<p>cloverdale, your son's experience is not so typical of Brown students. I wasn't aware of anything other than sections taught by TAs but now understand that the early courses in Literary Arts (writing) and some foreign language or earlier math classes might have TAs. My kid hasn't had any TAs and so it is not like I was doubting your experience at all but simply that it appears a bit unique to his major, at least at the earliest level courses. It appears that once he gets past the earlier classes in writing, that the advanced ones are taught by professors. Is that correct? There are also the reading intensive courses which are required for those in this concentration, and I imagine those classes are taught by professors. So, it seems that the earlier writing workshops are kept small and utilize TAs, similarly to early math classes, or some language classes. I would imagine that your son, once he completes the concentration, will be working with professors for more than 50% of his Literary Arts classes. Aren't the advanced writing workshops, as well as Capstone writing workshops taught by professors? For me, the school would be worth the money, even if the introductory writing workshops were taught by TAs, but I understand that others evaluate the situation differently which is what selecting a college is about, after all....your own criteria. </p>
<p>I do believe that the Literary Arts department at Brown is well regarded. In fact, I recommended it to a student I'm advising and I happened to talk to someone in the department recently. JHS...I don't see it as quasi-professionalism. I see it as studying, well, a literary art form. As modestmelody writes, the concentration involves coursework beyond creative writing. That's just in the concentration. But on top of that, there are the other 22 courses a student takes. I don't think they are exactly learning a "trade." Just like theater students will study theater itself, they also take acting classes. The Literary Arts department involves scholarly study of the genre through readings, literature, and plays, as well as practice in the art of writing. The concentration (which entails ten courses) must include six reading intensive courses. I believe it is truly set up as a liberal arts degree. The writing classes are the hands-on part but there is the study and reading that goes hand in hand with it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In the humanities and social sciences, it is indeed the same pool of candidates that apply to both LACs and universities. They can't be choosy about which is which.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know about humanities, but, in engineering and natural sciences , if you don't have the facilities (labs), the grant money and, especially, a large pool of PhD students working under your supervision, it is virtually impossible to remain competitive as a top researcher in your field. </p>
<p>I guess you are right when you say a LAC job may be a good career choice for an English or even a History PhD. I certainly think it won't be the first choice though for the brightest/most talented engineering, physics, chemistry, or even economics or sociology grad students. In fact, a young engineering PhD who is unable to get a job in industry or a university assistant professorship right after graduation will probably opt for a poorly paid post-doc position over a LAC faculty position.</p>
<p>I didn't focus on the fact that, with all those dozens of writing courses, Brown Literary Arts concentrators were only expected to take four of them apiece. (I'm sure lots of non-LA students take one or two, as well.) I agree, that's not rampant professionalism, although I don't know how, with only 10 courses, the concentration can assure appropriate breadth AND some degree of depth in one area. (Part of the answer, I'll bet, is that Literary Arts is probably a popular SECOND major.)</p>
<p>JHS-- it's an interesting issue you bring up, since I'm the student representative on the Task Force on Undergraduate Education at Brown that is re-evaluating all of our curricular offerings, and I happen to be on the concentration subcommittee discussing questions just like the one you raise.</p>
<p>Cloverdale, Brown was my son's first choice but he ended up at Johns Hopkins. He is a sophmore writing sems major and his fiction teacher is Tristan Davies and the playwrighting instructor is Marc Lapadula (who also teaches at Yale and Penn) -both small classes. The teaching quality is quite good.
Whether to major in creative writing is another thing. My son, and his parents agree, couldn't do anything else.</p>
<p>I know I joined a bit late. Although Stanford is not an Ivy, it's often lumped in there. When I was a grad student there, I was horrified to learn that (at least in Biology dept courses), a lot of TAs were---- undergrads! Do not know if that has changed, but -!
At the state U my older D just graduated from, many TAs were part-time paid outside folk; in other words, non-grad students who aren't doing it for a career leg-up, don't need the recommendation (some TAs were retired from their careers and wanted to do something with their time). It meant there was no quality-control over TAs, no incentive for TAs to do their jobs properly, and no recourse for undergrads.</p>
<p>In science departments, TAS can often be undergrads. I don't know how common that is. At Harvard, they're called Course Assistants. S has a friend who was a TA/CA at MIT.</p>
<p>I think that graduate students TAs get a lot more training than do CAs, many of whom are recruited at the last minute and are not asked to undergo training, unlike graduate students. As far as I know, CAs do exactly the same thing as TAs: grade problem sets, hold office hours, lead sections and even give mini lectures in sections.</p>
<p>My daughter is a senior and is a paid TA for a course and meets weekly with the professor and other TAs, inc. grad TAs and plans the two sections she will lead, plus has office hours for those seeking help. She doesn't do the grading (I don't think). The sections allow for discussion since the course is large/lecture.</p>
<p>Yes --the more advanced Brown writing classes do have professors, and he now has professors in these classes. The professors are top. I like the literary arts department because it is very inclusive and anyone but anyone can be in these classes: that is a huge positive. However, it IS a disadvantage to be taught by TAs. My son did not even make it to the advanced classes until he spent a semester at a writing workshop at Columbia, where a real professor gave him a level of critique simply unobtainable from the TAs at Brown. With this professor's feedback he was able to --finally!!-- produce something of high enough quality to get into the advanced literary arts classes at Brown: Getting into those is NOT easy. </p>
<p>Because I am a writer I know how important it is to get this level of feedback when you are learning: Writing is one part talent but also one part training. Without the training you can be wandering in that desert a very long time. Having a TA for writing is not the same as having a TA for calculus. TAs in writing truly are not able to give what these professors can --or what any real accomplished writer could. I say this not because of my son --although his experience bears it out-- but because of my own long years in the writing business. </p>
<p>So the department has an advantage --everyone gets in. And a disadvantage --until you get past the earlier courses, you're not getting any real training. Those early classes don't necessarily give you what you need to become advanced.</p>
<p>That's the way it goes: I don't know why people are hostile to this --as if I am attacking a beloved relative. I am just reporting my experience. It is a highly ranked department, but that refers to the upper classes. The experience early on imo is not what I expect from an Ivy and no, my standards are NOT impossibly high. I think they are quite reasonable. I'm pretty sure you would get better training at Bard or Sarah Lawrence in writing right from the start.</p>
<p>My son started Brown as a physics major. If he had been interested in writing from the start, perhaps he would have looked to Sarah Lawrence or someplace along those lines. My entire point, really, is that one should not chose a school just because it is an Ivy. Brown is a fantastic place --but it cannot offer all things to all students, no place can.</p>
<p>I'm not really hostile. I just don't think all TA's are bad. One thing I did notice was that professors were much more likely to like my writing (succinct and lacking in jargon) than the TA's were. I agree that your major can make a huge difference in what sort of education you receive at a school.</p>
<p>And for the most part I don't like the idea of undergrad TA's at all. I know they use them at Carnegie Mellon for some of the math and comp sci courses. What I do like, though is that have a series of courses for minimal credit (I think the equivalent of one at most schools - they count weird at CMU) that are designed and taught by undergrads - they cover everything from skating, to investing to computer languages.</p>
<p>Late to the thread and have not read all posts.</p>
<p>Went to Brown. Cloverdale points out some truths about the writing dept. </p>
<p>HOWEVER due to open curriculum a kid can take a full menu of <20 classes taught by profs if this is the guiding principle of that student. Also due to open curriculum a physics kid can explore upper-level writing-- not typical at many schools!</p>
<p>Though I took mostly small discussion-based classes, three or four of my favorite classes were large lecture courses. I made a point, where possible, of getting into the discussion section that was taught by the professor.</p>
<p>(Don't worry, I feel the same way sometimes about my own son.... there are some nice options in the women's colleges and it is kind of frustrating for young men who would like the same).</p>
<p>The TA vs. prof issue is complex when it comes to grading and commenting.
Many TAs comment far more profusely than profs, paying far more attention to issues of grammar, spelling and syntax, whereas profs will focus primarily on evidence and argument. I don't know if it's till the case, but many years ago, some Harvard departments advised seniors writing theses to have both a prof and a graduate student TF to advise them on their theses for these reasons.</p>
<p>My S was a CA in a course and his students praised him for giving helpful comments on their problem sets.</p>
<p>One minor difference between graduate student and undergraduate TAs is that with undergraduates there may be some reciprocity involved: when I am a freshman, I may have an inexperienced undergradate TA, but when I am a senior I will have the opportunity to BE an inexperienced undergraduate TA. That's clearly a valuable educational and economic opportunity, and if it's part of the shape of a four-year college career there may be net positive value for each student in the system.</p>
<p>That's not necessarily true with grad student TAs, unless of course an undergraduate plans to get a PhD later. But that will rarely happen at the same institution, and there are all those LAC freeriders who come in at the grad level to get the goodies without suffering any of the costs earlier. So the system may not have value for the undergraduates. (I still think TAs are OK in most cases.)</p>
<p>Sorry, joining this discussion late, but it is one that I have some strong opinions about (but I won't bore you with too many of them). I went to Johns Hopkins in the mid-70s, and that university's inattention to undergraduate education was, and continues to be, a problem there - and I think, at most of the so-called "National Universities," particularly those with a graduate research focus. We had large lecture classes freshman and sophomore year, and clueless, non-English-speaking graduate students for some of the courses (particularly math/science). This structure served as a very poor introduction to college life, and in some cases, caused great despair and academic failure for some students who would have thrived with more attention from real teachers. The undergrad-as-annoyance, grad student-as-cheap labor model is endemic among the types of schools that seem to be the goal of so many students, and parents, here on CC. If many knew the reality behind the glittering names, they might rethink their college aspiratrions.
My oldest son is now a sophomore at a top New England LAC (as listed on CC), and couldn't be happier. I must say that I steered him toward the NESCAC schools (Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Midd, etc.) rather than Hopkins, where he was a double-legacy, or any of the larger research-fucused universities, because I think both the quality of undergrad education, and of student communal life, is higher. Interestingly, many of my friends who themselves attended Ivies or other large research institutions have encouraged the LAC path for their children; another thing I have noticed is that academics - even those at the Ivies - seem to have a strong preference for the better LACs for their children - and they're the ones who really know what goes on at those places.
On the other hand, I shouldn't paint with too broad a brush. Some of the Ivies - notably Dartmouth and Princeton, and also Yale, have never abandoned the LAC approach, to a great degree. Others, like Harvard, Cornell, and Penn, are known to be egregious offenders.</p>
<h2>But for my money (upwards of $47K this year) the better LACs just offer a higher-quality undergraduate experience, on the whole, that most of their counterparts on the "National Universities" pages of USNWR, regardless of the fact that few of these LACs are household names. </h2>
<p>^^^I do feel that is painting with a broad brush. I know my kids picked schools, and never discussed U vs. LAC. They picked schools that met their criteria. Some Us and some LACs were on the list. While many Us may not emphasize undergraduate education or utilize TAs a great deal for teaching, that is not true of all Us. I have a kid at Brown and I feel the focus is very very much on undergrads at her school. All professors teach undergrads, as well. The quality of undergrad education and student communal life, as you refer to, are very strong. </p>
<p>I went to Tufts, a small U....again, I was taught only by professors and it felt much like a bigger LAC, and very focused on the undergrad experience. Some of the grad schools at Tufts are not even located on the main campus such as the med, dental, and vet schools. </p>
<p>I have a D who goes to NYU/Tisch. Within her own program there, there is no influence from any of the graduate programs in her school. The undergraduates in her field are given 100% attention. She is not in a research oriented field (drama). In her liberal arts courses, they are either small ones or I think she has had one or two big ones that broke into sections that a grad student led. But even as a sophomore, she was able to take upper level seminars that were small (not in drama). </p>
<p>LACs are great. But there are some Us where the undergrads get full focus, and thus I would not dismiss one type of school over another on that grounds alone. I would look specifically at EACH school. I understand your experiences at JHU, but it is not like that at all universities.</p>
<p>WTWDAD: Thirty years ago is a long time ago, probably too long to draw a comparison. One of my children attended Vassar, and had an outstanding, very personal, education. Another child goes to Hopkins, and although the experience is different, I must say that the quality of his learning experience has been outstanding, as well. He has had TAs, but he seems to have respected each and every one of them, and has found the dividing up of the larger lectures into small discussion groups, led by TAs, an excellent way of clearing up questions, not necessarily answered by the professor in the larger lecture classes. </p>
<p>Professors have always been accessible and extremely helpful. My child especially likes to hear from those profs. who are involved in what he would consider extremely interesting research, and he has engaged in several indepth conversations with them about their research. Each prof. has been more than willing to spend whatever time (outside the classroom experience), and include him in anything, be it on the undergrad, grad, or research level, than he is interested in. </p>
<p>He finds the Hopkins approach an interesting one. The trick for a student is to make the appropriate use of what is available to him/her. And there is so much available at Hopkins, for every learning style.</p>
<p>Liberal arts schools are great. They just approach teaching in a different fashion, and different students will learn better in differing enviroments. My experience is that the kids generally have a good understanding of what will suit them best.</p>
<p>You're right Suzie, it is not across the board. Some large Us have LAC-like programs, like Tisch, or like the Honors Colleges that are suddenly popping at at many of the flagship state Universities - in an attemt to provide an LAC-like environment for the most academically-focused students.
There are many reasons students choose to go to large research universities; some reasons more compelling than others. I guess my point is that many students, and parents, do not look far beyond the rankings and the name, and severely misjudge - or are clueless about - what the academic and social experience will be like. I think at the state Us, stduents pretty much know what to expect. But with some mega-name schools - Harvard, stanford, Penn come to mind - the quality of the educational experience for the average freshman may not be up to the head-turning power of the name.</p>