<p>hey, i was wondering if anyone from michigan could comment on the size of university of michigan. from what ive heard, a lot of students are in gigantic lecture auditoriums and feel like theyre just numbers. is this true?</p>
<p>If you can't handle lecture halls with 200-700 people in them, Michigan probably isn't the place for you. That being said, professors have office hours, and GSIs hold study sessions on off-days, so it isn't like you are a complete unknown. Probably best to sit in on a class before you commit to going though, if you're still unsure.</p>
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from what ive heard, a lot of students are in gigantic lecture auditoriums
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<p>Some classes are large. In those classes, it's up to you to form a relationship with the prof by asking questions, going to office hours, and so on. For all such classes, there will be small lecture sections, often taught by professors, where you can get all the attention you want.</p>
<p>These large classes are mainly introductory, core type classes. As soon as you get over those, which happens pretty quickly in my experience, you get into small classes where you get more attention than you would probably want.</p>
<p>As for the numbers thing, I don't get it. How does one feel like a number? At one point in my life I lived in a big city with a population of millions of people. I didn't feel like a number though. I suppose I'm really confused about what that means.</p>
<p>What class has a lecture with 700 students?</p>
<p>Some introductory ones (I don't remember which one specifically, but one of my friends had an introductory one with 600-700 last year).</p>
<p>I have a hard time believing that. Chem 1800 is the largest lecture hall on campus and it seats 550 I believe.</p>
<p>ok, believe what you want, i'm just speaking from a friend's personal experience. it happens at large schools though, my brother had a class at berkeley with 750 students. but w/e, good to know it didn't happen to you.</p>
<p>Classes overall might have that many students, but divided into multiple lectures. When I did Physics 240 back in high school, I think there were 3 lectures of ~200 students. But that's only because it's required for engineers. Attendance dropped off sharply after the first day, so there weren't really that many people in there with you. There was also the discussion section with only ~20 people, which was actually ran by a full professor who taught the upper level E&M class the next semester and does research at CERN.</p>
<p>That's what I'm saying, no lecture hall at UM can fit 600-700 people at the same time. Perhaps, vc08 was referring to a large class that was divided into different lectures. In that case, yes. Orgo has over a 1000, divided into 3 lectures.</p>
<p>I dunno, like I said, just goin by what my friend told me.</p>
<p>You have to remember intro classes are big everywhere. My friends at smaller research universities like MIT and Vanderbilt have had much bigger classes than me, and without discussion sessions. I'm not sure how many schools emphasize having discussion sessions, but they're really great for individual attention.</p>