<p>^^That sounds wonderful. I LOVE big classes.</p>
<p>In a big class of a few hundred, or 1600, there’s NO WAY you’re going to be able to ask the prof questions because they don’t have time for everyone…no individual help. Even as a freshman, I have classes so far as small as 8 students, and that sounds good to me. 1600 is not a class; it’s a music recital or concert, sporting event, a play, etc.</p>
<p>^I guess that only applies if you ask questions. I never do. I don’t need individual help so to me that sounds AWESOME. I like anonymity.</p>
<p>Also in like a 200-300 person class, people do ask questions in class. The prof even asks if anyone has questions, and there’s always office hours.</p>
<p>I usually don’t either, but, with a big class, they don’t know everyone. I wouldn’t like it, which is why I chose a small LAC, but some people do like huge classes.</p>
<p>Large lectures get ridiculously maligned, most frequently by people who’ve never experienced one and have no basis for judgement. There is zero appreciable difference between a 30-person lecture and a 300-person lecture when it comes to learning introductory material. The quality of lecturer is the only salient variable. We forget that lectures are called lectures for a reason. You should not be interrupting the class to ask anything unless the professor has made an egregious error or something critical needs clarifying. If you need personal attention, go to office hours or save the question for the discussion section.</p>
<p>Nine times out of ten, “questions” are just intellectual masturbation; people ask questions because they love hearing the sound of their own voice, even if it detracts from the lecture for the rest of the class. </p>
<p>I transferred to Cornell after spending a year at a small LAC. I’ve experienced 20 person biology lectures and 300 person bio lectures. The latter were ALWAYS better solely because the instructor was awesome and an expert in his field. The size of the class alone was irrelevant to my learning the material.</p>
<p>I prefer small classes but I have yet to be in a giant lecture hall. The biggest class I had was something like 350 people but I always sit in the front.</p>
<p>Caillebotte makes a great point though.</p>
<p>Caillebotte probably knows which class I’m referring to, but there’s a certain popular course at Cornell that has about 1000 students in an auditorium. As for me, my largest class was an econ lecture of about 400 or so folks. It may not have been as interactive as my other classes at the time, but that didn’t bother me.</p>
<p>^It only has 1000? I thought it was over 1500…</p>
<p>Edit: Bailey Hall’s capacity is 1300 so I guess 1000 is closer.</p>
<p>Two of my absolute favorite classes had 300+ students. The professors were internationally renowned in their subjects, and were amazing lecturers. I would never have had the opportunity to take a class with them otherwise. In all fairness, I also had big classes with very prominent professors who were just plain lousy lecturers. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had 15 or 1500 students, their strong suit was not lecturing. With the big classes, you do have office hours and small group discussions where you can ask the TA/Grad Asst. your questions/go over homework.</p>
<p>depends on the class and college</p>
<p>at Virginia Tech, i have a class with 3,000 people in it</p>
<p>Biggest I’ve been in is 150, and it was a general chem course. Most of my classes have 30-40 people in them.</p>