5 ms·

Little freshman sharkweek back in '03, having gone to a small high school (graduating class of ~70 or so) walks into his first class at the University of Washin

Little freshman sharkweek back in '03, having gone to a small high school (graduating class of ~70 or so) walks into his first class at the University of Washington, Economics 201 (the first of the series). The class is 700 people, in Kane Hall, literally 10x my entire graduating class from HS. After the first lecture, and with extreme naivety, I walk up to the professor, Eugene Silberberg, and ask him when his office hours are in case I need any help with the material. The perplexed look on his face was probably the most memorable thing I experienced my entire four years in college. "Uh, go talk to your TA"

dublinben 12y ago
It's pretty easy to avoid the enormous introductory level lecture classes. Nearly every large university will grant credit for AP or CLEP exams towards undergraduate level classes like Econ 201. These exams cost under $100 for an entire course. You can also find many schools offering these courses online, for a bit more money. Transferring in a credit is painless.
- valarauca1 12y ago
  > Transferring in a credit is painless. Actually transferring college credits is one of the most painful things I've done in my academic career.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - Loughla 12y ago
    How long ago did you attend? Almost all states have made public colleges and universities arrange transfer agreements to guarantee credits will transfer. Most private, not-for-profits have taken up this cause as well. For-profits are still a bit wonky with transferring, because their academic rigor tends to be terrible. Now, out of state transfers, that's another story.
    - Balgair 12y ago
      At UCLA and Cal, 30% of freshmen are out of state[0]. As you said, this is not an easy thing to do to begin with. I don't think that these numbers hold as high for other universities, but it's not 10 or 20 people at a school. It's like 1/8 to 1/4 of the freshmen that may need to transfer credits. [0]http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_25731300/uc-nonresident-students-increase-californians-admissions-slow http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_25731300/uc-nonresid...
- Crito 12y ago
  I never really got the "massive lecture size" thing. My university had ~20,000 students (about 15,000 undergrad), which I thought was mid-range as far as American universities go, but I never had a lecture with more than about 100 people in it. As far as I know, there weren't lectures that large anywhere in the university; I can only think of one hall large enough to accommodate lectures that large. It was used for administering tests for classes that had several hundred students (but all of those classes were split into several different lectures, often with separate instructors who worked together on the class.) Is the massive lectures thing predominantly a state school phenomenon? Maybe my university being real-estate bound had something to do with it. To be honest, I preferred large lectures and suspect I would prefer massive lectures for the same reason: smaller lectures are more prone to inane interruptions from students (typically students that had been skipping lectures).
  - saraid216 12y ago
    It's predominantly an undergraduate freshman phenomenon. Massive lectures are a weeding-out mechanism as much as anything else.
    - Balgair 12y ago
      This exactly. There are millions of kids that want to be engineers or in STEM fields. It may seem rough, but if they can't do calculus, it's better for everyone that they find this out sooner than later and can then adjust their plans. The big lectures are intentionally designed to cut people that can't make it.
      - anuleczka 12y ago
        That's sad, though, don't you think? What if they could do calculus if they only got to learn in a more supportive environment?
        saraid216 12y ago
        Of course. But education systems are a product of political and, consequently, economic belief. We believe in a nominally equal distribution of power, but we also believe that most people are destined to be industrial cogs, with disproportionate power going to an elect few. That's what our school systems reflect: niceties declaring equality while applying a rigorous filter in order to determine the worthy.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I did most of my lower division at the local community college. At the time it was $11/unit for residents, and when I transferred to a 4 year school they told me I was probably better prepared (having had teachers that were there to teach that material).
  - saraid216 12y ago
    There is a part of me that would honestly prefer that everyone went through community college rather than bothering with freshman/sophomore "finding yourself" shenanigans. But I'm biased, since that's what I did... and I'm also biased a second time, because I never had the "must pick a major" uncertainty. But I think we'd lose a lot of the benefit of doing so if it became a standard.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      "But I think we'd lose a lot of the benefit of doing so if it became a standard." Quite possibly, yeah. Learning environments are quickly destroyed if they have to accommodate people who don't want to be there.
      - saraid216 12y ago
        It's a bit more complicated than that. In addition to teachers focused on teaching, community colleges also have a significant share of adult education... and it's not quarantined away as it is in universities, because the percentage is in the double digits, rather than measured in decimal points. There are other things, but I'm having trouble capturing them.
        dllthomas 12y ago
        Oh, for sure. There was a guy in my Recent American History class who'd been a member of SNCC. Wonderful experience. Still, I think "everyone is there to learn" makes the biggest difference.
        chris_mahan 12y ago
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
This is true only of lower division classes at UW. Once you get to mid or upper-level classes, your class sizes are much smaller, the professors are more accessible. Even the entry level classes have pretty good TA support, and the TAs often know more than the professors. That being said, I found it useful not to go to the huge lectures (even the one taught by the nobel prize winning physicist, who wasn't that great of a lecturer), spend my time in the study center, and rely a lot on the TAs (who were mostly awesome).
- sharkweek 12y ago
  Yeah, my senior year during a research project on public policy (polsci major) it was a class of 20 students and a professor who normally taught classes of 200-300. It was really actually quite cool getting so much of his headspace for my project. My TAs were probably 60% great, 20% alright, 20% pretty bad during my time there.

dublinben 12y ago

It's pretty easy to avoid the enormous introductory level lecture classes. Nearly every large university will grant credit for AP or CLEP exams towards undergraduate level classes like Econ 201. These exams cost under $100 for an entire course. You can also find many schools offering these courses online, for a bit more money. Transferring in a credit is painless.

valarauca1 12y ago
> Transferring in a credit is painless. Actually transferring college credits is one of the most painful things I've done in my academic career.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- Loughla 12y ago
  How long ago did you attend? Almost all states have made public colleges and universities arrange transfer agreements to guarantee credits will transfer. Most private, not-for-profits have taken up this cause as well. For-profits are still a bit wonky with transferring, because their academic rigor tends to be terrible. Now, out of state transfers, that's another story.
  - Balgair 12y ago
    At UCLA and Cal, 30% of freshmen are out of state[0]. As you said, this is not an easy thing to do to begin with. I don't think that these numbers hold as high for other universities, but it's not 10 or 20 people at a school. It's like 1/8 to 1/4 of the freshmen that may need to transfer credits. [0]http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_25731300/uc-nonresident-students-increase-californians-admissions-slow http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_25731300/uc-nonresid...
Crito 12y ago
I never really got the "massive lecture size" thing. My university had ~20,000 students (about 15,000 undergrad), which I thought was mid-range as far as American universities go, but I never had a lecture with more than about 100 people in it. As far as I know, there weren't lectures that large anywhere in the university; I can only think of one hall large enough to accommodate lectures that large. It was used for administering tests for classes that had several hundred students (but all of those classes were split into several different lectures, often with separate instructors who worked together on the class.) Is the massive lectures thing predominantly a state school phenomenon? Maybe my university being real-estate bound had something to do with it. To be honest, I preferred large lectures and suspect I would prefer massive lectures for the same reason: smaller lectures are more prone to inane interruptions from students (typically students that had been skipping lectures).
- saraid216 12y ago
  It's predominantly an undergraduate freshman phenomenon. Massive lectures are a weeding-out mechanism as much as anything else.
  - Balgair 12y ago
    This exactly. There are millions of kids that want to be engineers or in STEM fields. It may seem rough, but if they can't do calculus, it's better for everyone that they find this out sooner than later and can then adjust their plans. The big lectures are intentionally designed to cut people that can't make it.
    - anuleczka 12y ago
      That's sad, though, don't you think? What if they could do calculus if they only got to learn in a more supportive environment?
      - saraid216 12y ago
        Of course. But education systems are a product of political and, consequently, economic belief. We believe in a nominally equal distribution of power, but we also believe that most people are destined to be industrial cogs, with disproportionate power going to an elect few. That's what our school systems reflect: niceties declaring equality while applying a rigorous filter in order to determine the worthy.
dllthomas 12y ago
I did most of my lower division at the local community college. At the time it was $11/unit for residents, and when I transferred to a 4 year school they told me I was probably better prepared (having had teachers that were there to teach that material).
- saraid216 12y ago
  There is a part of me that would honestly prefer that everyone went through community college rather than bothering with freshman/sophomore "finding yourself" shenanigans. But I'm biased, since that's what I did... and I'm also biased a second time, because I never had the "must pick a major" uncertainty. But I think we'd lose a lot of the benefit of doing so if it became a standard.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    "But I think we'd lose a lot of the benefit of doing so if it became a standard." Quite possibly, yeah. Learning environments are quickly destroyed if they have to accommodate people who don't want to be there.
    - saraid216 12y ago
      It's a bit more complicated than that. In addition to teachers focused on teaching, community colleges also have a significant share of adult education... and it's not quarantined away as it is in universities, because the percentage is in the double digits, rather than measured in decimal points. There are other things, but I'm having trouble capturing them.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        Oh, for sure. There was a guy in my Recent American History class who'd been a member of SNCC. Wonderful experience. Still, I think "everyone is there to learn" makes the biggest difference.
      - chris_mahan 12y ago

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

This is true only of lower division classes at UW. Once you get to mid or upper-level classes, your class sizes are much smaller, the professors are more accessible. Even the entry level classes have pretty good TA support, and the TAs often know more than the professors. That being said, I found it useful not to go to the huge lectures (even the one taught by the nobel prize winning physicist, who wasn't that great of a lecturer), spend my time in the study center, and rely a lot on the TAs (who were mostly awesome).

sharkweek 12y ago
Yeah, my senior year during a research project on public policy (polsci major) it was a class of 20 students and a professor who normally taught classes of 200-300. It was really actually quite cool getting so much of his headspace for my project. My TAs were probably 60% great, 20% alright, 20% pretty bad during my time there.