<p>I was originally going to title this thread "Chicago vs. Reed College," because at this moment, I am deferring admission from the latter. That being said, I'm interested in Chicago (along with a few other lesser-known schools) but not because I feel one school is superior to the other academically. Rather, it's the structural differences that intrigue me.</p>
<p>For those who don't know, Reed College is a small liberal arts in Portland OR known for its intellectual student body, intense academic workload, and extremely conservative cirriculum, (which resembles Chicago's core / Great Books in many ways.) Being the small school that it is, it lacks the resources and breadth of academic options that a larger, research university enjoys, which is precisely why Chicago interests me. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Reed has a lot to offer BECAUSE it is small. Classes tend to be small, discussion-based, and taught by full-time professors 100% of the time. Additionally, Reed students have endless reseach opportunities of their own, and get to write an undergraduate thesis, regardless of their academic standing or "Honors" status.</p>
<p>While Chicago is one amongst many larger research universities in the United States, I am drawn to its unique dedication to the liberal arts. Truly, it's in a category of its own. Still, I can't help but wonder if Chicago's unusual mission works in effect. For those who already attend, do larger, lecture-based classes taught by the occasional TA leave more to be desired in Chicago's core cirriculum?</p>
<p>Core classes at Chicago are taught by full time professors and capped at 24 or 25 students if I am correct. I've heard someone on this forum say that it feels like a liberal arts college even though it's not. I honestly doubt that the class sizes at Reed would actually be smaller than those at UChicago. Though class sizes are often a selling point of liberal arts colleges, big, elite universitities like some of the Ivies, UChicago, and others offer the same class sizes or smaller in practice. Usually the % of classes with 50 or more students at those "big" universities is maybe 5 to 10%, while it is maybe 3-8% at the LACs. The student:faculty ratio at the big schools is usually 5:1 or 10:1 while the LAC are usually 8:1 to 12:1. Can you tell me that is a big difference clearly breaking in favor of the LACs? I don't think so. And since the big universities typically offer a much wider group of classes to choose from, if you don't want a huge class that might be there, it can be avoided.</p>
<p>Both are great schools. I encouraged my daughter to look at Reed. Reed has a few negatives in my opinion - 1) going back to my day it had the reputation of being ridden with drugs (don't know if this is still true) 2) from what I've read many Reed students live off-campus and their only participation in the school is coming to class, at Chicago there is a much greater sense of community, 3) what really impressed me about Chicago is the school's total lack of political correctness - whether you stand on the Left or Right, no one tries to stifle anyone's voice. I suspect Reed has a very Left lean and is tone-deaf to any voice that doesn't speak in that chord.</p>
<p>Yeah I am prolly biased against Reed, being an ultraconservative myself. I read a lot of critiques of modern universities, and Chicago attracted me with it's Core curriculum and the freedom-oriented Econ deparment. I would suspect that Reed's Core would be "liberalized" in the political sense of the term.</p>
<p>To speak to the structural differences: The core classes at Chicago are very similar to what you described from Reed. They may sometimes be taught by post-doctoral fellows, or the occasional ABD (all-but dissertation completed for a Ph.D.), but basically they're 18-20-person discussions with someone who knows a lot about the topic (and I've had the undergraduate chair of philosophy and the master of the Social Sciences division for a quarter in core sequences).</p>
<p>The difference you'll see, I would guess, between Reed and Chicago is in things like Intro to ______. While Chicago still has a smaller class size than many other research institutions, things like Intro to Microeconomics or General Chemistry are pretty large lectures (Microecon. is probably the largest at about 200, others, depending on the department, run 50-80, usually). It's in courses like these where you'll run into TA's and such (usually it's a lecture from a professor with discussions/labs with a TA).</p>
<p>To be completely honest, the TAs in some of the Intro to ____ classes have left a bit to be desired, and if I could change one thing about my experience at Chicago it would be that. But it's not prevalent (probably only 3 of the 28 classes I've taken have been hampered by a mediocre TA) -- and if the class is big enough for TAs, you probalby also know several other people in the course (I've never taken a lecture course [more than 40 students] that didn't include at least one other person I knew, and usually it's several), so it's unlikely you'll be stuck trying to learn something on your own from a mediocre TA.</p>
<p>Also, the TA situation is different from department to department. Some depend on them more heavily than others. Things like writing a BA thesis are also departmental variations, in some they are optional, some required, some only for honors, and in some they don't really exist. </p>
<p>I would echo the sentiments about Chicago's libertarian/laissez-faire attitude towards just about everything, in terms of viewpoints. There's a pretty strong sentiment that everyone has the right to believe/do as they please without ridicule/proselytizing. While the average student is probably "liberal" (as would be the case on just about any academic campus), I know a lot of rather conservative folks who fit right in.</p>
<p>I agree with everyone else. Core classes are small and taught by profs or senior grad students (ABDs). They are discussion based. There are a couple of large classes at the U of C. I think as Maroon said Intro to Micro is the largest (or close). Maroon said 200, but I believe the class is normally quite a bit smaller than that. This past fall it had about 120, I think. It's a popular class taught twice a year by a popular professor. There were 3 TAs who hold office hours and seemed friendly and helpful, though they didn't participate in the class at all (each lecture was by the professor). I'm not sure how lower level languages work, but those probably have grad students. Then again, how much of a difference is there between first quarter Spanish with a prof or a grad student?</p>
<p>I don't know a lot about research, but I heard a conversation at my house table before break, and one student was advising another on how to get involved in research. She said it wasn't too difficult besides finding the time to do it! I know many majors require a thesis in 3rd or 4th year, it's optional in other majors, and some don't really have them. You can learn more about that by looking at the different majors you may be interested in on the website: <a href="http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/</a> .</p>
<p>I'm not sure any courses at Chicago are actually taught by TAs. I'm a first year, so I may be wrong, but I've never heard of that. Classes are taught by profs or senior grad students, and some classes have TAs who hold office hours or problem sessions.</p>
<p>I thought about applying to Reed, as well, but I decided that I didn't want a school with such a political tilt. I wanted a school with more balanced political views, and I think that aspect really aids in learning, especially in discussion based classes. You won't learn as much if students tend to have similar views on the material.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1) going back to my day it had the reputation of being ridden with drugs (don't know if this is still true)
2) from what I've read many Reed students live off-campus and their only participation in the school is coming to class
<p>On TAs at U Chicago, CC member mini wrote in June:</p>
<p>
[quote]
"I was a top graduate student (highest academic fellowship) and TA at a top graduate school (Chicago) and you'd have to be NUTS to pay $45k/year to listen to or be guided/mentored by me in those days. 10 years later, and with better skills, and more self-assurance and the benefit of more experience, I taught at the Community College of Philadelphia. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my teaching at the community college was better than my teaching at University of Chicago, and I'd bet the same was the case for 9 out of 10 TAs."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And again in October:</p>
<p>
[quote]
The big difference is in ability to mentor. TAs for the most part are seeking mentors themselves, and are not in good position to do it themselves. The truth is that, at the age of 23, I could lecture as well (or better) than lots of the profs (including, if not especially, the famous ones), but I could not mentor or guide small group discussions nearly as capably (or offer useful feedback on papers), precisely what I was being paid to do.</p>
<p>My experience at Chicago was that the best place to be as an undergrad was in a very small department (like Egyptology, or even South Asian studies) where there were profs of the kind unavailable at an LAC, and the department - profs, grad students, and undergrads - were much more likely to be convivial.</p>
<p>Again, I was a better teacher (a MUCH better teacher) at the Community College of Philadelphia than I was at the University of Chicago, and I'd be very surprised if the vast majority of TAs at H. or anywhere else wouldn't say the same.
<p>I was a TA at Chicago. In my experience, TA's seldom taught courses, but instead assisted the profs who did the teaching. Almost every class had a TA along with the prof, these folks are usually very accessible, hold review sessions, and try to be as helpful as possible. In my 6th or 7th year, I did teach one course when I was ABD, we (students and myself) seemed to have a good time and learn some things. There were only about 6 or 8 students in the class, so I couldn't do much damage anyhow.</p>
<p>The Core only classes are capped at 25 students and, for the most part, taught by distinguished faculty members. My S has had outstanding professors, including Danielle Allen the Humanities Dean, and Sydney Nagel the famous physicist to name only two. He had an ABD student only for a clac course who he said was quite good. There is an exception to the Core cap, however. If a class meets requirements other than the core, it can have more students. For example, East Civilizations meets the Core Civ requirement and can be counted toward a concentration (major). It typically will have many more students, though most of these courses break down into groups of 15 or so students for discussion classes. Most of the early math and science courses fall under this category as well.</p>
<p>Hmmmmmm. So how big are your classes overall? I've looked favorably on Chicago versus, say, Harvard because the class sizes at Harvard seem to be huge. Is this a correct assumption?</p>
<p>Classes are generally small. Core Humanities and Social Sciences classes are capped at 22. A few sections grow larger at the discretion of the professor, but most are reluctant to exceed by more than one or two (and sometimes the cap isn't even reached).
Calculus sections are usually ~25 students.
Intro to _____ classes can grow a bit large (for Chicago standards), though it's only exceptional cases in which 60+ students will be in a class. If there are more than 30 students in a class, typically there will be discussion sections/labs (usually led by a TA) in addition to the lecture.
After you've taken the Intro to _____ class, most classes in a field of study are back to the core class size or smaller, depending on time/professor/topic.
A couple of exceptions:
General Chemistry - It's divided into two "variants" (which don't really mean much. Differences between them are more due to the professor than which "variant" it is). The larger variant usually starts out with 200ish students. By the end of the year it's less.
Sciences classes - From what I gather (I haven't taken any real science classes besides Gen Chem), science classes often consist of a larger lecture and small discussion sections/labs. I get the impression that classes get smaller as you get more advanced and specialized.
Intro to Microeconomics - (taught by Allen Sanderson) - easily the most popular class at the university. Last spring there were ~230 people in the lecture. This fall there were fewer (It's taught Fall and Spring, usually). However, in the Spring Prof. Sanderson and his 5 TAs had office hours such that there was someone available nearly every minute between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday-Thursday. Prof Sanderson, lamenting the large size of the class, noted that it was still considerably smaller than the equivalent classes at most Ivy League schools.</p>