<p>Does anyone know, roughly:</p>
<p>1) what proportion of undergraduate courses at Northwestern are taught by Professors (i.e., the Professor lectures every class), vs. taught primarily by graduate students or post-doctoral fellows / lecturers? If it varies by department, I'm most interested in the areas of Middle Eastern Studies / International Relations; </p>
<p>2) what a typical class size might be for introductory and advanced courses in these same areas?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Odds are the higher the class level the smaller it will be; also depends on the topic. Large intro classes vs. classes that work well with disucssion... that kinda thing.</p>
<p>I have yet to have a class where a TA does the teaching, maybe I'm lucky. CTECs can help you avoid these classes.</p>
<p>I think they said 95% of the classes are taught by full Northwestern professors (and the other 5% are visiting profs, TAs, etc.)</p>
<p>That's right. You'll hardly ever have a class that is not taught by a faculty member.</p>
<p>As for the size of classes -- econ is the mots popular major, and the most basic econ class -- Intro to Macroeconomics (I took this one last fall) -- had about 300 students. I believe this is the largest class at NU (we don't have any lecture rooms that can accomodate more than 300 something students, so that should be enough of a proof).</p>
<p>However, I don't think IR will have as large classes at all.</p>
<p>have you ever been shut out of classes because the class size has been maxed out?</p>
<p>Yes. That happens all the time with the super popular classes every senior wants to take. Sometimes you can email profs to get in, sometimes not. But at any school it's just something you'll have to deal with as a freshman because you register last.</p>
<p>I had one class that was basically taught by a grad student, and she was better than any prof I've had (and I've had some good ones), so it's not always a bad thing.</p>
<p>there is one class I know of that has something like 600 students -- intro to psych. But it's such an introductory course that it doesn't really matter all that much.</p>