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Comment by poulsbohemian | Hacker News Reader

>Anecdotally, you get better class material and TA staff in larger lectures.

Where is this anecdote coming from? A billion years ago when I studied at a small liberal arts college with small class sizes, professors were keen to share with us exactly why they were teaching from particular texts or why they had selected certain materials to make it clear that while the class wasn't being taught by that famous guy from MIT, it was still his book and materials we were using. I knew all my professors by first name, knew where many of them lived, had access to them anytime it was needed, and that's directly counter to my partner's experience at a large university.

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Exactly this.

I went to a liberal arts college and had small class sizes (most around 9-15 in size, with the largest being 30) - I could see my professors 1:1 pretty much anytime I wanted, but there was also a preceptor (TA) for each class who didn't teach, but was available to answer questions related to assignments, projects etc. I went to the house of many of my professors for food or drinks too. Generally also was on a first name basis with professors.

The downside is that liberal arts colleges aren't research institutions and they are generally undergraduate only. This means you don't have as many choices for advanced courses. However, the professors at liberal arts colleges really tend to be there for the teaching and tend to enjoy that. One of my math professors was the head of the mathematical association of America and also authored the books on Analysis (the mathematical subject - not a data science thing) we were using.

>The downside is that liberal arts colleges aren't research institutions and they are generally undergraduate only.

What's ironic about this though is how many universities won't accept their own undergrads into their grad programs... IE: they know that their undergrad programs are sub-standard but they don't seem to take action to improve them because the money and the focus is on the grad programs.

It has nothing to do with the quality of the undergrad degrees. Even most top tier programs suggest going somewhere else for grad school because each department has its own research culture and it is good to pick up on more than one

When I applied for grad school (long ago) they just said it was better to experience another department. The undergrad classes we similar enough to the grad classes that it was good to see a different approach. So if you had a family reason (spouse's job etc) that meant you needed to stay in the area, then they'd let you apply. Otherwise, they wouldn't write recommendation letters to our department.

Many professors at small liberal arts colleges still conduct research. And because of small class sizes, there is a good chance for a motivated student to get to know their professor and participate in that research.

There are also research consortiums of small colleges. I did original geological research 2 out of my 3 summers in a small college via the Keck Consortium:

https://keckgeology.org/

I did research for a professor as an undergraduate at a big university. Once you are out of lower division courses and into your upper division major classes, your classes are much smaller and the professors start to know you as you see them around a lot.

My undergrad was at Umass Amherst, and I currently attend GA Tech's OMSCS program. Professors love sharing info on why they chose to talk about one topic vs. another, and by and large were happy to connect with any student motivated enough to attend an office hours or talk to them after class. I knew same personal information about the professors I worked with in the lab, but I don't generally see how that would improve my learning outcomes.

Class size naturally dropped as you got into niche subjects, of which there were many!

What I've heard anecdotal bears out what you are saying, IE: once you get through various mega weed-out classes, in many universities you still get the luxury of smaller class sizes and more direct access to professors as you reach those upper level classes.

Where I was asking for clarification was on the idea that somehow people were getting better materials and a better overall experience in thee 500+ people lecture hall type experiences, rather than those 20-person intimate learning style classes.

One factor I don't see anyone mentioning here is the student. Some people can do great in a large lecture and that's great. But I teach in a SLAC and often students tell me they don't think they could do well without the smaller courses.

My point was that a large 500 person lecture on "Intro to ElectroMagnetism" will be about the same as a small 20 person lecture in terms of material. The variability will come from

- Honors sessions - Extra seminars - Quality of Material - Quality of student support groups

All of these things get better as the class size grows. In my last class at Georgia Tech, there were 900 students studying a niche topic from a particular professor. Due to class size, there were ~12 TAs and an extremely active slack discussion group where people could get support.

A smaller class just means the professor has limited resources to assist students.

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