I am wondering about class sizes for CS courses at Cal Poly, particularly in the lower level courses. I found some information about class sizes at UC Davis. Quite a few of the courses in the first two years have classes of 150 - 380 students. I realize that there are discussion sections that go along with these courses, but those are some big classes.
The biggest lecture hall on the whole campus, The Silo in the Business School, holds just over 200. For very rare big classes they’ll use the concert hall. I can’t speak for CS, but my son took Materials Engineering, a class that nearly every engineer regardless of discipline has to take, in the Silo and Intro to Psych in the concert hall. All of his other classes have been small, 50 or less. I’d guess CS is similar, with few if any large classes, but hopefully a CS student or alum can confirm that.
Intro to CS at Berkeley has over 1000 students in the lecture. They use Wheeler and overflow into other classes with video feeds. I think it’s officially the largest college class in the nation. That would suck!
@ocgolfdad: Not too knowledgeable about SLO’s class sizes, but at the UC’s, lower division classes are usually large. As @eyemgh pointed out, UCB and even UCLA have huge lecture classes. My older son is a 3rd year at UCD and the largest class (not CS) has been around 250. Once the students get into the upper division classes you are looking at 50 or less. Small class sizes are definitely a good reason to attend SLO.
All computer science classes were under 40 students, can’t recall the exact figure. A few may have been a bit more, I’m guessing because students ended up dropping out. Most computer science classes, from the very first quarter on, have both lecture and lab, so there has to be class size limits as the computer labs have only so many computers/seats per classroom.
There were no CSC large lectures, only a few GE large lectures. I doubt there are very many large lecture classrooms on the entire campus. That’s my recollection as a parent.
@ocgolfdad my freshman is in CS 102 (second level class this quarter) there are 10 kids in his lab group. Under 40 in the lecture— had received credit for 101 from AP exam in CS.
@Dadfan Did his HS AP class adequately prepare him for CS 102? Or would you recommend repeating the equivalent class (I’m guessing CS 101) at Poly?
@ocgolfdad Yes it did. He skipped 101 and is taking 102 and finding it not too difficult so far. He spoke with a professor before deciding to move straight to 102 to make sure it was right level for him.
@Dadfan When did you talk to the professor? Did you need to make an appointment? Thanks!
@zach2016, the best way to make this decision for ANY class where you’ll be getting AP/IB credit is to go online and get the syllabus and tests for the class you want to skip. If you can’t find them, call the department and let them know why you want it. They’ll almost always give it to you. That way you won’t waste your time and money and conversely, you won’t get in over your head if you aren’t ready.
My student did talk to the professor during the first week of classes and the professor helped him add the class to his schedule