<p>While I am not surprised that UChicago has the Best College Library in the nation according to The Princeton Review, I am pleasantly surprised to find that Chicago is the only major university to be ranked in the Top 20 on Best Classroom Experience. With the exception of U.S. Military Academy, all the rest in the Top 20 are liberal arts colleges. Interesting, isn't it?</p>
<p>Congratulations to The University of Chicago!</p>
<p>I thought it’s an honor for Chicago to earn a spot on this Best Classroom Experience category knowing all the other great schools are basically liberal arts colleges which are usually known for having better college classroom experience for the undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Frankly, it’d be a surprise to see Chicago to have such an honor twenty or thirty years ago, despite its stellar reputation in academics.</p>
<p>Any thoughts or comments?</p>
<p>I felt that my first year’s classroom experiences were ok. </p>
<p>There were three types of small class discussion that I experienced: a) that which took place in core classes like sosc and hum, b) one small, upper level seminar, and c) three large, upper level lectures that broke into smaller discussion groups once a week. </p>
<p>The first was undoubtedly the worst. I never felt like I left a core class discussion with any piece of vibrating insight. Many of my fellow students didn’t do the reading or didn’t care enough about it to make the discussion interesting. I blame this on being new to college and being forced into the core.</p>
<p>The second was great. The experience was awesome, a lot of people did the reading and, as a class, we often dug very deeply into the text with the professor as our guide. These are the rarest form of classes though because it isn’t often that fewer than 25 people want to take a class. </p>
<p>The third type was also consistently very good. These took place usually on Fridays and consisted of talking with a group of around 12 fellow students and the course’s TA. The TA would pose questions and we’d discuss and I often felt that I left with more insight than I would have if I had just read the text and gone to the lecture with nothing else.</p>
<p>So, I guess I could say I had a positive classroom experience. I am somewhat shocked that UChicago is in the top 20 when most classes at liberal arts schools are like the second type of small discussion that I mentioned but it is pretty cool. I’m glad I’m done with the vast majority of small discussion core…but not science. That will haunt me for the next 3 years. </p>
<p>It sounds to me that all in all you have had more positive classroom experience than not. Core classes are tough unless you are one of those who totally love sosc, hum and civ. </p>
<p>@theluckystar what makes you think this ranking would have been surprising 20 years ago? given @hevydevy’s comments, I think that the U of C of 20 years ago may have been even better than today. Back in the 90s nobody showed up for core classes without reading - unthinkable! The socratic method and/or small discussions was the norm for the vast majority of my classes including Soc, Hum, History, and even core Bio (I recall one quarter was population genetics in a Botany classroom and one was physiology in a Cobb room). U of C has always had a solid commitment to LAC education for undergrads. </p>
<p>I am not a Chicago alum so my comment was based on the general knowledge that twenty or thirty ago, the quality of student life in Chicago was not as robust as what it is today. An assumption was also made that if the quality of a campus life was less than desirable, the classroom experience probably was not up to par either. I supposed my assumption was not totally accurate then.</p>
<p>Oh, my quality of life is absolutely brilliant. Best months of my life were my first year. I just felt the classroom discussions sometimes lacked the punch one would expect from the kids at the university. </p>
<p>I’ve only taken the Philosophical Perspectives sequence in the core so far (also a science major), but I found it to be one of the most lively classes I’ve taken here so far. I’m sure many people (including me at times) didn’t do all the readings, but the philosophical content of the course and it’s inherent tendency to inspire animated discussion far outweighed any failings on the part of the students.</p>
<p>@hevydevy I’m not sure which course you took for HUM or which teacher(s) you had, but I know those two points greatly affect how one perceives a class. If you took a more fiction/lit based HUM course it would probably be harder to drum up some enthusiasm in a discussion about the personal characteristics of the protagonist (or maybe that’s just my view of it). I’m sorry to hear your experiences were less than stellar in the core, but I’ve been personally satisfied with my experience here. Given what you’ve said about the non-Core discussion classes, I’m now even more excited to explore them. 
</p>
<p>I took Phil Per and Power. To be honest, I think my slight contempt came from actually being a humanities person, so I felt the classes lacked the rigor I would have liked. It wasn’t the fact that the papers weren’t graded harshly (my Power professor was a notoriously tough grader) or any logistical issue. I just felt the course lacked depth, mostly because those in it either a) did not want to be there or b) were not used to that type of thinking and, thus, often could not discuss in the way I would have liked. I understand that introducing concepts and different ways of thinking is what the core is supposed to be about, so I accept it. Just imagine, however, as a hard science major, being forced to take a bio topics or physics for dummies class. I’ll enjoy those because I’m not a sciency person, but if you were forced to take one, you’d scream. Same thing really.</p>
<p>Ah gotcha, I misread your “science for the next 3 years” comment as an indication that you’re a science major, but now it all makes sense. I completely agree with the part about about what it would be like to take core sciences as a science major, so it makes sense that HUM and SOSC would be like that for you. </p>
<p>Ah, that was confusing. Nah, I meant I have to deal with core science for the next three years because I blew it off my first year (and will for most of my second.) I’ll have 4 science classes to take my last 2 years. :</p>
<p>My lit-oriented daughter had a similar complaint about her HUM class. She said, “They have six different levels of math so that I am not slowing down anyone who really cares about it. Why do I have to go to class twice a week with people who have no idea how to read poetry, who don’t want to learn, and who feel privileged to dominate class time with their hostility to it? Been there, done that; it was called high school. The people here are all very smart, but the people at my high school were plenty smart, too, and that didn’t make it OK.” (On the other hand, my son, who was not a humanities person per se, loved his HUM class completely. Part of the difference was luck of the draw with the teachers.)</p>
<p>In general, I would say that my daughter loved the idea of the Core; it drew her to Chicago. Actually taking the Core was a disappointment. She did really like her SOSC class, but HUM was disappointing and she thought the science-for-poets classes completely lacked rigor. (She would have loved to take some straight science classes if she could have done it without pre-meds.) In retrospect, however – out in the world, dealing with people who went to all of Chicago’s peer colleges – she has a better appreciation for what the Core meant to her college experience, including her relationships over time with the people she resented her first year, and she has more respect for it.</p>
<p>I should add that, the Core aside, my kids’ classroom experiences at Chicago were, on average, outstanding. Not every class, of course, but lots of them. One of the tricks is to look for the good teachers (including the young, non-famous good teachers), and to learn from them.</p>
<p>Core class discussions are highly variable, depending both on the professor and the group of students you end up with. Sometimes you get unlucky. But as an alum, I found that overall my core course discussions were good, with many being excellent enough that I think back to those discussions years later. Sometimes frustrating, but often I was really, really impressed with the quality of my peers’ questions and comments. </p>
<p>I will say that the best discussions, the most memorable and impressive, were those from my civ sequence, which I took in my third year. I suspect that it takes some practice for most students to move from a point where students say everything or nothing to one where students learn what makes a really good question or comment. That may be why your upper level seminar was better–I suspect there was a smaller proportion of first years there. I also think it’s more likely that students who don’t contribute to the discussion aren’t sure what to say than that they don’t care. If they really didn’t care, they likely would have chosen a different school. Sure, some people come despite the core, but many others come because of it.</p>
<p>I haven’t attended a small LAC, but I’m not sure why you would assume the classes there would be more like type 2 than type 1. Core courses are still pretty darn small. I’d wager that most LACs would have a good combination of type 1 and type 2 classes, with a smattering of type 3.</p>
<p>Why would any student come to class without having done the reading? Serious question. Trying to understand what gets in the way or goes into that behavior. Thanks! </p>
<p>@dyiu13 the readings are LOT (it’s difficult to understand how much unless you actually take those classes), especially when you’re taking two discussion-based classes in the same quarter (e.g. SOSC and HUMA). Some students resort to Sparknotes to get a general overview of the readings and use that as the basis for discussion material. The readings can also get really dense, and you’ll have students who read everything but don’t fully understand the text, or students who give up halfway through. </p>
<p>Some teachers are great at asking the right questions and pushing students to do all of the readings in detail, while with some teachers you can get by with just a basic understanding of the text. Teaching quality really depends. You’ll have full professors teaching one section and a graduate student teaching the next, and the grad student might actually be better at fostering discussion. </p>
<p>Thanks @TheBanker. That was kinda my experience in a Great Books-type undergrad curriculum back in the old days, but I thought perhaps today’s students and/or U of C might be different. </p>