<p>According to this site, class discussions are rare at Caltech, and professors get low marks. Is this true? I would have thought with a 3/1 student/faculty ratio, the complete opposite would be true. Comments please!</p>
<p>Not true. The PR survey methodology is so pathetic that it's not even worth describing in detail. It's the opinion of one disgruntled person. Now, it's true that there is not much discussion in general in lecture classes for science (at Caltech or elsewhere). But all the professors that I have ever had are very open to questions in the middle of class or after class. Humanities and many social science classes are 100% discussion-centered.</p>
<p>Yeah PR openly admits it's based on surveys, but they never say how many students participate etc...</p>
<p>I'm a freshman at Caltech, so I've only been here one term and take my comments with a grain of salt...</p>
<p>As Ben said, class discussions don't often happen in lecture classes (and they shouldn't!). That being said, all of my profs have been very open to questions, even "stupid" ones. In my humanities class (Philosophy) the class was centered around class discussion. As for professors getting low marks, that depends on the class and on the professor. It's very subjective as well... as how well a professor can teach is heavily based on your learning style.</p>
<p>My own experience as a graduate student 35+ years ago is that courses at Caltech are very well taught and remain useful for me to this date. The 3/1 student/faculty ratio provides plenty of opportunity for discussion and interaction between student and faculty primary through research, which is a big thing at Caltech even for undergraduates.</p>
<p>Well said. The fact that you can drop in after class at a professor's office just to chat and not have a long line of people waiting outside is pretty remarkable and is the thing that I've enjoyed most.</p>
<p>Caltech is a truly amazing place. When my DS did research in the fruit fly lab as a junior, he got stuck. It was 2 AM in the morning, he knocked the next door and Professor Ed Lewis (who got his Nobel Prize for his genetics work much earlier) came out to show him how to operate the microscope. My DS as a freshman, also knock the office door and got Professor David Goldstein to sign my DD 12th birthday card (That's what she always wanted).</p>
<p>Ultimately, from what it sounds like, it's what you make of the experience. You'll find discussions if you try. Aka, discussions aren't mandatory, it's self motivation that will open opportunities, which probably accounts for the discrepancy in the survey.</p>
<p>Sure, this is a disadvantage for the shy. But don't mind me, I'm one of those silly kids that can sit in my teacher's classrooms and talk to them for 3 hours after school about randomness. >.></p>
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Sure, this is a disadvantage for the shy.
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Actually Caltech is quite accommodating even to shy people. Because of the small community and low student/faculty ratio, faculty tend to know student individually rather well. One story I heard back to my graduate student days was that there was a very shy and nervous Ph.D. student he absolutely would failed his oral qualify exam. Then over a month period, various professors in his exam committee would dropped by his office during lunch chatted with him about some seemingly random academic topics. Afterward he received a letter informing him that he passed.</p>
<p>From my experience at Caltech (one quarter), even the professors who get "low marks" are friendly and open to questions. They just happen to be terrible lecturers. </p>
<p>In any case, you'll definitely have a sample bias (is that what it's called?) at CC. The people who come here a lot probably have had positive experiences at Caltech, while students who hate Caltech probably wouldn't be on this site much.</p>
<p>I think you need to keep in mind that reviews tend to be overly negative or overly positive, but if you read enough of them you can get some sense of overall trends. The Students Review site has reviews which run the gamut, but I'd say the overall trend was mostly postive on the teaching.</p>
<p>That's a very good observation. There is a strong sample-selection bias in voluntary survey responses of this type, and the effect of the bias is to depress the kurtosis (peakedness around the mean) of the distribution. Nobody rushes to fill out a survey to scream "I thought it was solid slightly above-average teaching!!" So yes, mathmom's advice to keep that in mind is very good.</p>