<p>The intro psych classes tend to be large, with break-out discussion groups; the lower-level English classes tend to be 25 or so. Introductory language courses are also fairly small. Higher-level psych courses are smaller and more specialized. If your daughter majors in English here she will have three required large lecture courses, which most people take in their second and third year; these break out for discussion groups twice weekly. All her other English classes can be pretty small if she prefers. There is a special series of seminars on interdisciplinary subjects for first-years and underclass students called USEMs, designed to get kids into smaller, discussion-format classes early in their time at UVA.</p>
<p>What that means is that if your daughter is planning to major in a non-science subject, and she has a typical first/second year schedule, she would likely have one large lecture class a semester, and the rest smaller classes. Lecture classes are not the kiss of death! Although, at the end of high school, I thought I much preferred seminar discussion, I actually loved the lecture format as an undergraduate because I got to follow an extended, well-organized train of thought, rather than having it constantly interrupted by somebody’s random interjection. Lecture classes also allowed me exposure to really major people outside my field at my undergraduate university (Cornell), whom I probably wouldn’t have had the chance to meet otherwise. At UVA, in the departments I know about, lecture courses are typically assigned to experienced senior faculty, not to beginners. That’s partly because a lecture class is harder to do well, and partly because the lecturer is generally in a supervisory role over the discussion section leaders: running staff meetings, making sure grading is fair across sections, writing final teaching evaluations of the discussion leaders at the end of term, and so on. </p>
<p>UVA faculty are accessible if the student wants them to be. Everybody must post office hours and most faculty are flexible about meeting with students at other times as well. Each student has a faculty academic adviser and can change this adviser, if he or she wishes, to somebody more compatible or knowledgeable about his/her prospective major. If a student or group of students wishes to take a faculty member to lunch, the dean will pay; in my department, faculty can get partial reimbursement for food if they plan social events with students. Some students really leap at these opportunities for interaction, and others don’t. My S, a current first-year at UVA, is on quite friendly terms with his academic advisor, with a couple of the professors in his prospective major, and with the professor in his foreign language class (same person both fall and spring). He violently disliked one of his professors in the fall semester, so obviously didn’t seek this guy out; another one–apparently an intimidatingly smart mathematician–he admired from a distance but didn’t really get to know. He lives in a residential college and has also gotten acquainted with some faculty members outside his fields of interest from the college programs.</p>
<p>Since UVA doesn’t offer a communications major, kids who are interested in journalism here generally major in English or media studies and get heavily involved with the Cav Daily or other student-run periodicals. Some volunteer for WTJU, the radio station.</p>