Tuesday, September 16, 2008
big school, small school
I've just started my third week of classes and already the differences between classes here and at my undergraduate school are stark. It's not because I'm taking graduate courses now. In fact, most of the classes I am enrolled in are technically undergrad ones. They are big lectures where half the students don't attend class and a good portion of the other half falls asleep. There is no participation, no discussion. The professors don't even attempt to learn names. With all of our assignments limited to quizzes and exams, it's no wonder why so many science students have difficulty writing. While this different style does mean that there is a lot less work needed per class, I miss the engaged classrooms where students talked to the professor and felt comfortable asking questions and where your professor would call you by name.
3 comments:
Hey Em,
Glad to see you posting again. Hopefully your graduate courses are more engaging. Kinda surprised, though.
cheers
I know, seriously, I'm disappointed to hear that. Georgia Tech was a pretty big school (20,000), but once you got into classes in your discipline they made an effort to keep class size small (most less than 30). The professors learned everyone's name. Discussion in engineering class is mostly limited (what is there to discuss?) but when something didn't make sense, there was interaction - even with only tests and quizes as assessments (and the occasional design project), people still regularly attended and paid attention in class, there was too much covered that you wouldn't; be able to learn in a text book.
I know, I definitely didn't expect it either. Hopefully it's just because these are 'intro' grad school classes and they will get smaller soon.
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