, which some gen eds can be, and upper level courses are almost always fairly small. In this regard, AU is much more similar to a liberal arts college. For example, one of my general education science courses a few years back had 8 people in it (it was over the summer, but still, we got to know that professor very well and I ended up working for him at the Smithsonian for a semester).</p>
<p>I’m just posting to simply say I agree with the above posters. AU only has 6k undergrads. All your professors will practically know your name unless your taking a large lab or Leadership Gateway (for SIS students 1 cred), or if you’re taking a large macro class or something but even then it will not be that big.</p>
<p>From a student perspective who has taken Gen Ed courses as well as classes for my major so far, I find classes to be generally small. Yes, a class like Macroeconomics, which is both a Gen Ed and major requirement for a large school like SIS is going to be a large lecture. However, for the vast majority of other classes (including science), classes are small, professors know who you are, and are accessible through office hours.</p>
<p>Thus far, for an introductory course for a major (i.e. a class like JLS 101: Intro to Law), which functions as both a major requirement and is a course for those undecided in SPA, my class size was about 40 students. That said, there were still opportunities to participate in class, meet with the professor, and I never felt like I was a number in the class. Other classes I am in only have 15-20 students.</p>
<p>For science, my Bio lecture is currently 43 students and my lab section has 15 students in it. So, hope that gives you an idea of how AU literally does not lie when they say that you cannot really get lost in the crowd.</p>