Do you dislike large classes in University/college?

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I get uncomfortable when I am large classes, shoulder to shoulder to people for hours at a time. I just had my first day of the semester, and both classes are huge (one is 330 students, which is big for my school). I think I drank too much coffee today, and my clothes were too hot for the weather inside the classes, but still... I wish it was like in summer classes where it is usually >20 people. Also, approximately how big is your largest class?

Last edited by Space on 07 Sep 2007, 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can't image anything worse!

I went to a school with only 50 pupils in total and a class of 16-17 was too big

The school I use to go to had like not much less than 2500 students so most of the classes were pretty big. At least 30+. I was pretty use to by then since my school district is huge and overcrowded so 30 in a class was the norm in alot of the schools. The biggest I ever was in was probably 45. I hated it of course but I found classes with around 10 even more uncomfortable. Couldn't sit back and go unnoticed.

I don't like large classes either. The smallest class I was in contained 3 people.

My preference is for one-to-one tuition - but sadly that is not available very often!

I also prefer to work alone and just be able to have someone I can contact when I need help.

My largest class has maybe 40-something students. There was supposed to be 76 students.

The average student-faculty ratio at my college is 19:1.

Tim

The average number of students in my classes last year was 30 and I didn't like it much. Everyone had a tendency to make lots of unnecessary noise and hold the lessons up. The year before that I had one class with about 16 people in which was much more preferable.

I had to take lectures at university together with 1200 other students. Just getting in and out of there was a challenge.

I kind of prefer the larger classes because I can just blend in and there's less pressure to talk.

Well, a bit larger is fine because of the said reasons. But if you have to get a distance of 300 meters from the lecture hall before you can think and breath fresh air again is it not okay.

The most ludicrous thing I ever encountered is being in a 1200 people lecture with forms for signing in to practice groups being located at the front of the hall. People were given a break of 10 minutes to put their names on the forms. Of course everybody jumped and ran to sign in. Sorry, NO WAY!

I like talking in smaller classes, it gives me a chance to share my ideas, and prove that I am an intelligent thinker and not just some random strange/quiet guy. In big classes I usually don't say anything.

I've never had a large class, and wonder why anyone would attend a university that would require them to take one - you can't develop a relationiship with your professor in such a setting.

Small classes are worse. Those are the ones where you are often expected to know how to socialize with small groups of people.

I agree; the huge classes suck. It's almost impossible to concentrate, there are always too many people talking, rustling papers, clicking pens. I'm glad I've graduated.

Same here! Thats EXACTLY how I feel, Space.

And if necessary you can just sleep. Then do the studying on your own.

You can do that in small classes too though.

I always sat in the middle seat, front row. More often than not the professor stood directly in front of me. I usually only looked at him/her when they said something I found interesting. The entire rest of the time I was drawing in my notebook. Every once in awhile I might find a line or two to squeeze some illegible notes on, in between my pictures.

But the prof's never said anything about it - perhaps because I was the only one in the class who aced every assignment. I always set the curve in my economics class - I was usually 15 or 20 points ahead of the next scorer (I think the everyone enrolled in economics that semester hated me)