I just had a few questions:
- Are the classes more lecture or discussion based?
- How much are projects incorporated in classes?
- Are classes taught by a professor of by a TA?
In reverse order…
No classes are taught by TA’s. TA’s assist in the labs or in the “discussion” section and sometimes have office hours. For example, during a week, a class may have 3 lectures (by the professor), and 1 discussion session ran by a TA.
As a freshman, a few of your classes will have projects, but by the time you’re a senior, projects become much more common. For example, my senior daughter has 4 classes this semester. only 1 has a final exam, the other 3 all have team projects that are due. Major, of course, also influences how many “projects” you may have.
Most classes are lecture based, especially as a freshman. UF has been rolling out “flipped-classes”, where they replace the 3 days of lectures (and one day of discussion) with online lectures, but 3 days of discussion. It’s “flipped” because they are replacing lectures with discussions. Instead of going to class to listen to a lecture, you go to class to discuss the lecture you’ve watched online with the professor.
I am a freshman now and I agree with everything above. The smaller classes or more “liberal arts” classes are discussion but sciences/math will be lectures. For example, my bio class is a lecture but my art appreciation class is focused on discussion posts.
I have barely had group projects but I am still in a gen eds and my major is not focused on projects.
Some intro level classes may be taught by Grad students but they are not TAs. Like Chem and Bio are not taught by TAs but some sections of intro level writing courses may be taught by grad students.