<p>I am getting the impression through my research of Hampshire College that most of the classes are taught in a seminar-style, but I might be mistaken. Could anyone please clarify this? Are there no lectures at all? Thanks.</p>
<p>I think that there are very few traditional lecture-style classes. Most courses are limited to 20-ish students, and they almost always involve more discussion and active learning styles. Certainly both my kids never had a lecture-style class, except for those they took at Smith and Mt. Holyoke. Actually, the least-lecture-like class my son took was a community organizing seminar at UMass, of all places!</p>
<p>I stand corrected regarding lecture-style classes at Hampshire. There are a couple of small lecture halls that are used for off-campus speakers and a relatively small number of lecture-based classes. If you go to Hampshire’s online student enrollment system, ‘The Hub’, you can tell which classes are lecture-based by noting the class capacity. The seminar/discussion-based classes typically have capacities of 20-23, while the lecture-based classes almost invariably have a capacity of 40.</p>
<p>To use, ‘The Hub’ system, go to <a href=“http://thehub.hampshire.edu%5B/url%5D”>http://thehub.hampshire.edu</a> and click on “Search for Courses”. Click on “Search for Hampshire Courses”, the use the drop-down menus to select the semester and subjects. You can pick up to 5 subjects at a time, which will pretty much cover all of the academic courses during any one semester.</p>
<p>My daughter tells me that lecture courses tend to be not as popular as other courses, so you will see that they are typically under-enrolled. She said that can lead to some odd dynamics where you have 20 students attending a class in a 40+ student lecture hall, scattered about in small groups. She is attending her first lecture-style class this Spring, and will let us know how it works out.</p>