Succeeding in a class of 700 students

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I have a cousin in college and he was giving me some general advice about classes. He said that sometimes he's in classes with 700+ students. With classes so large, I'm assuming college classes aren't anything like high school where there's about 30 students and students are interacting with the teacher. I mean, really, what do you get out of class? When I go to music concerts, if I didn't know the lyrics to the artists' songs, I wouldn't know what they were saying LOL How am I suppose to get the best out of class? </p>

<p>During our conversation, my cousin was also telling me about his professors and some of the odd teaching styles they had. Anyway, he said one of his professors spoke through a voice box and everything he said sounded like mumbling. What do you do if you run into problems with your professors?</p>

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<p>what college does your cousin go to? A state U?</p>

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<p>700 Students is incredible. I haven't heard anyone with that many. Majority of classes are around 20-30 except really general or popular classes which tend to have a less than equal to a 100.</p>

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<p>In the UC's, there are a lot of classes that have that many people. My psychology class alone has almost 1000 students in it. You just have to pay real close attention to what the professor is saying and make sure to attend discussion so they can talk about what went on in lecture more thouroughly.</p>

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<p>Music concerts and classes are quite different.</p>

<p>Mind you this is just speculation, but I don't think in college classes everyone around you is screaming and acting rowdy.</p>

<p>Also, in class you have a book to follow along with if the prof is confusing.</p>

<p>Also, in most schools very large classes are broken into smaller discussion groups or recitations.</p>

<p>Also, TA's (and sometimes profs) have office hours where you can get help.</p>

<p>And I guess most people don't really do this, but I've always found that it's most helpful to at least skim the material that will be covered in class before the professor's lecture, so that you at least have SOME idea what he's talking about. It makes it much easier to take notes and follow the lecture at the same time. Granted, most people don't really have time to get a day ahead in all their classes, but if you're really struggling it's worth the effort.</p>

<p>And yes, many professors have weird teaching styles b/c let's face it, a lot of them don't give a **** about undergrads, and really only teach classes b/c the school requires them to. So just bear with it, it will be over in 4 months.</p>

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<p>i think ive only ever had like one or two class with more than 25 people in it.. and that was prolly like maybe 30? i love my small classes.</p>

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<p>Usually only the sophomore and below weed out classes are 250-300 students. Every upper division class I have had is <40 students.</p>

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<p>Not everyone comes to class everyday. So after the first week or so, the numbers dwindle drastically, unless there's a test.</p>

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<p>If you want to have a small class, apply to a small liberal arts college. My daughter is a freshmen at Williams College. This term, she has chosen five courses, four of which have less than 20 students. One of them has 35 students (the maximum allowed) because of the popularity of the professor.</p>

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<p>700 students in a single class is just an astronomical amount. I expect some of my classes to have 100 in freshmen year but the classes for my major will probably have less than 20 which is awesome i love small classes.</p>

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<p>i love big classes. its cool because you could get lost in a sea of students.</p>

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<p>try and make firend with a study group or go to the library and see if their is anyone from the class you can meet up and talk to, usally the classes that have >500 students are courses you could of taken in h.s ie psy,eng classes et cetera so as long as you took some "ap" classes you should have too much</p>