I was thinking of letters of recommendation for applying to grad schools (I know…), and I know that there are MANY professors in colleges (unlike, like 6 in high school). Do you college students get to have the same professor as you take more advanced levels of your courses?
If it’s for your major, it’s definitely possible, especially if you actively try to take a class they teach/the section they teach.
For engineers, we take 4 semesters of calculus…so if you tried, you could get the same professor…or you could just let it be random. For major classes, it probably depends on how big the dept is.
Not as often at larger colleges. It can be challenging for students to develop those relationships at larger colleges, in fact. You typically need 3 letters. My D2 has two strong recommenders lined up going into her junior year this year (researched with both of them), and is carefully considering who should be her 3rd among the profs in her major this year. Maybe the third will emerge from next summer’s research experience instead, but she isn’t taking a chance on that.
I definitely have for my major classes. I’ve had two linguistics professors twice for different classes, and have had CS professors repeat too. In fact, I have a repeat CS professor this quarter! I’ve also had one graduate instructor that I’ve had four different times now. It’s pretty nice to have them already know you and to already know their teaching style from experience.
In most cases though, I haven’t had the same professors over and over. I didn’t even start having repeats until I was getting to upper level stuff.
For what it’s worth, I go to a university with 20,000+ students. So it’s definitely possible, but keep in mind that in all these cases I purposely scheduled with the same professors when I realized they were teaching another class I was interested in. For smaller schools I would imagine that it’s a bit more likely to happen by sheer coincidence rather than having to purposely schedule it that way.
I went to a large university and was part of 2 large departments.
Generally no, but you can. Out of maybe 50 courses, I had 3 professors more than once. One professor I had twice, and 2 professors I had 3 times each. I made no specific effort to have the same professors though or anything like that. Though if you are at a small school or in a small department it’s more likely.
Yes it depends on the major. One of my kid major in Comp lit which is a small department so she has repeated many times with a professor but it was great because he’s dean to the college. Even in CS, my kid may take a class with a professor 3 times or twice even. They are usually good professors,
I rarely had a professor more than once. The only time I remember was when I took a three-course sequence that was part of a research program so it was designed to have the same professors and class of students every quarter. I’m sure there must have been another time I had the same professor more than once, but I can’t think of one. It’s not unheard of to do so, but it might be harder or easier in different schools and different departments. It might take more effort, but in general, I wouldn’t say it’s extremely common to have the same professor over and over and over, unless (perhaps) you have a very small school/department. At my school (at least in my department), most professors taught the same classes every quarter, so unless you were retaking the same classes, you weren’t very likely to take the same professor for many of your classes.
For what it’s worth, in terms of letters of recommendation, I got all of my letters from professors I did research with or TA-ed for. I didn’t get any from professors that I just took a class with. If you’re interested in grad school, you will likely be doing research as an undergraduate as well and that is a good place to get a letter of rec. Otherwise, there are many ways to let a professor get to know you well enough to write you a letter of recommendation (such as going to office hours, asking questions during class, contributing to discussions, taking smaller classes, doing research with the professor, etc). It takes more effort than it might in high school when you see the teacher every day for a year, but it’s certainly do-able.
More likely in a smaller department.
More likely in junior/senior(/graduate) level courses if the student concentrates in a specific subarea of the major for his/her in-major electives.
Having the same professors over and over is very common at my university, even unavoidable, particularly in the departments of my majors and minors, but also in many other departments. The school is in the 3,000+ range of students and is an LAC.
I’m a math and CS major, which are both in one department. I’m currently a sophomore and have two professors this semester that I had last fall in math and CS. We only have about 12-15 math professors total and 8-12 CS professors, so that provides for lots of duplication if you are taking lots of courses in those subjects.
I’m also a music minor, so I have the same professors for ensembles and private lessons, of course. But there is also really only 1 professor that teaches all the music theory courses, 1-2 professors that teach all the composition courses, and 3 professors that teach music history.
And I’m involved in the department of theater and dance too (potential dance minor). There’s somewhere around 6 professors of dance that teach all the technique courses and I would bet there’s a similar amount of theater professors too.
Most departments are similarly staffed to what I’ve listed above.
I’m sure this wouldn’t be as inevitable at larger schools, however.
Depends on the major.
LOL, my minor department has two professors.
What does the “I know…” mean?
Anyway, it depends. I went to a huge research U but still had several professors more than once in my majors because I was interested in what they were teaching. Both of my majors were flexible and only had a few requirements which made it easier. In programs of study where there is a very rigid course structure, it might be harder to take specific professors.
Of my 3 letter writers for masters: one was an advisor I had taken several classes and studied abroad with, one was a professor I had taken 2 or 3 courses with, and one was a professor I had only taken one course with but it was a course that was very relevant to my grad studies. (Applying to my PhD program was a different ballgame as my masters program was only 2 years so I could really only have each prof’s class once just by the nature of the program.)
I’m still in high school (the Internet masks age pretty well, I guess).
Did you attend Umich? It sounds a heck a lot like it.
Haha, I think that’ll end very, very soon, especially that there are 5 minutes left for the last Saturday before October’s SAT.
If you have a choice, its best to choose courses so that you can develop a relationship with 2-3 professors, for exactly this reason. Even if that means picking up a less-than-mainstream elective. And I don’t just mean for the sake of recommendations. Working closely with profs usually means better education
Fwiw, I took 32 courses as a biology/classics double major and never had the same prof twice - not even the same prof for orgo or physics 2 as I did for orgo or physics 1.
Awestruck
I’ve only ever had the same professor twice, and that was for my physics classes (I’m in the major). They tend to have some of the same professors teach the same class over and over, so once you pass it, you almost always get a new professor, unless you get lucky (though “lucky” is debatable).
Of course, this varies from school to school. I would assume smaller departments tend to have the same professors for the same group. I could be wrong, however.