<p>The largest lectures are intro to social sciences and the more popular humanities courses. Also intro to science courses, because we have piles and piles of pre-meds.</p>
<p>Intro to chem is either 150 or 300, intro to russian lit is 300, intro to micro/macroeconomics is 150 each, intro to psych is 150 (might only be 75, I can’t remember). Most large lectures are in the 75-150 range.</p>
<p>All math lectures are capped at 40 students, with two TA discussions per.</p>
<p>Foreign languages are 20 students per.</p>
<p>Most other classes won’t have more than 20-30 students, and a lot will have something like <15.</p>
<p>Profs are easy to get ahold of, and office hours aren’t generally full of students. I definitely could stop in for a chat, even for my biggest lecture. That said, they probably aren’t going to make the effort to reach out to you unless it’s a fairly small class. Sooooo go to office hours!</p>
<p>Profs are excellent, out of 12 courses this year, I’d say that one was not great. Not terrible, but not great. All of my lectures have been taught by profs.</p>
<p>Just a thought: UVA is almost double the size of NU. There’s definitely going to be a difference. NU isn’t very small–I can generally hide in the crowd if I need to (‘interesting’ nights, cough), but I always see a couple of friends when I’m walking between classes, and there’s usually been a familiar face in most of my courses. There’s a fair amount of people I’ve met who happen to be friends of friends, too (You know x? I KNOW X! Yayyyyy…).</p>
<p>One more thing to keep in mind is that the math is fast-paced at NU, due to the quarter system. Midterms every 4 weeks, then a final week 10 or 11. And math and science can be very competitive, with brutal test averages (curved, but still, 40% on an exam isn’t fun). So if your son’s set on math or science, that’s something to keep in mind. Lots of work to be done. The curves ease up after the first year or two for science, but it’s still something to remember.</p>