<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>I'm still in high school but I was wondering, what is college really like? Are your classes lecture-type or are they in normal sized classes like in high school? Are the teachers as uptight? Things like that.</p>
<p>@livelaugh7 </p>
<p>I can’t say for the “what it is like” area, because that is subjective. Some people have a great time, others slog through their day to day. As for classes, they’re a mix of both (that I have seen thus far as a freshman). Many of the GE classes tend to be lectures, numbering in the hundreds of students. Some classes (such as the foreign languages department in my school), however, are actually alike to high school classes, in that student counts are much lower (50 to 20). </p>
<p>I’m sure some of the teachers give off the aura of “up-tightness”. I have witnessed a certain professor who never failed to bring up her Harvard education to all those who happen to be in the same room. Those professors, more often than not, are a minority. Many of my professors are effective, helpful, and very eager to teach their students. It’s a matter of using the right resources (like ratemyprofessor.com) to maximize your chances of ending up with an awesome professor, instead of “Ms. Harvard”.</p>
<p>There is no uniform college experience - even departments within a school may be vastly different in terms of professors, class structure, homogeneity of student body, etc. I’m taking 4 classes this semester - all in different departments; two classes (Environmental Science and American Studies) are huge lectures, 400 and 200 students respectively. My two other classes, English and Religion, are very small - 17 and 22 students respectively. The professors I’ve had so far are excellent - they are very passionate about the material, down to earth, incredibly understanding - they aim to help us rather than make our lives more difficult. I used ratemyprofessor before picking my courses so that I’d know I’d have decent professors. I used RMP for my Spring 2015 registration and all of my professors are supposedly just as good if not better than the ones I have this semester, so I’m very happy. 
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<p>@NotYetEngineer That’s funny - I have a Yale educated professor and she’s actually the complete opposite - she tries to encourage us to do well so that we won’t end up working for “those ivy league bastards who think the world is theirs for the taking” - she gets so worked up about it. When a significant portion of the class doesn’t do the reading, she asks them if they want to end up with a Harvard boss who thinks that the name on his or her degree entitles them to greater trajectory in life than everyone else. It’s pretty hilarious. She means well, though. My Environmental Science professor received all of his degrees from either MIT or Stanford and insists we call him “Bob” rather than “Dr. Robert [Professor’s Last Name].” </p>
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Depends on the school and the class. If you go to UCLA and want to take an intro biology class, you’re going to be sitting with 800 other students. If you decide to go to Occidental (a liberal arts college also in LA) and want to take intro biology, you’ll probably be in a class with only 30 or so students. However, if you want to take a course on Ancient Slavic Philosophy at UCLA, you’ll likely be one of maybe eight students. At Occidental the class may not be offered. </p>
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Depends on the professor, but in general they’re more relaxed. Everyone in the course is a college student, and thus an adult or almost one. In high school I had a teacher that regularly shot me down if I tried to debate one of her assertions. In college that’s encouraged, so long as it’s on point and not interfering with the pace of the discussion. </p>
<p>College is a multifaceted experience. A student in the University of Oklahoma’s petroleum engineering program and say, SAE (a fraternity) will have a remarkably different experience than an independent classics major at the same school, who will likewise have a different experience than a history major at Keene State University (a state school in New Hampshire). </p>
<p>Like others have said, it depends on a number of factors. I go to my state’s flagship (~20,000 students) and this has been my experience so far…</p>
<p>Class Size
Chemistry: Around 200 students in the lecture. 20 students in my lab.
Honors Calc I: 37 students
Honors Seminar: 8 students
Orientation Seminar: 10 students
Intro to Engineering: Around 250 in the lecture. 45 in the lab. We do two main projects in groups of 6-7 and we have a 15 minute discussion section a week with the professor or a TA. </p>
<p>Next semester I’ll have Science of Materials (around 60 student lecture), Calc II (around 25 students), Honors Physics (around 15 students), African History (around 10 students), and Civil Engineering Graphics (around 50 students). </p>
<p>So, I’ve had a couple of large lecture classes, but each one of them had a smaller lab section with it so the TA knew my name and everything (large humanities lectures tend to have smaller discussion sections as well, not just labs for the science ones). </p>
<p>Even though I’ve only had a few different instructors, I’ve had a very wide range of personalities. My chem professor is the stereotypical “I only care about my research and hate teaching” professor, whereas my lab TA is very laid back and funny/entertaining (and very good at teaching and answering questions). One of the professors for my engineering class is old school (and somewhat sexist) but the other one is really nice and I like her a lot. One TA is a complete d-bag with unrealistic grading standards, but the others are really laid back. My calc professor its really arrogant and self-centered (much like the “Ms. Harvard” described above!) and loves to shove her political views down our throats. But she also brings us food and decides to have class-wide pajama days every now and again, so that’s nice. My honors seminar prof is a total academic and clearly has never spent time in the real world - very uptight about academics and extremely socially awkward. </p>
<p>So, again - very wide variety of personalities! All in all though, I would say my professors have been less uptight / more fun than my high school teachers, although more strict in regard to deadlines and have much higher academic standards. </p>
<p>At The University of Texas the classes for the core curriculum and introductory courses for most majors are typically around 100-400 students in size and takes place in a large auditorium. The bigger courses are more likely to have teaching assistants that will run a small discussion session of around 40 students from your lecture and are there to help you understand material from lecture but sometimes the discussion session is more work too. The teaching assistants are graduate students at the university who are trying to get their masters or PhD and are helping with a class related to their major either as a requirement for their graduate degree or to get money to help fund their education (and put on their resume later).</p>
<p>Most majors at our school have concentrations/tracks to choose from so as you progress through your classes and are put into courses more specific to your concentration, your classes get smaller and might be 5-40 or so students. This class might feel a lot like a high school setting when you are in class (other than the fact your professor will move much faster through material). </p>
<p>For example, I’m a math major. We start with introductory calculus which is not only taken by us, but by all the science and engineers and a large percentage of other students as well. This class is huge. We then move on to calculus 2 and 3 which some of those people in calculus 1 don’t continue on to. As we get to differential equations, it’s now strictly math majors, engineers, and a few natural science students. When we take real analysis, it’s almost only math majors. All math majors have to take all of the courses I’ve listed so far. So math majors have a set of required math classes that all math majors must take. Then it gets onto your concentration. We have around 6 concentrations for math majors and mine happens to be Statistics. As a result, I have taken some statistics classes and it has had a higher percentage of students that are math majors with a concentration in statistics like me. If your concentration is not statistics and instead, say, pure mathematics, then you will take number theory and algebraic structures (and some others) which are classes I wouldn’t take. We have around 1000 math undergrads and say there’s around 160 in each concentration. Now you can see why classes specific to our concentration don’t need to be huge.</p>
<p>It also changes a bit when you get to the upper-level classes in your major. </p>
<p>I go to a medium-sized public university in Michigan, and in my upper-level writing and French classes, it’s not uncommon to only have between 5-10 students in a class. That’s actually quite awesome because you get to really know your professors and they get to really know you, which is handy for letters of rec and for forming mentor relationships with them.</p>
<p>I really like college because you can form your own path. You can take the classes you want, study the things you want, do what you want - it’s a great opportunity to exercise adult freedom and get a taste of how to be independent.</p>