<p>I was reading threads from kids at colleges about how hard their bio classes were because their bio class was basically a feeder, and there were faarrr too many kids to recieve special attention. people ended up hating bio and chem because their professors were so terrible</p>
<p>i dont mind big unis- but i dont want profs who are just going to fail and have their TA's teach me all the time because they are constantly doing research you know. are there any colleges that you know of in texas and california, where an above average, but not harvard material student could get into where students love their bio profs? </p>
<p>If you want to get personal attention from profs and intro bio and chem classes that aren’t weeders for pre-meds, then go to a LAC. S is at Grinnell, which has wonderful, state-of-the-art science (and other) facilities, and loves his profs. He routinely drops in to visit (I don’t think the concept of ‘office hours’ even exists, since he seems to be able to find them whenever he has a question.) Grinnell takes special pride in the fact that no class, even an intro science class, is larger than 25 students-but I know all the top LACs are focused on undergraduate education and none of them use TAs because there are no graduate programs.</p>
While it is true that LACs do not use TAs for teaching, it is not uncommon for upper-level undergraduates to assist in the running of labs as TAs. I have friends at Davidson and Franklin & Marshall who serve in this respect. (This is not a bad thing. For potential grad students, it’s actually a very good thing.)</p>
<p>
If a professor is signed up to teach a class at a university, (s)he does so. It is not acceptable for Professor Jones to be like, “Hey, I don’t feel like teaching today; I’m going to have TA Susie teach.” Usually introductory science courses at universities have multiple sections – some taught by professors, some by postdocs, and some by ABDs. The level of expertise, of course, is not necessarily related to the quality of instruction. </p>
<p>As far as personal attention goes, my science professors generally had to beg students to come to office hours. Whether through arrogance or busyness, most people didn’t go. The ones that did received quite a bit of personal attention and tended to do rather well grade-wise.</p>
<p>In any case, any college will have a mix of good and bad professors. A LAC was one of my top choices back when I was applying to colleges, but it dropped after I found out students despised the only professor there who taught Greek. It’s very easy to select good professors, but it takes a bit of time and effort. I highly recommend connecting with upperclassmen and getting advice when you’re choosing classes.</p>
<p>I think many kids like many of the profs at their schools. </p>
<p>My kids really like/love nearly all of their profs. I can only think of one math prof that my kids don’t care for - he’s foreign and hasn’t quite adjusted to the American education system. When kids ask a question, (in a heavy accent) he’ll say things like, “I’ll give you a minute to realize how wrong your thinking is.” LOL Well, it’s not funny. He’s actually a good at teaching math concepts, but his “people skills” are definitely not what Americans typically expect from their profs. </p>
<p>On the other hand, their other profs have been warm, caring, and wonderful - inviting the students to their homes for dinners, parties, etc.</p>
<p>just wondering-- where do your kids go to college?</p>
<p>maybe im being too skeptical? **its just that i was looking at one particular college’s thread, and most ppl felt that their classes were purposely trying to fail them in order to keep the “real” premedders around, and i do not want to run into that</p>
<p>Twenty years ago there was a widespread belief among students that nearly all colleges had intro science courses that were purposefully intended to weed out aspiring pre-med students. I don’t know if that ever was the case, but today I don’t think it is.</p>
<p>These days, however, there are far too many kids who mistakenly believe themselves to be M.D. material (or more likely pharmacy school material), and they weed themselves out because they can’t master an introductory chemistry class that isn’t trying to do anything more than teach them some basic chemistry.</p>
<p>Why are people so against TAs? I know I’m biased because I am a graduate student, but the majority of graduate students go to doctoral programs because they want to be professors, and they are invested in your education and teaching - sometimes more than your professors are. My graduate advisor is a horrible teacher, but the TA for his class was a third-year doctoral student and she was amazing, better than he was. I’m a grad student and although I’m not yet TAing, most of my friends in one of my departments are and their skills are as varied as the professors’ skills.</p>
<p>In any case, I don’t think anyone should rule out a school because of the presence of TAs. Consider other factors first. It’s generally true that LACs probably won’t have graduate student TAs, but it’s also the case that LACs hire adjunct professors who sometimes are advanced graduate students or post-doctoral scholars without much teaching experience.</p>
<p>I went to Spelman, an LAC, and I had wonderful professors. My professors as a collective were much better teachers there than they are here at Columbia. There was a nurturing environment; this is more of a sink-or-swim environment. It’s partially because I’m in a grad program, and don’t get me wrong I get plenty of support, but even the undergraduate program seems to be less nurturing and more competitive (although certainly not as bad as some other selective universities).</p>
<p>I also agree with spdf - a lot of times it’s not that the class weeds people out, it’s just that people self-select out of the major. They think that being a physician is just all about helping people and working with people, and the rude awakening comes that they actually have to learn a lot of hard science before they can get to the helping part. Pre-med classes <em>should</em> be rigorous and hard because medical school is no picnic (I go to a medical center campus and have some friends in med school, and they are <em>always</em> studying). A lot of those students select out to helping careers that don’t require quite as much science. My LAC had one of the best pre-med programs - it was an HBCU and placed the second-largest number of African Americans into medical schools - and the biology major was the biggest major during the freshman year. There were usually 110-120 majors during freshman year out of a class of like 500-600. By senior year, there were maybe 20-30 majors graduating. Most of the bio majors selected out into other majors (a lot of them came to the psychology department, which WAS the largest graduating major, with 110 majors the year I graduated).</p>